The White House, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), and Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced Friday, January 29, a new plan to address payment discrimination against women and minorities. Under the proposed plan, the federal government intends to collect pay data from employers with over one hundred employees.
The EEOC will collect the data by revising the Employer Information Report, EEO-1 form, a document filed by large companies (100 or more employees) that provides the federal government with workforce statistics broken down into categories of race, ethnicity, etc. The revised form will require companies to disclose pay ranges and hours worked.
According to the EEOC Press Release, “[t]he agencies would use this pay data to assess complaints of discrimination, focus agency investigations, and identify existing pay disparities that may warrant further examination.”[1]
The proposed rule will not go into effect until 2017, but South Carolina businesses and citizens have until April 1, 2016 to voice their comments. The full press release from the EEOC can be found here: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-29-16.cfm.