by David Cohen, President, DCI Consulting
The OFCCP is requesting OMB approval to make changes to its current scheduling letter and itemized listing. As most of you are aware, the scheduling letter lists the 11 items needed to submit to OFCCP within 30 days. The current scheduling letter is set to expire on September 30, 2011 and most of us were anticipating that OFCCP would attempt to make some changes. The public can get a copy from the Federal Register on May 13th.
Links to the new documents as posted on Regulations.gov:
OFCCP Supporting Document
New Compliance Check Letter
New Scheduling Letter
New Itemized Listing
OFCCP is proposing to add two new items to the scheduling letter. This includes the submittal of the last three years VETS-100 and/or VETS-100A report as well as the contractors' leave policy.
OFCCP states the following:
Submission of employment policies covering the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), pregnancy leave, and accommodations for religious observances and practices. Receipt of these policies would assist OFCCP in better determining the existence of sex or religious discrimination indicators within contractor organizations. Additionally, the policy requirements would enhance OFCCP's broad authority under Executive Order 11246 to prohibit sex and religious discrimination in employment and its share enforcement responsibilities with the EEOC under Title VII.
In addition to the two new requests, OFCCP is proposing to make substantive changes to four other request items in the scheduling letter.
- Changes to current Item 8 which requests a copy of the collective bargaining agreement (if applicable)
Changes to new item 9 (current item 8) -- OFCCP further defined "other information" in contractor collective bargaining agreements to clarify for contractors the specific information requested during compliance evaluations
- Changes the current language pertaining to the goal attainment report
Changes to new item 10 (current item 9) -- AAP reporting requirements changed from preceding year to immediate preceding year to clarify specific AAP reporting timelines for contractors. No change in burden hours for this item.
- Changes the language to the current Item 10 requesting personnel activity data. The new request would REQUIRE contractors submit by Job Group AND Job Title.
Changes to new item 11 (current item 10) -- OFCCP included more specific demographic information related to Applicants, Hires, Promotions, and Terminations to eliminate ambiguous minority and non-minority terminology. In addition, contractors would now be required to submit data by job group and job title, instead of job group or job title in the current Scheduling Letter. This revised submission would result in OFCCP obtaining more accurate reporting data for its analyses related to identifying sex and race discrimination indicators. Given the widespread use of computer technology for Human Resources data entry and management, we estimate 1 hour increased burden per contractor.
Furthermore under the promotions and terminations data request contractors must develop constructed pools of who was actually considered for promotion or termination.
- The final, and in my opinion, the most significant, is a major change to the current Item 11 request for compensation. The new request asks for information to be submitted in the "disaggregate" . I take this to mean that the current 12 Factor (or 15, 18) would replace Item 11 as the new scheduling letter language. (Note that I think the OFCCP accidentally put the word "aggregate" when they meant to say "disaggregate" and vice-versa). Additionally, data is to be submitted as of February 1 (i.e., the data as it existed on the most recent February 1st date)
Changes to new item 12 (current item 11) -- The changes would require a contractor to submit more precise data for OFCCP's compensation analysis. The more precise data is aggregate data rather than the disaggregate data requested in the current Scheduling Letter. A submission of aggregated data would allow OFCCP to perform more specific analyses, and pinpoint possible discrimination based on race or sex. We will no longer ask for disaggregate compensation data, which required contractors to aggregate the data themselves, thereby increasing their burden. In addition, the disaggregate data was less effective in allowing OFCCP to analyze compensation.
