In a notice released today and scheduled to be published in the Federal Register next week, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has announced that it will not “request, accept, or use” any of the EEO-1 “Component 2” wage and hours-worked data submitted by federal contractors to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to OFCCP, it has evaluated the Component 2 tool and has determined that the data derived from it simply is “too broad to provide much utility” to OFCCP in its efforts to identify and correct unlawful pay discrimination.
Thus, to the extent that interested parties seek to bypass the EEOC – which has already indicated it considers Component 2 pay data to be confidential – and obtain such information from OFCCP via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, OFCCP is in essence saying that it won’t have any information to provide in response to such a request.
Of particular note, OFCCP's announcement states – as CWC has maintained since the data collection tool was first proposed by the EEOC – that because Component 2 data is collected in a highly aggregated format, it does not provide the type of detail that would enable OFCCP to compare the pay of employees who are actually (not just theoretically) similarly situated as called for by Title VII principles the agency applies in enforcing Executive Order 11246. OFCCP notes that because the “up-to-date” employee-level compensation data it receives from contractors during compliance evaluations allows it to make such comparisons in identifying potential indicators of pay discrimination, it simply “does not need EEO-1 Component 2 pay data for that purpose.”
CWC will be publishing a Memorandum further analyzing the compliance implications of OFCCP’s announcement next week and will continue to update CWC members on important developments regarding the Component 2 data collection. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our contract compliance policy experts at (202) 629-5650 or info@cwc.org.
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