The Trump administration wants to make it easier for federal contractors to hide pay discrimination
The Department of Labor (DOL) is expected to announce changes to the way it investigates pay disparities at companies that do business with the federal government — making it easier for federal contractors to hide pay discrimination against women and people of color.
The move, first reported by Bloomberg Law, would scale back a 2013 Obama-era policy, known as Directive 307, which had expanded the DOL’s ability to investigate and sanction federal contractors that showed a pattern of paying female workers and employees of color less than their white male colleagues. The directive had also allowed the DOL’s auditors, for the first time, to analyze whether white employees and male employees at a business were more likely to get promoted, receive bonuses, and get job assignments that had more opportunities for advancement.
The Obama administration directive gave regulators at the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs more tools to determine if companies with federal contracts were violating equal pay law. The office randomly audits about 2 percent of the 200,000 contractors who do business with the federal government each year.
The move, first reported by Bloomberg Law, would scale back a 2013 Obama-era policy, known as Directive 307, which had expanded the DOL’s ability to investigate and sanction federal contractors that showed a pattern of paying female workers and employees of color less than their white male colleagues. The directive had also allowed the DOL’s auditors, for the first time, to analyze whether white employees and male employees at a business were more likely to get promoted, receive bonuses, and get job assignments that had more opportunities for advancement. The Obama administration directive gave regulators at the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs more tools to determine if companies with federal contracts were violating equal pay law. The office randomly audits about 2 percent of the 200,000 contractors who do business with the federal government each year.