Dollars 2As I wrote about in April, on February 1, 2016, the EEOC proposed revisions to add wage and hour information to employers’ yearly EEO-1 report.  The EEO-1 report is required by the EEOC, pursuant to its authority in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), and requests submission of information aimed at detecting discriminatory practices.

The proposed revision is the recommendation of a 2010 Equal Pay Task Force between the EEOC, DOL and President Obama’s National Equal Pay Task Force. The EEO-1 survey is used by the EEOC and the OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) to analyze and enforce non-discriminatory employment (such as a contractor who hires no minorities). According to the EEOC, this information will enable it to compute and compare pay between men/women and various races and ethnicity to find potential discriminatory pay practices.

Following the closing of the April 1 comment period, the EEOC has since revised its proposal, as summarized below.  The comment period for the new revisions closes August 15, 2016.

Who Needs To Complete An EEO-1 Report?

The EE0-1 survey must be filled out by all employers subject to Title VII with 100 or more employees (this includes corporate enterprises and/or shared ownership) and federal contractors / first-tier subcontractors subject to Executive Order 11246 (government contract over $10,000) with 50 or more employees and a prime contract or first-tier subcontract of $50,000 or more. Employers with 50-99 employees would not need to report this new additional pay and hours worked data (now called “Component 2” of the EEO-1) , just the current information such as race, gender, etc. (“Component 1”).

The proposal would change effective the 2017 reporting cycle for employers with 100 or more employees – they would need to add the pay and related information by March 31, 2018. Note- this is a 6 month extension from September 2017 (which was originally proposed). Thereafter, the EEO-1 report will be due by March 31st of each subsequent year.  Keep in mind, however, the September 30, 2016 deadline and EEO-1 reporting is unchanged!  According, employers would report September 30, 2016 with the old form, and the next report would be due March 31, 2018, with the new data/form.  A sample of the proposed new EEO-1 report can be found here.

What New Data Must Be Reported?

The proposal would require covered employers to provide data on employees’ W-2 earnings and hours worked based on a calendar year basis ending December 31.  This is a significant (positive) change over the EEOC’s first proposal. Employers would use the W-2 Box 1 income figure used for end-of-year tax reporting.  Thereafter, employers will need to aggregate W-2 data in 12 “pay bands” (pay range, for the rest of us) for 10 different job categories: Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers; First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers; Professionals; Technicians; Sales Workers; Administrative Support Workers; Craft Workers; Operatives; Laborers and Helpers; and Service Workers).

As for how to report the “hours worked” component for full-time salaried employees, the EEOC now is recommending that for non-exempt employees, actual hours be reported.  For exempt (salaried) employees, an employer would have the option of: (1) reporting actual hours worked; or (2) report 40 hours per week for full-time employees and 20 hours per week for part-time employees multiplied by the number of weeks the individual is employed during the EEO-1 reporting year.

In short, we hurry up and wait again…