U.S. House Subcommittee Fights Egregious Reporting Proposal

This week, at the urging of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and others, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, proposed to block funding to implement the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) proposal that would require employers to annually disclose employee pay. The language to block the funding was offered by Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD).

This proposal is a form change to the current Employer Information Survey or EEO-1 and would require employers to not only categorize each employee by gender, race, ethnicity, and job description, but also by pay band. The EEO-1 form currently has 180 data cells to complete; the proposal would increase the number of cells to 3600.

The administration believes this will help identify and target companies who are not paying employees equally.

In March, the NAM testified before the EEOC expressing deep concerns with the changes and also filed written comments to the EEOC.  The proposal is still being reviewed by the agency, but is likely to take effect before the end of the year unless the current efforts by the House can stop it.