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What I’ve Been Reading This Week: EEOC Edition


What is this?  A post dedicated to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) that is not a “Great EEOC Roundup:  XYZ Month Edition”??  Indeed.  Earlier this week, I made note of a relevant EEOC related case, Fort Bend County v. Davis, currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Having highlighted that particular case at the start of the week, I have subsequently come across a few other intriguing EEOC related matters that are worthy of giving special attention.  (And that is not even taking into account the fact that the EEOC has regained a quorum after confirmation of Janet Dhillon's nomination earlier this week.)

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


EEOC to Begin Collecting Salary Data From Employers By September

On April 25th, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered employers to report salary data by race, gender, and job title to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") by this September.  The order reinstated a mandate that went into effect during President Barack Obama’s second term.  This salary reporting requirement never went into effect, however, as President Donald Trump’s administration sought to throw legal roadblocks in front of its implementation.  While this article from Vox is a bit slanted and is somewhat needlessly overly critical of President Trump’s administration and efforts to block this salary reporting requirement, the article does do a good job summarizing the background and how we got to this point.


Justice Department Appeals Requirement to Collect Salary Data

Pump the breaks.  Although Judge Chutkan issued the ruling, referenced in the above article, that requires employers to report salary data by race, gender, and job title by September 30th, the Justice Department filed a Notice of Appeal late last week.  Now as this article from The National Law Review points out, the appeal does not stay the April 25th ruling.  In fact, the EEOC published a statement on its website after the appeal was filed, reminding employers that the September 30th deadline was still in place.  Whether this appeal results in any change to the salary date collection requirement is hard to say...but as noted, employers still need to proceed as if that September 30th date will not change.


Charges Remain Low, Filed Suits Tick Up, & Payment Amounts to Victims Climb: Inside the EEOC

Some readers might wonder how active the EEOC has been in recent years, not with standing the current lack of quorum held by the Commission.  As David Sparkman wrote late last month, filed charges at the EEOC for fiscal year (“FY”) 2018 (October 1, 2017 - September 30, 2017) totaled 76,418.  Perhaps surprising to some, that figure is far short of the number of charges from FY 2017,  84,254.  On the other hand, filed suits totaled 199 in FY 2018, up from 184 in FY 2017.  And let us not forget the metric by which many will view the success (or failure) of the Commission:  FY 2018 produced $505 million in payments for victims compared to $484 in FY 2017.  It will be interesting to see what effect the EEOC’s current lack of quorum has on its overall productivity/activity levels for FY 2019.

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