The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs was established fifty years ago on September 24th, during a critical period that challenged our country to ensure that the promise of justice and freedom extended to all Americans − regardless of their race, color, creed, or national origin.
OFCCP enforces, for the benefit of job seekers and workers, the contractual promise of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity required of those who do business with the federal government. Our jurisdiction has expanded over the past 50 years, first in 1967 with the addition of sex as a protected class under Executive Order 11246. In 1973, OFCCP began enforcing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. One year later it assumed authority for enforcing the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. The president recently amended Executive Order 11246 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as discrimination based on inquiring about, discussing or disclosing employee compensation.
We protect the civil rights of the nearly one quarter of American workers who are employed by – or seek jobs with – companies that do business with the federal government. That’s about 200,000 business establishments that receive nearly $500 billion in government contracts every year to provide a broad array of services and products.
Since President Obama took office, our senior leadership team, front-line managers, compliance officers and support staff have worked hard to improve OFCCP. I am proud to report some highlights:
- Since 2009, OFCCP has resolved over 500 cases remedying discrimination and obtained over $65 million in back pay and more than 11,000 job offers on behalf of nearly 116,000 workers.
- We undertook an ambitious regulatory agenda at the Department of Labor. Our updated regulations for Section 503 and VEVRAA require specific, aspirational metrics for the employment of qualified individuals with disabilities and protected groups of veterans. Also, we amended our regulations under Executive Order 11246 to implement new protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. And under the president’s leadership, we have placed a priority on helping close the gender pay gap by, for example, adopting a final rule implementing the new pay transparency requirements of the amended executive order, and issuing new investigative guidance to address systemic pay discrimination.
- In 2011, we launched a new program to prioritize worker education and community outreach. Since then, we have hosted more than 3,000 events that were attended by more than 229,000 individuals.
- We established the Indian and Native American Employment Rights Program to strengthen workplace protections and expand employment opportunities for qualified Native American workers.
- We made nearly all of our online materials section 508 compliant and therefore accessible to individuals with disabilities.
- We strengthened collaborative and productive working relationships with our sister agencies at the Labor Department and across the federal government to promote our collective efforts.
- We worked closely with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice to develop a unified civil rights agenda that enhances worker protection and ensures compliance with the law by employers.
- We modeled success for the federal contractor community by investing in our infrastructure, training our staff, developing strong managers, building capacity, reinvigorating OFCCP’s quality assurance program, improving operations and ensuring diversity in our own workforce.
Although we have made great advancements, we recognize that there is much more work that remains to be done. I hold my staff and myself to the standard of excellence in everything we do. And with this ethic, we will continue to enforce the legally mandated promise of federal contractors that all workers will get a fair shot and a fair shake.
Patricia A. Shiu is the director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.
Source: OFCCP Blog
