Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has "no timeline" for replacing compensation reporting requirements that the White House stayed, according to commissioner Chai Feldblum.
- Any such future requirement will depend on the new right-leaning commission, Feldblum told attendees at Epstein Becker & Green’s annual workforce management briefing Sept. 14.
- EEOC added compensation information requirements to the EEO-1 form during President Obama's tenure in an effort to combat pay discrimination. The new form would have required employers to start reporting that information next year but President Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) blocked the new form Aug. 29.
Dive Insight:
EEOC adopted the new requirements during Obama's presidency and, without other conservatives confirmed to the commission, Trump's acting chair Victoria A. Lipnic didn't have the votes to reverse course. Employer groups turned to OMB, which approves such forms, and asked it to revoke its approval, which it did just weeks ago.
That revocation didn't kill the new requirements entirely or prevent the EEOC from requiring such information in the future (as is the case with other Obama-era mandates) but, considering Feldblum's comments, employers aren't likely to see replacement requirements in the near future.
Feldblum also told attendees that, for now, the commission's enforcement priorities are still those spelled out in its "strategic enforcement plan." The commission can only change that plan by a vote, which could happen when and if Trump's nominees are confirmed by the Senate. And while the pair could face tough questions from Democrats in Congress, Feldblum says that "at some point, I expect them to be my colleagues."
