On September 1, 2021, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the Department of Labor sub-agency charged with enforcing affirmative action and non-discrimination requirements imposed on federal contractors by way of Executive Order 11246, announced that it was reversing

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for […] she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

                                           —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit Hole

On February 1, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) presented a webinar on its new contractor portal through which covered contractors are being asked to certify whether they are meeting their requirement to develop and maintain annual affirmative action programs.

On March 31, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a new Directive 2022-02.  Its stated purpose is to provide “transparency on OFCCP’s compliance evaluation policies and expectations for contractors”—but upon review, it appears to be a retreat from the standards of transparency, certainty, and efficiency that guided OFCCP from 2017 through 2020.  The new directive radically alters OFCCP’s approach toward compliance reviews and removes guardrails that had been put in place t

On May 20, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published its FY 2022 Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) for supply and service contractors. OFCCP has stated that it will immediately begin to send out scheduling letters to some of the contractors on the new list.  This is a change from the past when OFCCP would wait at least 45 days from publication of the list before beginning audits.  See U.S.

On August 18, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a revised version of its Directive 2022-01 - Advancing Pay Equity Through Compensation Analysis, which was originally issued on March 15, 2022.

On August 19, 2022, OFCCP published a notice in the Federal Register for the stated purpose of advising employers that in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, it is planning to produce confidential information that is protected from disclosure pursuant to a statutory exemption.

As outlined in our August 22 Insight, OFCCP announced an intention to produce federal contractors’ Type 2 EEO-1 data in response to a FOIA request from the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR).  Employers were given until September 19, 2022, to file their objections. On September 15, 2022, OFCCP extended the deadline for filing objections to October 19, 2022.

Readers will recall that in August 2022, OFCCP published a notice in the Federal Register advising employers that it was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking EEO-1 data from all federal contractors, including first-tier subcontractors, for the period 2016-2020.

On January 20, 2023, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published its FY 2023 Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) for supply and service contractors. The CSAL includes 452 establishment reviews, 24 Corporate Management Compliance Evaluation reviews, and 24 Functional Affirmative Action Program (FAAP) reviews.

OFCCP issued yet another notice today regarding its handling of a FOIA request for production of all federal contractors’ EEO-1 Type 2 data from 2016 through 2020.

The request keeps in place a February 17, 2023, deadline for submitting objections, but expands the grounds upon which employers may object, but only if the contractor includes an explanation as to why it did not object “in response to previous notices that we have issued, and why there is good cause for us to accept the objection at this point.”

On February 14, 2023, OFCCP announced that it was again extending the deadline for employers to file objections to the disclosure of their EEO-1 data in response to a FOIA request from the Center for Investigative Reporting. The deadline for submitting objections is now March 3, 2023. 

Last August OFCCP published a notice in the Federal Register advising employers that in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the agency was planning to produce confidential information that is ordinarily protected from dis

In December 2021, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) implemented a new requirement that all covered federal contractors and subcontractors annually certify that they have current affirmative action plans in place for each of their establishments or functional units as applicable.  The Process for Certification, which was to be made through a new Contractor Portal, was rolled out over a five-month period beginning on February

On April 25, 2023, the Office of Management and Budget approved the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) updated form prospective and current employees must use to voluntarily self-identify as an individual with a disability.  The form is applicable to federal contractors and subcontractors subject to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires contractors to invite applicants to self-identify as disabled at the pre-offer stage, and to invi

On June 5, 2023, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published its FY 2023 Construction Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL). The CSAL includes 250 employers that OFCCP has identified as federal or federally assisted construction contractors.

On August 24, 2023, the Office of Management and Budget approved a request from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) to revise the “Itemized Listing” that OFCCP uses to collect information from federal contractors that are selected for supply or service audits. Among the changes that have been approved is a new requirement that audited contractors:

In 2022 the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) began requiring that federal contractors and subcontractors subject to the affirmative action requirements of Executive Order 11246 annually certify that they are meeting their requirement to develop and maintain annual affirmative plans (AAPs).  In rolling out this program, OFCCP warned that covered contractors that failed to certify by a deadline would be at a higher risk for audit.  OFCCP made good on this warning when it published its 2023 Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL), which is a courtesy notice of cont

On June 7, 2024, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published its FY 2024 Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) for Supply and Service Contractors. The CSAL is a courtesy notification, and the review will start once the establishment receives OFCCP’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved scheduling letter.

As part of the Obama administration's commitment to accountability in spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will be tracking its ARRA-related and non-ARRA-related enforcement activities separately and aggressively auditing recipients of ARRA funds.

On July 7, 2009, OFCCP released a new directive that explains the different procedures that will apply in scheduling and conducting compliance evaluations for ARRA-funded contractors versus other federal contractors.