Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF MARCH 16, 2013 FBO #4130
SPECIAL NOTICE

R -- The National Agricultural Workers Survey

Notice Date

3/14/2013
 

Notice Type

Special Notice
 

NAICS

541611 — Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
 

Contracting Office

Department of Labor, Employment Training Administration, Division of Contract Services, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room N-4655, Washington, District of Columbia, 20210
 

ZIP Code

20210
 

Solicitation Number

DOL131RP20609
 

Archive Date

4/12/2013
 

Point of Contact

Jeff Brown, Phone: 2026933159
 

E-Mail Address

brown.jeffrey@dol.gov
(brown.jeffrey@dol.gov)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Description

The Division of Contract Services (DCS), on behalf of the Department of Labor / Employment and Training Administration (ETA), intends to award a Sole Source contract under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 - Only One Responsible Source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, to Aguirre Division of JBS International, Inc., 555 Airport Boulevard, Suite 400, Burlingame, CA 94010-2036 to administer ETA's National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), a national random survey of the employment, demographic, and health characteristics of hired crop farm workers. The Federal Government has collected information on the demographic and employment characteristics of hired farm workers since the 1940s. Until 1987, the Hired Farm Workforce Survey, a December supplement to the Current Population Survey, was used to collect the information from agricultural employers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture summarized the information in hired farm worker profile reports. In 1988, and as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), the DOL assumed responsibility for collecting this information. To comply with the IRCA mandate, which required annual estimates of the rate at which seasonal agricultural service workers exited the farm labor market, the DOL launched the NAWS, an establishment-based survey of hired crop farm workers. The NAWS questionnaire will be used to collect farm worker demographic, employment, and health information through in-person interviews with farm workers, over the contract period. The primary purpose of the NAWS has changed since the IRCA mandate and annual estimates of the rate at which farm workers leave agriculture are currently not required. As such, farm workers are interviewed only once per year and no attempts are made to locate the same respondent in ensuing interview periods. There are three data collection cycles each year. The start date for the fall, winter-spring, and summer cycle typically occurs between the first and fifteenth of October, February, and June, respectively. Each cycle lasts approximately three months. As such, interviews are conducted on a nearly year-round basis. Federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as private organizations utilize NAWS findings for a multitude of purposes, such as quantifying and assessing the human resources that are available to agriculture. The findings are also utilized in programs that aim to improve the well being of farm workers and their dependents. At the Federal level, these programs have included the National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP), Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, Migrant Education, and Migrant Health. Since 1988, the DOL has collaborated with several Federal agencies to increase the utility of the NAWS, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Administration for Children and Families, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Collaboration with Federal agencies will continue over the contract period. The contractor will be responsible for carrying out the NAWS and delivering a variety of NAWS-based research products on topics relevant to the ETA and other Federal agencies that administer migrant and seasonal farm worker and related programs. Activities undertaken in this project include, but are not limited to: • using Unemployment Insurance data and other information sources to develop a sampling frame of agricultural employers • using farm labor and agricultural production data from various sources to implement a multi-stratified probability-based sampling methodology, • developing and testing survey questions, • training interviewers to randomly select and interview between 1,500 and 3,000 farm workers per year, • developing and managing information for the construction of sampling and post-sampling weights, • managing, safeguarding, and analyzing data for the development and dissemination of research products, such as public-use and restricted-use datasets, reports, and on-line data tables, and • conducting appropriate statistical analysis and summarizing data in written, tabular, and graphic formats to complete deliverables The performance of the contract will involve access to confidential data, including data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These data are protected by law, including the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act. Protecting these data requires strong safeguards. In this particular situation, the ETA has decided within its discretion and in consultation with the BLS that all personnel who will handle the employer sampling frame data, which the BLS will provide directly to the Contractor, must be 1) direct-hire employees of the Contractor, and 2) agents of the BLS. As such, offerors who may be contemplating contracting portions of the work requirement that involve handling of sampling frame data, such as data collection, are hereby advised that further contracting for such purposes will not be permitted. Restricting the further contracting of tasks that involve handling the confidential data is necessary, after taking into account the safeguards needed to protect the data and the need for administrative convenience in implementing these safeguards. This action will result in a Time and Material type contract with a twelve (12) month period of performance and four (4) additional 12-month option periods. This notice of intent to award a Sole Source contract is not a request for competitive proposals. There is no solicitation document. No RFP will be available for competitive proposals. Phone calls will not be accepted. The anticipated award date is March 28, 2012.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOL/ETA/WashingtonDC/DOL131RP20609/listing.html)
 

Place of Performance

Address: U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, District of Columbia, 20210, United States

Zip Code: 20210
 

Record

SN03012157-W 20130316/130314235124-59305907a8fe8c9368a5690bbd1fb975 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

---

| FSG Index  |  This Issue's Index  |  Today's FBO Daily Index Page |