
Employers
with annual EEO-1 reporting requirements can soon expect to have new pay data
reporting requirements for 2018. The reporting deadline could be as early as
May 31, 2019, but the deadline is more likely to be set for later this year.
Background
The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requires employers with at least 100 employees and
federal contractors with 50 or more employees and contracts of $50,000 or more to
file annual EEO-1 reports. The EEO-1 report collects, through its Component 1
requirements, the demographic makeup of the employer’s workforce by race,
gender, ethnicity, and job category. In February 2016, the EEOC published a federal
notice announcing its intention to revise the EEO-1 form to collect pay demographics
through a Component 2 requirement. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
approved the pay data collection in September 2016, with data collection to
begin in 2017 and be reported to the EEOC in March 2018.
After
President Trump was elected, the OMB shifted course. In August 2017, the OMB stayed
the EEO-1 pay data requirements due to the burdens on employers and privacy implications.
In November of 2017, pay equity advocates filed suit against the OMB, asking
that the EEO-1 pay data collection process move forward. In this lawsuit, the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the requested relief
in early March 2019, vacating the OMB’s stay and reinstating the EEO-1 pay data
collection requirements.
On March 18,
2019, the EEOC released its general EEO-1 form and announced that, in light of
the partial government shutdown earlier this year, completed forms were not due
until May 31, 2019. With respect to pay data, the EEOC announced that it was
working diligently on next steps in the wake of the D.C. court order and would provide
further information.
Since
issuing its March 2019, order, the D.C. court has accepted submissions from the
parties and friends of the court on a proposed EEO-1 pay data collection
deadline. The EEOC has told the court that the earliest it will be in a
logistical position to collect pay data is September 30, 2019. The EEOC
explained that it is not currently capable of collecting employers’ 2018 pay
data and, therefore, must retain a data and analytics contractor at a
substantial cost to set up a data collection mechanism. The plaintiff asked the
court to set a May 31, 2019 collection date, while a number of business
associations filed a friend of court brief that argued that employers need 18
months to prepare to comply with the new EEO-1 requirements. The judge has
ordered a hearing on the deadline issue for April 16, 2019.
Implications
for Employers
Covered
employers should keep in mind that they still must submit the 2018 Component 1
data of the EEO-1 report (e.g., employee data by job category, race, sex, and
ethnicity) by May 31, 2019. The Component 2 pay data, which will include data
on hours worked and pay information from employees' W-2 forms by race, ethnicity,
and sex, will need to be submitted by the deadline that is yet to be set by the
D.C. court. While we wait for the court’s deadline ruling, employers should take
steps to ensure that they have collected and can produce the 2018 pay data when
eventually required to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment