OFCCP Week In Review: June 24, 2019

The DE OFCCP Week in Review (WIR) is a simple, fast and direct summary of relevant happenings in the OFCCP regulatory environment, authored by experts John C. Fox, Candee Chambers and Jennifer Polcer. In today’s edition, they discuss:

• FLSA Turns 18
• House Approved Funding Increase for DOL
• Ongoing: EEO-1 Component 2 Tracker
• Reminder: Comment Period for Joint-Employer

Tuesday, June 18, 2019: FLSA Turns 18

In honor of the 18^th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Wage and Hour Division released a new age digital interactive reference guide. This clever tool packages links to videos, fact sheets, and other resources to help employers navigate the Act. The FLSA established the federal minimum wage, overtime, and child labor standards.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019: House Approved Funding Increase for DOL

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a package of four bills. The $982.8 billion package, H.R. 2740, includes the FY 2020 Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Defense, State-Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development spending bills. The proposed budget for OFCCP ($120 million) remained untouched from the House Appropriations Committee’s recommendation.

OFCCP Funding Proposal Tracker:

• June 2019: House approves the $120 million recommendation.
• April 2019: House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, Education and Related Agencies recommends $120 million for OFCCP.
• March 2019: OFCCP requested ~$103 million
• February 2019: White House recommends $91.1 million for OFCCP

Note: OFCCP received $103.5 million for FY 2019 (Oct 1, 2018 – Sept 30, 2019). This amount was $12.5 million more than the administration had initially requested.

Note: The U.S. Senate has recently been setting OFCCP’s budget and moderating previous non-starter Trump White House proposals (now realigned to be reasonable proposals for the last year and this year) and unreasonable House of Representative proposals during Republican control of the House. It now remains to be seen whether the Republican Senate will also now tame the unreasonable Democrat House of Representatives budget proposal. In any event, OFCCP’s budget continues to be a “political football.” Fasten your seatbelts!

Ongoing: EEO-1 Component 2 Tracker

Nothing new to report this week. While the EEOC (i.e., NORC) Helpdesk is open as advertised on a limited basis, DE Members are reporting that the EEOC Helpdesk is thus far punting most substantive questions and is promising complete information responses effective July 15. See previous tracker updates: June 14, 2019:

• EEOC court-ordered status update
• Timeline of Communication to Employers
• Helpdesk is staffed and open

June 10, 2019:

• Catalog of all EEOC events about the EEO-1 Survey

Reminder: Comment Period for Joint-Employer

Submit your comments on the Proposed Rule surrounding revisions and clarification regarding the “joint-employer” arrangement. The deadline to submit comments is by 11:59 pm EST on Wednesday, June 25, 2019.

See our full story for additional details.

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.