Service Contract Act fringe benefits as unvested 401(k) match

[Guest janie]

Can anyone shed light on whether it is permissible under the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act for an employer (the contractor) to discharge his fringe benefit payment obligation through making unvested matching contributions to his 401(k) plan, or whether the fact that the matching contributions are not immediately vested is something that the DOL will not approve. The 401(k) plan has 3-year cliff vesting for the match which satisfies ERISA, I'm just not sure about whether it meets SCA requirements.

The DOL WHD Field Operations Handbook dated 10/25/2010 on the WHD website appears to indicate that as long as the 401(k) plan complies with ERISA vesting requirements, contributions made to it will satisfy the SCA fringe benefit obligation, but other posts I have read here made me question whether that is accurate.