STATEMENT: Shuttering the OFCCP is an Assault on Civil Rights
Yesterday, the Trump administration shuttered the vast majority of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program’s (OFCCP’s) offices and put the overwhelming majority of OFCCP employees on administrative leave — a likely step towards massive layoffs. This is the latest salvo in the administration’s assault on our civil rights infrastructure, and reverses decades of progress in anti-discrimination protections.
The mission of the OFCCP, which is based in the U.S. Department of Labor, is centered on the concept that employment opportunities made possible by federal funding―i.e. Americans’ tax dollars―should be available to all workers on a fair and equitable basis. The administration’s actions run counter to that mission, and suggest indifference to the possibility of our tax dollars being used to discriminate against workers.
Rescinding EO 11246, the executive order that authorized the OFCCP in 1965, already made millions of people in the federal contract workforce more vulnerable to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, and other protected characteristics, because it stripped the OFCCP of critical tools to prevent discrimination.
Between revoking EO 11246, and decimating the investigatory and enforcement capacity of the remaining OFCCP mandate to protect disabled workers and veterans by gutting the OFCCP workforce, we have lost critical oversight of federal contracting dollars. This puts workers at risk of discriminatory hiring and workplace practices, increases barriers to equal opportunity, and risks the possibility that our tax dollars are misused to fund that discrimination.
Before this administration’s assault, the OFCCP helped open doors to industries and jobs that women, People of Color, and other groups had been shut out of or had been unfairly compensated in. Not only could the OFCCP address discrimination against individual workers, it also audited and reviewed contractors’ employment practices to identify patterns of discrimination. In addition, the agency’s work included providing guidance to employers on executing their obligations, for example supporting contractors in a particular industry in developing fair compensation and hiring practices. The OFCCP’s unique enforcement power could disqualify noncomplying contractors from future federal contract opportunities, and also resulted in well over $250 million in financial remedies for more than 250,000 federal contractor employees and applicants in just the last 10 years.
Women Employed has a long history of working with the OFCCP to open doors and break barriers for working women nationwide, and here in Illinois. In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, we helped shape the work of the OFCCP, and we defended the agency against previous threats. We also leveraged the progress made possible by the OFCCP to fight for women who faced bias and discrimination at work, winning landmark changes in the policies of major corporations, and a historic legal case in the ’80s that resulted in tens of millions of dollars in back wages paid to women right here in Chicago who’d been victims of discrimination.
In short, the OFCCP had been an important avenue for advancing the American values of fairness and equal opportunity across the country, including in Illinois. While federal anti-discrimination law has not changed, the dismantling of the civil rights enforcement infrastructure has continued unabated under this administration.
Women Employed joins advocates and workers across the country in demanding that our elected officials stand up for working people and that Congress protects our fundamental civil rights laws and protections, restoring the OFCCP and reinstating the purpose outlined in EO 11246. The bedrock ideals of our nation hang in the balance.
