OFCCP Leader Highlights Mission Protecting Workers, Promoting Diversity, and Enforcing the Law

Patricia Shiu, director of the U.S. Department of Labor‘s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), delivered the keynote speech at the annual meeting of federal contractors and OFCCP representatives for the National Industry Liaison Group on July 27 in New Orleans. The key portions of Shiu’s speech, in which she provided important updates on the OFCCP, are below. The OFCCP is responsible for the enforcement of federal contractors’ affirmative action and nondiscrimination obligations.

Welcome to the 29th annual Industry Liaison Group Conference. I know how important it is for all of us to get together like this, and I want to thank each and every one of you for spending your time here this week. . . .

I want to begin by updating you on our achievements of this past year, then discuss my goals for the future, and finally, say a little about how I believe we can achieve those goals ― together.

My aim is, as always, to give you the clearest information about what we are doing and how it will impact your work . . . on behalf of America’s workers.

At OFCCP, we find ourselves in a moment of ascendance, a period of renaissance.

Under the Obama administration, we have seen a restored commitment to our core values of equality, fairness, and opportunity for all.

The President understands the importance of the work we do and the agency’s place as a premier civil rights agency in the federal government. Under his leadership ― and that of Secretary [of Labor Hilda] Solis ― our staff has increased by 35 percent in the past two years. The President is also providing us with the resources we need to be the kind of worker protection agency he envisions.

For my staff and me, that has translated into a very busy year protecting workers, promoting diversity, and enforcing the law.

Since 2010, we’ve hired and trained almost 200 new compliance officers and provided the first national training for them in more than a decade. We are also revising our compliance manual so our staff and our stakeholders have clarity on how we are handling enforcement.

Speaking of enforcement, we are making a concerted effort to shift toward more thorough and careful compliance reviews, toward higher quality ― not just quantity of audits. We are conducting more focused reviews with respect to people with disabilities, protected veterans, and pay discrimination.

Excellence is the standard at OFCCP, and we are working harder than ever to provide consistency across regions so that you will know exactly what to expect from us ― whether you’re in Seattle or St. Louis, in Savannah or Schenectady.

The President has called on us to make sure that workplaces are fair, equitable, and free from discrimination . . . and WE ARE.

We are also collaborating in new ways with our sister civil rights agencies.

For the first time in more than 45 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Labor are putting aside turf battles to build a true partnership ― from our national headquarters to our field offices. This TriAgency collaboration seeks to reduce duplication and maximize efficiency across our agencies.

So we are dusting off old protocols and updating memoranda of understanding to articulate how we will work together, share information, coordinate litigation, and refer cases as appropriate. We are piloting innovative new programs in our field offices and sharing best practices with respect to enforcement and policy.

The President has asked us to develop a unified civil rights agenda . . . and WE ARE.

We are making sure that workers know who we are and what we do. Our outreach efforts are about making sure that your employees know that we have their backs, that they can come to us[,] and we will be their advocates.

So we are proactively reaching out to community-based groups, veterans’ service organizations, labor unions, employer associations, civil rights leaders, small business owners, first-time contractors, and directly to workers in your industries. In just the first half of this year, OFCCP hosted nearly 1,000 outreach events for about 26,000 people. . . .

Finally, we recognize that the key to good enforcement is good policy. As most of you know, the entire Department of Labor is engaged in one of the most significant efforts at regulatory reform in years. At OFCCP, we are updating and revising out-of-date regulations ― some of which haven’t been touched in almost 40 years ― and we are going to put some teeth in them and strengthen affirmative action requirements for contractors. . . .

We are doing all of this because discrimination is still a very real problem in our country and it demeans all of us ― as individuals, as businesses, and as a nation. When any employer bases decisions about hiring, firing, pay, promotions, training, and job placement on factors that have nothing to do with a person’s qualifications, it lessens us all.

Just this year we closed a case involving alleged pay discrimination by one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Imagine this: You’re a woman working in sales and trying to make ends meet. You have no idea that your company is paying you ― and 123 of your female coworkers ― about $1,700 less on average than your male colleagues.

Along comes an OFCCP compliance officer on a routinely scheduled audit. She discovers the pay disparity and tries to correct it. For almost nine years, she doggedly pursues your employer to fix the problem and to right the wrong. She does this because the company has a contractual obligation to ensure equal opportunity for all of its employees.

In the end, the company settles. You and your female colleagues get back wages, interest, and a salary bump. More important, OFCCP gets the company to reexamine its pay policies across multiple states, promising to rectify other instances of pay disparity.

That is the power of what we do.

Today in America, women still earn an average of 81 cents for every $1 paid to men. But the real cost of the pay gap is not 19 cents. The real cost for the average full-time working woman is $150 less per week. It’s about $8,000 less at the end of the year. And over a lifetime, that’s almost $380,000.

That could be money spent toward a child’s college education, toward owning a home, toward one’s retirement. These are earned wages that were never realized. That discrimination is real to us. It matters.

And so OFCCP is taking action. . . . Because when we speak of the effort to root out discrimination as a moral obligation, we must also speak of it as an economic imperative. Ensuring a level playing field for workers is part of the public trust we hold, important now, more than ever, in times of economic stress.

Nondiscrimination and affirmative action are economic issues. They affect American workers, their families[,] and their communities. At the Department of Labor, we are doing all we can to ensure that people get good jobs, that there are no unfair barriers to employment.

Much of what we do, therefore, is specifically focused on getting people across the nation back to work and ensuring that the reach for good jobs is truly within the grasp of everyone.

For businesses, it’s about working to make sure you have the most talented people, drawn from the widest applicant pool available. As the President reminds us, diversity is our nation’s greatest strength. It always has been. It always will be. And it turns out that diversity is good for business.

A 2009 study by University of Illinois Professor Dr. Cedric Herring analyzed over 1,000 American businesses and confirms something that most of us know intuitively: Employers who embrace diversity see the benefits in their bottom lines. In his quantitative study, companies with greater diversity were associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits.

Dr. Herring’s research underscores a larger point: Workplace diversity and entrepreneurial success are not mutually exclusive goals. In fact, they go hand in hand.

This ethic of promoting good business by promoting diversity is reflected in OFCCP’s regulatory agenda for the coming year, an agenda in which we attempt to strike a balance between improving employment opportunities for women, minorities, veterans, and people with disabilities while ensuring your ability to efficiently and effectively build a strong workforce.

It is my belief that affirmative action can no longer be defined by “good faith” efforts. Affirmative action is our national commitment to right a wrong, to redeem the promise of America by opening doors of opportunity to all workers ― even if we have to pry those doors open from time to time. And that requires accountability.

Twenty-six years as a civil rights attorney taught me that clarity is one of the most important components of enforcement. When regulations and expectations are unclear, it is a disservice to both the workers we seek to protect and the companies we are mandated to regulate.

My job as director of OFCCP is to make sure you know what is expected of you because that is the only way to get to voluntary compliance ― our ultimate goal.

So let me talk a little about our regulatory efforts.

Veterans
We are currently in the process of reviewing the public comments we received during the extended 74-day comment period on our proposed updates to Section 4212 of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 .

The proposed revisions would amend our regulations to require that federal contractors and subcontractors conduct more substantive analyses of recruitment and placement actions taken under Section 4212 and would require the use of numerical targets to measure the effectiveness of affirmative action efforts.

These numerical targets are neither quotas nor ceilings. The targets seek to provide contractors with a clear, quantitative standard by which to measure their progress, one that is less ambiguous than previous requirements of “good faith.”

Ensuring opportunities for our veterans is something we can and must get right. In his address announcing troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, the President said he spoke for all Americans when he assured our veterans that we “will keep our sacred trust with [them], and provide [them] with the care, and benefits, and opportunity that [they] deserve.” He does speak for all Americans. He also speaks for the Department of Labor, for OFCCP, and for me. I take that promise seriously.

Understanding the unique challenges our country faces with regard to [servicemen and servicewomen] returning home, we remain resolved in assisting those who have served our country with their transition back into civilian life.

People with Disabilities

We meet just one day after marking the 21st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA] . That landmark law fundamentally changed our country and brought millions of Americans out of the shadows.

The ADA was the legislative embodiment of potential. It’s up to us to make sure that potential is never squandered.

President Obama has added his commitment to the legacy of the ADA by issuing Executive Order 13548, which calls on the federal government to hire 100,000 people with disabilities in the next five years. The President believes we have a legal and moral obligation to model the very best employment practices. And I believe those who do business with taxpayer dollars ought to live up to a similar standard.

In the coming weeks, we will publish a series of proposed revisions to Section 503of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for public comment. These revisions are shaped by what we heard from employers and advocates when we initially solicited feedback last summer on how to strengthen the rules.

At OFCCP, we are serious about integrating all Americans into the workforce. About 80 percent of working-age people with disabilities were out of the labor force in 2010, and even those within the workforce suffer an unemployment rate of nearly 17 percent ― almost twice the national average.

The regulations outlining a contractor’s responsibilities with respect to affirmative action, recruitment, and placement of individuals with disabilities have been on the books since the 1970s. And the old regulations simply weren’t cutting it anymore.

Our proposed rule is going to be a game-changer. It’s going to put some real accountability behind the law and improve employment opportunities for millions of Americans with disabilities.

As I said, we will be publishing our proposed rules very soon, and I expect to hear from you with constructive feedback on how we can work together to make sure that all workers, regardless of disability, can live and work to their full potentials.

Construction

In the area of construction, data show that disparities in the representation of women and racial minorities continues to exist in on- site occupations in the construction industry. The impetus for change is strong: The regulations implementing affirmative action obligations for construction contractors and subcontractors were last revised in 1980. And many of the goals set back then have still not been met.

Our agenda includes proposed revisions that would remove outdated regulatory provisions, propose a new method for establishing affirmative action goals, and reflect the realities of the labor market and employment practices in the modern construction industry.

Equal Pay

As many of you know, we are working on developing a new compensation data collection tool. Eliminating gender and race-based discrimination in compensation is a critical priority for this administration and for OFCCP.

We will soon be seeking input from the public on issues relating to the scope, content, and format of this tool. We want to ensure that it is an effective and efficient means of data collection.

Data [is] the linchpin for civil rights enforcement and the ground on which we build good public policy. At the Department of Labor, we are committed to improving the way we collect, analyze, and share our data so that we can close the pay gap once and for all.

Sex Discrimination
Finally, we’ve added a new item to our regulatory agenda on sex discrimination. Times have changed. Workplaces have changed. Regulations must change as well.

The last time OFCCP revised its sex discrimination guidelines was over 33 years ago in 1978. Since then, women have greatly increased their participation in the labor force ― especially women with young children, whose labor-force participation rates skyrocketed from 39 percent to 63 percent between 1980 and 2010.

There have been enormous changes in women’s opportunities, in employment practices, and in the applicable law. Our proposed revisions to OFCCP’s sex discrimination guidelines will reflect those changes and bring our regulations into the 21st century. . . . And together is the only way we will succeed and get our country back on track.

These are tough times ― each new job that has been created these past few months is good news for the people who return to work, for the families they take care of, and for the communities of which they are a part. But our economy as a whole just isn’t producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who’s looking. And when the going gets tough, when the path is steep and the obstacles [are] seemingly insurmountable, that is when the American worker needs us most.

There are moments in history ― once-in-a-generation, defining moments ― when we must ask ourselves, “What will our legacy to future generations be?” We have arrived at one of those moments ― a fork in the road of history ― and we have to decide which way to go next. . . .

In closing, let me thank you again for inviting me to speak here in New Orleans. . . . And here, each and every day, we are reminded that the American dream can be redeemed over and over again ― as long as you’re willing to fight for it.

I am willing to fight for it, and I hope that you are, too.

Thank you very much.