Get your data ready... the men from NEPET are coming...
The Obama Administration has created the National Equal Pay Enforcement Taskforce (or, as I refer to it - NEPET). The task force will consist of members from the EEOC, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and the Office of Personnel Management.
NEPET has identified five "persistent challenges" regarding equal pay enforcement. One of these challenges is the government's ability to understand the full scope of the wage gap and to identify and combat wage discrimination.
To remedy this, NEPET is proposing to collect data on the private sector workforce to better understand the scope of the pay gap and to target enforcement efforts. As noted in the Report:
"Private sector employers are not required to systematically report gender-identified wage data to the federal government. This lack of data makes identifying wage discrimination difficult and undercuts enforcement efforts. We must identify ways to collect wage data from employers that are useful to enforcement agencies but do not create unnecessary burdens on employers."
NEPET is recommending the reinstatement of the OFCCP Equal Opportunity ("EO") Survey or a similar survey. The intention of the original EO survey was to increase compliance with equal opportunity requirements by improving self-awareness and encouraging self-evaluations and to improve the use of federal enforcement resources and improve efficiency by targeting those employers most likely to be out of compliance. NEPET believes that implementation of an EO Survey will allow (a) better identification of those employers likely to be out of compliance with respect to compensation discrimination, (b) narrowing of the issues on which the resulting review will focus, and (c) identification of employers for corporation-wide and industry-focused reviews.
They are also looking at revamping the EEO Reports. There are currently four versions of the EEO Reports, but only one of the four versions collects any wage-related data. The EEOC has examined the EEO Reports and data currently available. According to the Report, the EEOC has concluded that "there is no federal data source that contains private sector employer-specific wage data broken down by demographic category."
It's not clear what the revised EO and EEO Reports will look like, and we don't know what specific compensation information will be collected. We don't even know how the information collected will be used to identify employers who are "likely to be out of compliance". What we do know is that the current administration has placed pay equity near the top of its agenda. From the signing of The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in January of 2008 to the recent push for passage of The Paycheck Fairness Act to the formation of NEPET, the Obama Administration is paying a lot of attention to pay discrimination. Because it's on the administration's agenda, it should be on the minds of employers everywhere. Start preparing now. Make sure that your documentation is up-to-date and that you're collecting and retaining the information you're required to collect and retain. That way you'll be ready when the men from NEPET come for your data.
Stephanie R. Thomas is an economic and statistical consultant specializing in EEO issues and employment litigation risk management. For more than a decade, she's been working with businesses and government agencies providing expert EEO analysis. Stephanie has published several articles on examining compensation systems with respect to equity. She is the host of The Proactive Employer, and is the Director of the Equal Employment Advisory and Litigation Support Division of MCG.
Thanks again for another insightful post Stephanie!
Sounds like a lot of big government intervention on a 9 cent problem.
Posted by: Paul Weatherhead | 08/20/2010 at 06:14 AM