On August 23, 2013, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) released the revised Federal Contract Compliance Manual (FCCM) which provides guidance for Compliance Officers and federal contractors. The revised FCCM does not create any new laws or new requirements for federal contractors, nor does it change any existing laws or requirements. The revised FCCM can be found on the OFCCP website at: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/fccm/FCCM_FINAL_508c.pdf.
The revised FCCM consists of 536 pages and is organized into eight chapters plus appendices, figures, and letters. OFCCP Compliance Officers and managers have received training on the manual. The revised manual removes practices that were previously discontinued by directive. The revised FCCM, however remains silent other agency practices, such as the steps used by Compliance Officer when analyzing summarized compensation data submitted in response to a Compliance Review Scheduling Letter. It also does not explain the established methodology that the agency utilizes to determine whether or not disparities in selection rates are statistically significant.
The FCCM explains the continuing violation concept. The manual states that some instances of discrimination are not discrete events and instead may be either a series of discriminatory acts or a continuing discriminatory policy or system. For example, if employees of a particular group are paid less because of their race, ethnicity, or gender the discriminatory act is repeated each time the contractor pays wages, benefits, or other compensation. The FCCM does not change the fact that the discrimination still must occur within two-year period preceding the initiation of the compliance review.
Please contact us by calling (732) 446-2529 or sending us an e-mail at glennbarlett@gbcs.net if you are interested in discussing the revised Federal Contract Compliance Manual.