To help federal contractor keep up with recent enforcement trends out of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), for the last several years we have been summarizing, on a periodic basis, major settlements announced by OFCCP that involve financial remedies. And while the pace of settlements clearly accelerated during the last year of the Trump Administration, OFCCP thus far during the Biden Administration has taken a more deliberate approach to entering into new settlements.
Since our last update in October 2021, OFCCP has posted seven new financial settlements with federal contractors, including one “Early Resolution Conciliation Agreement” (ERCA). Consistent with remarks delivered by a Labor Department official at CWC’s 2022 Virtual Policy Conference, this lone ERCA represents a significant shift in OFCCP’s approach to reaching this type of settlement, and contractors can expect them to be approved less frequently, have shorter audit moratorium periods, and look quite different than before.
With regard to this latest batch of financial settlements, three involved alleged hiring disparities based on race and/or gender; two alleged compensation disparities based on gender and/or race; one involved alleged disability and sexual orientation discrimination; and one involved alleged disability and protected veteran status discrimination.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.