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Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP
The
Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs increased its enforcement activities during fiscal
year 1999. During the year, the OFCCP conducted 3,833 affirmative
action compliance reviews, up from 3,774 a year earlier.
In addition, the OFCCP conducted 3,833 supply and service
evaluations and 1,245 construction reviews.
The
OFCCP recovered a total of $41.6 million in financial settlements,
nearly $13 million of which was for back pay. This is the
highest amount in OFCCP history and represents an increase
of more than 17 percent over the previous year's total of
$35.5 million.
Equal Pay Initiative
According
to Bernard Anderson, assistant secretary of labor for employment
standards, the OFCCP made significant progress on its equal
pay initiative in 1999. The equal pay initiative is aimed
at narrowing and eventually eliminating the pay gap between
salaries earned by white males and those earned by minorities
and females.
Between
May and September 1999, the OFCCP collected more than $10
million in pay-related settlements. The agency also increased
the number of glass ceiling reviews by 10 percent. Those
reviews were conducted, according to the agency, "in
the midst of severe resistance to records access and increasing
litigation" by federal contractors.
Increased Enforcement on the Horizon
There
are clear signs that the OFCCP plans to increase its enforcement
efforts in fiscal year 2000. The agency's budget will increase
to $72.9 million in 2000, up nearly 12 percent from last
year. The additional funding will allow the OFCCP to increase
its staff from about 735 to 800.
One
major effort is the agency's proposal to survey the pay
practices of federal contractors. The OFCCP has proposed
to send an "equal opportunity survey" to approximately
7,000 federal contractors that it has identified as being
potentially out of compliance with the affirmative action
requirements of Executive Order 11246 and other statutes.
Later in the year the same survey would be sent to another
53,000 out of approximately 100,000 establishments subject
to the affirmative action requirements.
Business
groups have criticized the proposed survey, arguing that
it would result in statistically useless data and survey
definitions that differ from those currently used in the
Part 60 regulations governing affirmative action. The differences
in these definitions would require the parties completing
the survey to develop and implement new and distinct personnel
tracking systems that would be applicable for survey purposes
only. Thus, the survey would not only add to the paperwork
burdens associated with affirmative action plans but also
would cause the contractors to absorb great expense in completing
the surveys.
The
proposed survey was published in the Federal Register in
October for public comment and received 101 comments. According
to the OFCCP, 65 organizations and 32 individuals indicated
their support for the survey while only four employer organizations
expressed criticism. What was lacking, however, from this
Federal Register was any information regarding what the
OFCCP plans to do with the summary compensation data or
what it believes employers should do with it.
The
OFCCP is reviewing the comments received and awaiting results
from a voluntary field test that it is conducting. It then
will forward the results of this field test along with the
comments to the Office of Management and Budget for approval.
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For more information about the issues covered in this report, please contact Linda S. Husar in our Los Angeles office at 213-576-8017 or at lshusar@thelen.com or contact your Thelen attorney. For more information about Thelen's Construction and Government Contracts Department, click here.
©2000 Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP
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