(a)(1) Monetary wages specified under the Act shall be paid to the
employees to whom they are due promptly and in no event later than one
pay period following the end of the pay period in which they are earned.
No deduction, rebate, or refund is permitted, except as hereinafter
stated. The same rules apply to cash payments authorized to be paid with
the statutory monetary wages as equivalents of determined fringe
benefits (see Sec. 4.177).
(2) The Act makes no distinction, with respect to its compensation
provisions, between temporary, part-time, and full-time employees, and
the wage and fringe benefit determinations apply, in the absence of an
express limitation, equally to all such service employees engaged in
work subject to the Act's provisions. (See Sec. 4.176 regarding fringe
benefit payments to temporary and part-time employees.)
(b) The Act does not prescribe the length of the pay period.
However, for purposes of administration of the Act, and to conform with
practices required under other statutes that may be applicable to the
employment, wages and hours worked must be calculated on the basis of a
fixed and regularly recurring workweek of seven consecutive 24-hour
workday periods, and the records must be kept on this basis. It is
appropriate to use this workweek for the pay period. A bi-weekly or
semimonthly, pay period may, however, be used if advance notification is
given to the affected employees. A pay period longer than semimonthly is
not recognized as appropriate for service employees and wage payments at
greater intervals will not be considered as constituting proper payments
in compliance with the Act.
(c) The prevailing rate established by a wage determination under
the Act is a minimum rate. A contractor is not precluded from paying
wage rates in
excess of those determined to be prevailing in the particular locality.
Nor does the Act affect or require the changing of any provisions of
union contracts specifying higher monetary wages or fringe benefits than
those contained in an applicable determination. However, if an
applicable wage determination contains a wage or fringe benefit
provision for a class of service employees which is higher than that
specified in an existing union agreement, the determination's provision
must be observed for any work performed on a contract subject to that
determination.
