EEOC Archives - Page 5 of 9

Question & Answer Employer Guide: Return to Work in the Time of COVID-19

As government authorities look to implement business reopening measures, employers are now planning to move employees back into the workplace as state and local stay-at-home orders expire and other COVID-19 business restrictions expire or are modified. What are the various considerations employers must keep in mind when reopening their physical work locations?

This Question and Answer Guide describes a number of COVID-19 employment and return-to-work considerations. Because the COVID-19 pandemic is a fluid situation and highly dependent on jurisdiction- and sector-specific considerations, we anticipate that additional guidance will be coming from the federal, state and local governments as plans to allow businesses to open are developed in the coming days and weeks.

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EEO-1 Update: Pay Data Now Due September 30, 2019

As we previously reported, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) now requires employers to disclose equal pay data on its Employer Information Report (EEO-1). The equal pay data, otherwise known as “Component 2” of the EEO-1, has been the subject of ongoing litigation. Most recently, the EEOC requested court approval to extend the deadline for employers to report Component 2 data until September 30, 2019—later than the deadline for other EEO-1 data, which is due May 31, 2019. Several organizations supporting equal pay initiatives had argued that the agency should collect the data by May 31, but the agency told the court that the May 31 deadline was not feasible.

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EEO-1 Update: EEOC Requests Pay Data Extension

Background
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) revised Employer Information Report (EEO-1) is now open via the EEOC’s online portal. As we previously reported, the revised EEO-1 now requires employers to aggregate W-2 wages and hours worked by job category, race, sex, and ethnicity. The new requirements were stayed in 2017, but a federal judge lifted that stay on March 4, 2019.

Update
In a new filing on April 3, 2019, the EEOC requested court approval to extend the deadline for reporting pay data until September 30, 2019—later than the current EEO-1 deadline of May 31, 2019. In making its request, the EEOC noted that it needs additional time “in order to accommodate the significant practical challenges” related to collecting the pay information. The agency support the request with an affidavit from its recently appointed Chief Data Officer, Samuel Christopher Haffer.

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan is expected to rule on the agency’s request in the coming weeks. Subscribe to LaborSphere for updates.

2016 Presidential Election Aftermath: What Can be Expected in the Labor & Employment Law Space

We continue to analyze and assess what the 2016 election results mean in the Labor & Employment Law space, and what we can expect from a GOP White House, House and Senate. The last two times that this GOP alignment was present were 1929 and 2007 (let’s hope that the financial events that followed those two occasions – the Great Depression and the Great Recession – do not repeat themselves this time around).

It is difficult to predict what President Donald J. Trump’s actual agenda will be, because his campaign was long on broad concepts and very short on serious, detailed policy presentation. While Candidate Trump said many things, including contradictory things, about many topics, some themes can be discerned from pre-election and post-election comments. Also, some issues have been on the GOP wish list for some time, but until they could have the alignment of White House and Congress that will be in place in January, those wish list items, as a practical matter, were just wishes. Here are our impressions about what changes will occur.

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The EEOC’s 2017-2021 Strategic Enforcement Plan – Targeting the “Gig Economy” and Independent Contractor Misclassification

The EEOC has issued its new Strategic Enforcement Plan for the fiscal years 2017 to 2021, which outlines the areas in which the EEOC will focus its litigation and investigation resources in the next four years. The Plan is notable for its emphasis on the “gig” workforce – that is, the short-term, temporary, or freelance workers (often working for companies like Uber, Lyft, AirBnb, or Taskrabbit) who are typically classified as independent contractors rather than employees.

In the Plan, the EEOC identified the rise of the “gig” economy as an “emerging and developing issue” warranting increased focus, particularly with regard to “clarifying the employment relationship and the application of workplace civil rights protections in light of the increasing complexity of employment relationships and structures, including temporary workers, staffing agencies, independent contractor relationships, and the on-demand economy . . .”

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Spotlight on Fair Pay for Female Law Firm Partners: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Sedgwick

Traci Ribeiro’s class action lawsuit against her employer Sedgwick LLP is the latest in a string of lawsuits in the pay equity battle, which has been highlighted in this year’s Presidential election and through the recent EEOC claim filed by the U.S. womens’ soccer team. Ribeiro is a non equity partner who claims that, as one of the firm’s three highest revenue generating partners, she has been denied equity partnership and was subjected to retaliation for filing an EEOC complaint claiming gender discrimination. She seeks to represent a class of past and present female attorneys in partnership track positions at the firm; her complaint alleges violations of the California Fair Pay Act, Illinois Fair Pay Act, and Federal Equal Pay, as well as gender discrimination and retaliation under the California FEHA, Illinois Human Rights Act, and Title VII. Ribeiro claims, in addition to routinely paying women lawyers less than their male counterparts, Sedgwick has denied women equity partnership and membership on its Executive Committee (until 2016, when Ribeiro made a formal complaint about gender discrimination). She asserts discrimination under both a disparate treatment and disparate impact theory.

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