Contractors: December 9 Deadline & Minimum Wage News

By Angela Adams, CEBS, SPHR, Director, EEO & Compliance Solutions
Published November 19, 2024

There’s been some movement on issues relevant to government contractors and subcontractors (“contractors”) subject to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the division of the U.S. Department of Labor that evaluates contractors for compliance with affirmative action requirements. 

2021 EEO-1 Report Release
It’s “déjà vu all over again” (apologies to Yogi Berra) for contractors’ EEO-1 Reports. This time, contractors have until December 9 to object to the public release of the consolidated 2021 EEO-1 Report. The consolidated report combines an employer’s locations and summarizes information on the race and sex of employees by EEO-1 categories.

On October 29, 2024, the OFCCP published a notice in the Federal Register that two separate groups, the University of Utah, and As You Sow, had filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for all government contractors’ consolidated EEO-1 Reports for 2021. (The 2021 reports did not include compensation data, luckily). In 2019, a different group, the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), filed a FOIA request for 2016-2020 EEO-1 Reports. 

The EEO-1 Report is governed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) but, the EEOC shares EEO-1 data with OFCCP, which uses it as one factor in determining which organizations to audit for compliance with affirmative action. Due to some complicated legal factors, the EEOC can deny FOIA requests outright for the EEO-1s, but the OFCCP can’t. Therefore, groups looking for access to the EEO-1s go to the OFCCP.

If you want to object to your 2021 report being released, visit the OFCCP webpage that contains how-to instructions and frequently asked questions. 

What’s our opinion? We think it’s worth trying to object. If you have questions about objecting, reach out to HR Source’s Affirmative Action team.

Minimum Wage 
Many of the organizations HR Source serves are supply contractors (i.e., creating tangible goods that end up with the federal government) or banks, for whom the following issue on minimum wage doesn’t apply. But if you fall into any of the categories below, you’ll want to be aware of a concern with Executive Order 14026, which required these contractors to pay a minimum wage of $17.75 as of January 1, 2025, for contracts signed on or after January 30, 2022.

• Procurement contracts for construction covered by the Davis-Bacon Act.
• Service contracts covered by the Service Contract Act.
• Contracts for concessions.
• Contracts entered into with the federal government in connection with federal property or land and related to offering services to federal employees, their dependents, or the general public.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the President lacks authority to set a contractor’s minimum wage, and it sent a case challenging the order back to the district court. The practical effect of this is that there may be an injunction against the minimum wage order in the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction (which includes western states such as California), but the Trump Administration will likely end up rescinding this order altogether. There are no action steps at this point, but we’ll keep you updated.

If you have questions, reach out to the Affirmative Action team at 800-448-4584 or email Angela Adams at aadams@hrsource.org.