Multiple Compliance Reviews There are some 325,000 employers covered by Executive Order 11246, requiring EEO compliance by Government contractors. Approximately 275,000 hold contracts for supplies and services, and an estimated 50,000 for building and construction work. They employ approximately 30 million persons.3 The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in the Department of Labor seeks to implement the Secretary's responsibility to administer the executive order by establishing policies, evaluating agency programs, providing program leadership and coordinating inter-agency matters. Although OFCCP is authorized to conduct direct enforcement activities with Federal contractors, OFCCP delegates its authority to 16* agencies for the administration of the contract compliance program. The compliance agencies carry out their responsibilities in accordance with general rules and regulations developed by OFCCP and issued by the Secretary of Labor, and the specific written policies, procedures, standards and other requirements are issued by the Director of OFCCP. The primary method by which the agencies implement their compliance and enforcement responsibility is the compliance review or the complaint investigation process. A compliance review consists of a detailed analysis and comprehensive evaluation of each aspect of the contractor's employment policies, systems and practices to determine adherence to the nondiscrimination and affirmative action requirements. A complaint investigation is similiar to a compliance review except that it is triggered by formal allegations of discrimination by a Federal contractor from a complaining party. The complainant's charges are investigated during the compliance review. The entire agency compliance review and enforcement effort with each Federal contractor is recorded in the Standard Compliance Review Report prescribed by OFCCP and made available to OFCCP by the responsible agency upon written request. Employers resent the burden created by multiple compliance agencies and requests for similar data in different formats. They point to the lack of coordination between agencies, which could result in a determination of 3 3 Estimates provided by OFCCP, Department of Labor, staff memo * A proposal has been made to reduce the number to 11. 37 compliance by one, and determination of non-compliance by another even when the same data are furnished. Employers with facilities in different Federal regions related the problems encountered by differing regional compliance practices. Under the present system, one company may be reviewed several times by the same agency or different agencies, while other companies are not reviewed at all. In addition to the duplicative paperwork requirements resulting from multiple reviews of the same company, we believe that this procedure weakens enforcement by cutting down on the universe of employers subject to compliance reviews. It should be made clear that some employers must report to more than one compliance agency because of the diversification of their product lines which fall under different groupings known as Standard Industrial Codes (SIC). It is on this basis that various divisions (hence facilities) of a company are assigned to compliance agencies. By regulation, each facility of a government contractor must meet the EEO compliance test. However, if one facility is out of compliance on the basis of findings by a compliance agency and concurrence by OFCCP, then the entire company is considered to be out of compliance and subject to the various sanctions which may be imposed by the Department of Labor. Obviously then, compliance with EEO regulations is a matter which demands the involvement of the company's top management because of company-wide liability through the failure of any single facility to meet Government EEO requirements. It is possible for one compliance agency to determine that a facility of a particular company is not in compliance, while several facilities of that same company may be judged in compliance by another agency. In this situation, the entire company is out of compliance. It is, therefore, in the company's best interests to approach EEO with company-wide policies and programs. The Government should accordingly provide more consistent and uniform application of EEO enforcement not only for the benefit of employers, but also to provide a more effective system for monitoring Federal EEO compliance. Problems between compliance agencies and companies the facility was determined to be in compliance at • no EEO complaints are made regarding the facility. A facility should be assigned a compliance number, effective for one year after it is found to be in compliance. This status would remain in effect except in case of a complaint. This proposal does not prohibit compliance agencies from requesting previously agreed-upon progress reports or information resulting from a complaint. 39 One major corporation showed how several of its facilities were involved in compliance review activities within a one year period (See Figure 4). Although less than annual reviews do not appear to be frequent, unreasonable demands can be made of a company when three days after notification that a facility had met compliance requirements, another compliance review was begun (Note Location E). Another company indicated that some twenty-six of its facilities were reviewed more than once in a twelve-month period, with one facility being audited three times and two others audited on four separate occasions. We believe that there should be a system whereby companies can denote that they are in compliance. One such means would be the use of a compliance number. Such a system is used, for instance, by the General Services Administration to denote that contractors have met pricing requirements of the General Services Administration. Companies estimate costs for compliance reviews range from $500 to $8,000, depending on the size of the company. We believe the elimination of multiple reviews would allow a better focus of resources on trouble spots and thus provide for better enforcement. Recommendation No. 2 The OFCCP, in consultation with compliance agencies, should design and install a management system whereby facilities can demonstrate that they have met Federal EEO requirements for compliance and therefore would not be subject to repeated pre-award and compliance reviews within a one-year period. Recommendation No. 3 EEO compliance agencies should use such a system to restrict pre-award and compliance reviews to one per year, except when a complaint has been received or there is a major change in a work situation. This would prevent duplicative paperwork requests which result from multiple reviews of the same facility. |