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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-7316
Three Labor Department adjudicatory agencies have been
consolidated into one, dramatically cutting case response time from years to
months and saving both staffing and operation costs.
"Since December 1994 our case backlogs have been
eliminated and the average case processing time has been reduced by more than
500 percent," said David O'Brien, now chair of the new Administrative Review
Board. "The case backlog has been reduced to just over 60 cases even with a 50
percent increase in caseload, and the average decision time has decreased from
30 months to six months."
The Wage Appeals Board, the Board of Service Contract
Appeals and the Office of Administrative Appeals have been combined as the
Administrative Review Board. The new board will issue final decisions on Davis
Bacon prevailing wage cases former handled by the Wage Appeals Board; on
Service Contract Act prevailing wage cases formerly handled by the Board of
Service Contract Appeals; and on environmental and trucking whistleblower
cases, child labor and Job Training Partnership Act cases, litigation involving
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program requirements and 23 other laws
previously decided by the Secretary of Labor with assistance from the Office of
Administrative Appeals.
As recently as 1993, the department's inspector general
(IG) reported that some of the Office of Administrative Appeals' oldest cases
had been pending for an average of 7.5 years and that its backlog of 178 cases
had been pending an average of 2.5 years. The IG report stated there were
"major deficiencies" in workload management within the Office of Administrative
Appeals and that it had "served as a burial ground for cases."
Following the IG report and recommendations from the
National Performance Review to streamline the department's adjudicatory boards,
the department asked David O'Brien, the chair of the Wage Appeals Board/ Board
of Service Contract Appeals, to serve as acting director of the Office of
Administrative Appeals on a pilot basis. The realignment increased efficiency
and resulted in the permanent consolidation of the three agencies.
O'Brien, named chair of the Wage Appeals Board and Board
of Service Contract Appeals in April 1994, was formerly managing partner of the
Sioux City law firm of O'Brien, Galvin, Moeller & Neary and served on the
Board of Governors of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association. Prior to that he
served in Washington, D.C., as a legislative assistant with the National
Transportation Safety Board.
The other two board members are Karl J. Sandstrom and
Joyce D. Miller. Sandstrom, appointed to the Wage Appeals Board in August 1994,
earned his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in
1976. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in 1972
and a master's degree in the law of taxation from Georgetown University in
1983. Before he came to the Labor Department, Sandstrom had a private law
practice in Washington, D.C. and taught public policy at American University.
Before that he worked for 13 years at the House of Representatives as deputy
chief counsel for the Administration Committee and as staff director of the
Subcommittee on Elections.
Joyce Miller, who served as executive director of the
Glass Ceiling Commission from May 1993 through June 1994, was a vice president
of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union from 1976-1993 and of the
AFL-CIO Executive Council from 1980-93. She was national president of the
Coalition of Labor Union Women from 1977-93, director of the Amalgamated Bank
of New York from 1980-93 and was a trustee of the George Meany Center for Labor
Studies and the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. In 1979 she received the
President Jimmy Carter Commendation for Service to Others and was appointed by
President Carter to the U.S. Metric Board and the Social Security Commission.
In 1984 she received the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Award from the National
Organization of Women. Miller earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees
from the University of Chicago.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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