Trump Appoints Former Management Attorneys at EEOC and NLRB
On January 25, 2017, it was announced that President Trump has appointed Victoria Lipnic as Acting Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Ms. Lipnic first became a commissioner at the EEOC in March 2010, when she received a recess appointment from President Obama. In 2015, she was nominated and confirmed for a second term, which is set to expire in July 2020. Prior to joining the EEOC, Ms. Lipnic was an Assistant Secretary of Labor for the U.S. Department of Labor from 2002 until 2009, at which time she joined the labor and employment department at a large national firm that primarily represents employers.
President Trump also appointed another former management attorney, Philip A. Miscimarra, as Acting Chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Prior to becoming a NLRB Board Member in 2013, Mr. Miscimarra worked at several private firms that focus their labor and employment practices on the representation of management.
These two appointments are expected to bring more balance to the approach of their respective agencies with regard to efforts to enforce various labor and employment laws.
Read MoreAre You Prepared for the Revised EEO-1 Reporting Requirements?
Have you thought about what changes you may need to make to your payroll system and/or human resources information system (HRIS) in order to comply with the recently revised EEO-1 reporting requirements? If you have 100 or more employees (or if your company is affiliated with other entities in which there are a total of 100 or more employees), you may be subject to these new reporting obligations.
Private employers who are subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and have 100 or more employees have long been required to file annual EEO-1 Reports, reporting on the race, ethnicity and gender of the employees in their workforce, grouped together by ten (10) job categories established by the EEOC (the “EEO job categories”).
Starting with the 2017 EEO-1 Report, those employers now will need to include information regarding annual employee pay and work hours, aggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, and EEO job category. Fortunately, the filing deadline for the EEO-1 Report has been changed from September 30th of each year to March 31st of the succeeding year, so the 2017 EEO-1 Report will not be due until March 31, 2018. However, if these revised requirements apply to your company, you should start now to make sure your payroll and/or HRIS systems are set up to capture all the information that must be included in the revised EEO-1 Report.
The previous EEO-1 Report required employers to select a pay period between July 1 and September 30 of each year and report on the number of males and females of each race/ethnicity the employer had in each of the 10 EEO job categories. The new EEO-1 Report will require employers to break this information down further into twelve (12) pay bands, starting with the lowest pay band of $19,239 and under, and going to the highest band of $208,800 and over. The number of employees will be based upon a pay period between October 1 and December 31, but the salary information must include pay information for the full calendar year, using information reported in Box 1 of the employee’s W-2.
Employers also will be required to provide aggregated annual work hours for employees broken out by race, ethnicity, gender, EEO job category, and pay band, using total hours worked during the calendar year. “Hours worked” is defined consistent with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). For employees who are non-exempt under the FLSA, employers are already required to maintain records regarding each employee’s work hours under the FLSA. For exempt employees, an employer may report actual hours worked if the employer accurately maintains such information; alternatively, the employer may report a “proxy” of 40 hours per week for full-time exempt employees and 20 hours per week for part-time exempt employees multiplied by the number of weeks the individuals were employed during the year.
Read MoreNew Counsel Donna Keeton Enhances Firm’s Affirmative Action Compliance Practice and Is Licensed in California
Donna Keeton joined the Firm earlier this month as Of Counsel, bringing more than 17 years of experience in guiding and representing companies with regard to various employment-related issues, including discrimination and harassment, reasonable accommodations and leaves of absence, wage and hour issues, layoffs and terminations, and employment agreements.
Donna also brings substantial expertise and experience assisting government contractors and subcontractors in complying with their affirmative action and other obligations and defending contractors and subcontractors during compliance reviews initiated by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract and Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and similar state and local agencies.
Donna completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and obtained her J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law. She is admitted to practice in all state courts in both Georgia and California, as well as numerous federal district and appellate courts throughout the country.
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