On January 20, 2023, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) identifying 500 establishments of federal supply and service contractors and subcontractors for compliance reviews.
On January 12, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld most of a district court’s injunction blocking the federal contractor vaccine mandate in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.
On December 19, 2022, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 federal contractor vaccine mandate. The 2-1 panel decision in State of Louisiana v. Biden found that to allow the mandate would result in an “enormous,” “transformative,” and “truly unprecedented” expansion of the powers of the president without clear authorization from Congress.
We recently reported on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request covering government contractors’ 2016–2020 Type 2 EEO-1 reports announced in the Federal Register, pursuant to which contractors had until October 19, 2022, to object to the disclosure of their data. The requesting investigative reporter and nonprofit news organization subsequently sued the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under FOIA, alleging that the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) violated FOIA in response to the FOIA requests. OFCCP began contacting companies for which it claims to have no record of objections to the FOIA request, via email on November 22, 2022.
On November 10, 2022, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued proposed revisions to its Employer Information Report (EEO-1) Component 1 data collection to streamline the process for large employers with multiple establishments.
On November 15, 2022, an investigative reporter and a nonprofit news organization sued the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The investigative reporter previously submitted multiple FOIA requests for federal contractors’ and first-tier subcontractors’ Type 2 Consolidated EEO-1 Report data to the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).
The Safer Federal Workforce Task Force recently issued updated guidance on the federal contractor vaccine mandate and COVID-19 safety requirements.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has extended the deadline for federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors to submit objections to a broad Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by an investigative reporter.
On August 31, 2022, the Biden administration updated its Safer Federal Workforce Task Force guidance on the federal contractor COVID-19 vaccine mandate. According to the new guidance, “the Federal Government will take no action to implement or enforce Executive Order 14042.
On August 26, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit narrowed the scope of a nationwide injunction that had barred enforcement of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 federal contractor vaccine mandate. In December 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia had issued a nationwide injunction, finding that President Biden had likely exceeded his authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act when he issued Executive Order 14042.
On August 24, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced that it had updated its guidance for educational institutions with federal contracts and/or subcontracts.
On August 22, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced it will launch a new online platform whereby “contracting officers, contractors, and applicants seeking federal assistance for construction projects (such as a state [Department of Transportation])” can securely upload details about an awarded federal or federally-assisted construction contract or subcontract.
On August 18, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued unpublished notice of a broad Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that impacts the federal contracting community.
With the first six months of 2022 completed, this is a good time to review a busy government reporting season.
On March 31, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) released its second directive of the year, Directive 2022-02, entitled “Effective Compliance Evaluations and Enforcement.”
Though the 2021 EEO-1 landing page labels the opening and closing dates for the 2021 EEO-1 filing cycle as “tentative,” the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has notified prior filers that the 2021 filing platform will “officially open” on April 12, 2022, and close on May 17, 2022.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has released its 2022 Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) hiring benchmark. The new benchmark, effective March 31, 2022, is 5.5 percent, a decrease from the 2021 benchmark of 5.6 percent. The VEVRAA hiring benchmark was established in 2014, and this year marks its eighth reduction.
On March 21, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced that it would publish a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), entitled “Pre-enforcement Notice and Conciliation Procedures,” in the Federal Register on March 22, 2022. OFCCP’s proposal would modify a 2020 final rule that had codified various procedures to resolve potential employment discrimination.
While the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 205) is stalled in the U.S. Senate, the White House has called for action on issues relating to pay equity. On March 15, 2022, which was women’s “Equal Pay Day” for 2022 in the United States, President Biden issued an executive order “promoting pay equity and transparency” within the federal workforce and among federal contractors.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced its effort to modernize the agency’s EEO data collection by revising the procedures for professional employer organizations (PEOs), administrative services organizations (ASOs), human resource outsourcing organizations (HROs), and other similar organizations (“third-party human resource organizations”) to file EEO-1 Component 1 on behalf of a “client employer” or “client company.”
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently posted information on the EEO-1 landing page stating that the 2021 EEO-1 filing platform is tentatively scheduled to open on April 12, 2022, with the filing deadline tentatively set for May 17, 2022. This approximately four-week filing period is significantly shorter than the length of time provided for recent EEO-1 filing periods.
It is a new year and that means a fresh round of compliance reporting obligations for many companies. Here’s what lies ahead for 2022.
As we reported earlier this year, on August 31, 2021, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the new system that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) developed for federal contractors to submit affirmative action programs (AAPs). The new system is designed to provide covered federal contractors a method of entering, tracking, and submitting AAPs for review by OFCCP.
On November 5, 2021, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 9, restricting Alabama employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment. The law took effect immediately.
In order to slow the transmission rate of COVID-19 and safeguard the health of people in Puerto Rico, Governor Pedro Pierluisi recently issued a series of executive orders mandating COVID-19 vaccinations in certain instances.
On September 1, 2021, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published its Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) identifying 400 construction federal contractors and federally assisted contractors and subcontractors for fiscal year 2021 (FY 2021), which runs from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022.
At long last, on August 31, 2021, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the new system that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) developed for federal contractors to submit affirmative action programs (AAPs). The Affirmative Action Program Verification Interface (AAP-VI) is designed to provide covered federal contractors a method of entering, tracking, and submitting AAPs for review by OFCCP.
On August 18, 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that the prior August 23, 2021, EEO-1 filing deadline for the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 reports has been moved to October 25, 2021. The EEOC cited the “continuing impact of the pandemic on business operations” as the justification for this two-month extension of the earlier deadline.
On July 22, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a notice of proposed rulemaking to outline the standards and procedures that it will use to administer President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14026, which he signed on April 27, 2021. Executive Order 14026 proposed an increase to the minimum wage for workers performing work on federal contracts to $15 per hour beginning January 30, 2022. The proposed rule applies only to federal contractors. It builds upon Executive Order 13658 signed by then-president Barack Obama that established a minimum wage of $10.10 for federal contractors with annual increases for inflation. The current rate is $10.95 per hour; the minimum wage for tipped federal contract workers is $7.65 per hour. Below is a brief summary of the scope of the DOL’s proposed rule and changes, if finalized.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced that it is loosening the requirement on companies to provide notice to the federal agency of acquisitions, mergers, and spinoffs. By way of background, in addition to requiring the submission and certification of two years of EEO-1 reports, the EEOC had created a new filing platform for the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 filings, which are due by August 23, 2021. The transition to the new platform and the requirement to file two years of EEO-1 reports has resulted in a rocky EEO-1 filing cycle. As a continued sign of these difficulties, the EEOC implemented a major change to the procedure for handling mergers, acquisitions, and spinoffs for EEO-1 reporting.
