pay data

Pay Transparency to Current Employees – New Laws Require More Than Job Posting Disclosures

In 2021, employers had to grapple with a host of new pay transparency requirements across the country, which we previously outlined here.  While most of these concern requirements to provide salary range information to applicants to posted jobs, several require disclosure of salary range information to current employees under certain circumstances.  Employers who have addressed pay range disclosures in job postings are well-advised to also review their practices with respect to current employees to ensure compliance. READ MORE

Pay Transparency Laws: It’s Not Just Pay Data Reporting Anymore

While new pay data reporting requirements in California and Illinois have grabbed pay equity headlines, we are seeing a ground swell in another type of pay transparency requirements: mandatory pay disclosures to applicants, current employees, or both.

Pay range disclosure laws go beyond the host of state laws that came online several years ago and establish employees’ rights to request information, disclose, and discuss their own wages.  Rather, these laws obligate employers to affirmatively (and sometimes proactively) disclose the pay range for a given position under specific circumstances.  Employers in nine jurisdictions and counting are subject to such requirements: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Washington, as well as Ohio cities Toledo and Cincinnati.  At present, another nine states have similar bills pending. READ MORE

Pay Data Reporting Requirements In A Changing Landscape

Employers face increasing demands and pressure to ensure and declare equitable pay for employees, not only from within their own workforces, but also from clients, customers, and government leaders. While states continue passing increasingly progressive pay equity laws, the requirements of such laws may not align with the purpose and intent of federal or state equal pay laws.  Employers should be mindful of the risks associated with how state agencies may use pay data collections and be prepared to explain their practices and provide further response, if needed. READ MORE

EEOC Yanks Its Pay Data Collection Efforts For Future Years

Yesterday, the EEOC announced that it does not intend to renew its request for authorization to collect employers’ pay data on the EEO-1 form in future years. The announcement comes less than three weeks before the September 30th deadline for employers nationwide to submit massive amounts of pay data for 2017 and 2018 (a deadline that is not impacted by the EEOC’s announcement).

The rollercoaster saga of the EEOC’s pay data collection (which we previously reported on including here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) began over three-and-a-half years ago when the EEOC announced in January 2016 its plan to revise the EEO-1 form to collect pay data (Component 2 data). The revised EEO-1 form requires employers to submit data on employees’ W-2 earnings and hours worked across broad job categories, and broken down by ethnicity, race, and sex. While the EEOC contends that the revised EEO-1 form will allow it to better assess pay discrimination, employers have expressed numerous concerns, including that the form may indicate “false positives,” as the broad EEO-1 job categories are not designed to group employees who perform similar work (as defined by federal and state equal pay and anti-discrimination statutes). READ MORE

EEOC Contemplates September 30th Deadline for Component 2 Pay Data But Warns of Significant Risks of Unreliable Data Comparisons

Despite some initial news stories to the contrary, uncertainty still remains as to whether and when employers will be required to submit Component 2 pay data to the EEOC. See our prior posts here and here. On March 19, 2019, the parties in National Women’s Law Center v. Office of Management and Budget, No. 17-cv-2458 (TSC) (D.D.C.), participated in a status conference at which they discussed precisely when the EEOC planned to collect Component 2 pay data. The court asked the EEOC why it could not require employers to file Component 2 data by either May 31, 2019, the deadline by which employers are required to submit Component 1 data, or September 30, 2019, the expiration date of the authorization to collect Component 2 data under the Paperwork Reduction Act. READ MORE

EEOC Announces Final Rule on Equal Pay Disclosures

Yesterday, the EEOC announced that it had finalized a regulation that will increase disclosure requirements regarding employee compensation for thousands of businesses. The new rule, which we’ve blogged about previously, requires all businesses with 100 or more workers to submit pay data by gender, race and ethnicity on their EEO-1 forms. Specifically, employers will now need to provide:

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Orrick to Provide Testimony on EEOC’s Proposed Revisions to the EEO-1 Report

On March 16, 2016 the EEOC will be holding hearings on its proposal  to expand the EEO-1 report to require employers to provide pay data. Orrick’s Gary Siniscalco was asked to address the hearing to provide employer views on this issue. Watch our Blog for ongoing developments on this issue and  new developments in the equal pay area as they continue to unfold. The text of Gary’s testimony before the EEOC will be as follows:

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Cross-Border Trends: UK to Follow US Attack on the Gender Pay Gap

Following months of waiting the UK Government has finally published its draft regulations on the new “gender pay gap reporting” requirements in the UK. On publication of the draft regulations, the UK Government has asked one final consultation question: “What, if any, modifications should be made to these draft regulations?” – And so it would appear that the draft regulations are nearing but possibly not quite in final form, pending any pertinent responses received.

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Taking a Page from DOL’s Playbook, EEOC Seeks to Add Pay Data to EEO-1 Reports

In August 2014, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contractor Programs (“OFCCP”) proposed that federal contractors report compensation information on an Equal Pay report. Amid significant contractor comments that OFCCP coordinate with the EEOC to amend the Employer Information Report (“EEO-1”), EEOC did so on January 29, 2016. The EEOC intends to ask the Office of Management and Budget to approve additional data collection that would require most employers to submit aggregate data on pay ranges and hours worked. The EEOC believes that the additional data “will assist [EEOC and OFCCP] in identifying possible pay discrimination and assist employers in promoting equal pay in their workplaces.” However, questions remain whether this data would yield any meaningful analysis of actual pay differences that would assist either agency in uncovering pay discrimination.

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