EEO-1 Report Pay/Hours Worked Changes on Hold
On August 29, 2017 the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) halted the EEOC’s proposed EEO-1 Report changes after a review of the data collection requirements pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act. OMB issued an immediate stay of the EEOC’s collection of pay and hours worked data from covered businesses, which are estimated to be 60,000 employers employing 63 million workers.
According to OMB’s memorandum, the EEOC’s 2016 EEO-1 data collection program:
- lacks practical utility,
- is unnecessarily burdensome, and
- fails to address employer concerns about data confidentiality and privacy issues.
The additional pay and hours worked data was intended to uncover evidence of pay disparity, but is not at the level of detail necessary to actually show wage discrimination. Thus, the administrative burden on employers outweighs any claimed enhancement to discrimination enforcement.
Where does this leave employers? The EEOC clarified what’s next in its own August 29 press release. Employers should plan to continue preparing the current and long-used EEO-1 Report form. However, for 2017 this will be submitted to the government no later than the March 31, 2018 deadline originally proposed for the revised program.
In its press release, EEOC’s Acting Chair, Victoria Lipnic, stated that EEOC is still highly committed to combating workplace pay disparity. However, it remains to be seen whether President Trump’s EEOC will completely rescind, or revise and replace the Obama-era pay data collection program with something else.
Miller Johnson’s Affirmative Action & Government Contractor Practice Group will keep you updated on further developments.
Article provided by Miller Johnson.
