The “OFCCP Week in Review” is a simple, fast and direct summary of relevant happenings in the OFCCP regulatory environment published every Monday. Here are this week’s developments:
April 8, 2015: President Obama’s Executive Order on LGBT Workplace Discrimination went into effect. It prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The OFCCP also held another webinar in their series to help educate federal contractors and subcontractors on the new regulation. This webinar was focused on how an individual can file a complaint, and while I have not included all of that information in this blog, I have included additional information for contractors to assist them in meeting their regulatory requirements. Here’s the blog for your reference: OFCCP Webinar Recap: Filing a Complaint Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
April 8, 2015: OFCCP BUDGET PROPOSAL 2016: OFCCP’s FY 2016 Budget Proposal (FY 2016 starts October 1, 2015) became publicly visible April 7. It seeks a $7.2M increase (~7%) in total funding from $106,476,000 (FY 2015) to $113,687,000 and an increase in headcount of 10 employees (from 650 nationwide to 660) and promising, for the second year in a row, to conduct 4,290 completed (not started) Compliance Evaluations, of which 3,840 would be Supply and Service Compliance Reviews and 450 would be construction Compliance Reviews. These numbers are a large step-down in audit volume from the years before FY 2014 and reflect OFCCP’s continuing audit strategy to increase the amount of time spent undertaking each audit. OFCCP identified five general priorities for FY 2016:
- Systemic pay discrimination investigations
- Construction contractor discrimination investigations
- Upgrade its case management system to create an enterprise software system of all OFCCP data allowing more focused contractor audit selections and audit processing;
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender information campaigns and Complaint investigations; and
- Enforcement of the new 503/4212 OFCCP Rules
THIS COLUMN IS MEANT TO ASSIST IN A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE CURRENT LAW AND PRACTICE RELATING TO OFCCP. IT IS NOT TO BE REGARDED AS LEGAL ADVICE. COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS WITH PARTICULAR QUESTIONS SHOULD SEEK ADVICE OF COUNSEL.
Reminder: If you have specific OFCCP compliance questions and/or concerns or wish to offer suggestions about future topics for the OFCCP Fox Report, please contact your membership representative at 866-268-6206 (for DE members), or send an email to Candee Chambers at candee@directemployers.org with your ideas.