OFCCP Eliminates Equal Opportunity Survey

On September 8, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a final rule rescinding its Equal Opportunity Survey (EO Survey). The EO Survey requested selected contractors to provide information about personnel activities, compensation and tenure data, and certain information about the contractor’s affirmative action program. The OFCCP acknowledges that the Survey, despite the original purpose articulated by the Agency, was never actually used to target federal contractors for compliance evaluations. The Agency has indicated that it will continue to choose contractors for compliance evaluations on the basis of their inclusion on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) list of federal contractors, as well as contractors’ EEO-1 Report data. The use of the FPDS list is problematic, however, as it does not include all federal contractors, as OFCCP Director Charles James acknowledged last month at the Annual Conference of the National Industrial Liaison Group.