On Sept. 29, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finalized its revisions to the Employer Information Report or EEO-1 report, which will impact private employers, including federal contractors and subcontractors, with 100 or more employees.  Beginning in March 2018, such employers will be required to report pay data and hours worked on the new EEO-1 form. The 2017 EEO-1 report will be due on March 31, 2018.  ABC members can read an analysis prepared by ABC’s General Counsel, Littler Mendelson P.C.

The revised EEO-1 report has two new elements:

• Summary pay data: Employers report the total number of full and part-time employees they had during that year in each of 12 pay bands listed for each EEO-1 job category; employers do not report individual pay or salaries.
• Aggregate hours worked data: Employers tally and report the number of hours worked that year by all the employees accounted for in each pay band. 

The revision does not change the requirements for federal contractors and subcontractors with 50-99 employees who will continue to report employees by job category, sex, ethnicity and race. Federal contractors and subcontractors with 49 or fewer employees and employers (without federal contracts) with 99 or fewer employees are still not required to complete the EEO-1 report.

ABC submitted comments on April 1 and Aug. 12 expressing serious concerns about the EEOC proposal.  In its comments, ABC explained that it is committed to compliance with laws prohibiting discrimination with respect to compensation. However, ABC urged the EEOC to withdraw the proposal because it imposes an unjustified burden on employers, fails to generate useful and reliable information to combat pay discrimination, and fails to protect the confidentiality of the information.

Resources on the revised EEO-1 report include:

• EEOC press release  
• New EEO-1 Form 
• Fact Sheet 
• Questions and Answers  
• EEOC will offer free webinars on Oct. 20 and Oct. 26, 2016.

EEOC Small Business Resource Center Now Available
The EEOC recently introduced the online Small Business Resource Center to help small employers better understand their responsibilities under federal employment discrimination laws.  The center provides several resources, including fact sheets, instructional videos and step-by-step guidelines, to assist small employers in developing compliant workplace policies and programs with respect to pay, accommodations, retaliation, recordkeeping and other EEOC requirements.