As employers eagerly await the fate of the EEOC’s pay disclosure rule, a group of senators asked the Trump administration to unwind the rule.
In September 2016, the EEOC issued a final rule amending the EEO-1 report to require employers with at least 100 employees include in the EEO-1 reports W-2 pay and hours worked data by gender and race and EEO-1 job category for their workforces. This rule was hotly contested by employers and resulted in hundreds of comments and a congressional hearing. The first pay disclosure under the new reporting requirement is currently due on March 31, 2018.
Since President Trump took office, many have speculated that the rule would be rescinded. On April 12th, a group of senators wrote a letter to the White House requesting just that. In their letter, the senators called the revisions to the EEO-1 report “misguided” and said that the “revision will place significant paperwork, reporting burden and new costs on American businesses, and will result in fewer jobs and higher process for American consumers.”
The letter also reiterated concerns that many employers had when the rule was proposed regarding the costs associated with complying with the new reporting requirements. The EEOC projected compliance costs to be approximately $54 million and estimated it would take employers approximately 1.9 million hours to complete the report. Citing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s estimates, the senators projected costs to be far higher – $400 million – and estimated it would take employers 8 million hours to complete the report. As we reported previously, the current EEOC Acting Chair Victoria Lipnic has recently discussed the revised report and noted that it would “fall squarely under” President Trump’s executive orders requiring agencies to reconsider its pending and existing regulations.
We will continue to monitor this developing story and keep you apprised of any updates. Meanwhile, please contact a member of Jackson Lewis’s Pay Equity Resource Group for advice regarding compliance with the EEO-1 pay reporting requirements and other fair pay laws.