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The U.S. Dept. of Labor forces private employers and federal contractors to racially and sexually profile all their employees! |
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| DOL Racial
Profiling: Agency Requires
Racial Profiles from All Federal Contractors (02/14/00) "The department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) this week mailed the first of 7,000 surveys to federal contractors they suspect are violating its anti-discrimination regulations, based on an analysis of more generalized work force data that employers already are required to submit. Another 53,000 companies should receive surveys in the fall, federal officials said." "Labor Department officials said the information gathered in the survey will help them better determine which firms may be discriminating against women and minorities. "The survey is part of the [Clinton administration's] and this department's efforts to close the pay gap," said Sally Paxton, a Labor Department deputy solicitor." The Labor Department will not be required to go through the tedious process of investigating and presenting a valid criminal case: DOL won't have to adhere to rules of evidence, won't have to make a a finding of motivation and opportunity for commission of the alleged crime, won't have to establish the existence of any racially or sexually discriminatory policies, and certainly won't be required to presume the accused parties innocent until proven guilty. Thanks to such legal niceties, controversial Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman herself has recently been found "not guilty" following an independent counsel's two-year investigation into accusations she solicited $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions. But Ms. Herman clearly doesn't think such niceties as due process should be extended to federal contractors and other employers. DOL's "proof" will consist of statistical analyses of such circumstantial data as the number of minorities and women who live in the employment area around the contractor and the average ratio of minorities and women employed by other contractors performing the same type of work. The Washington Post quoted DOL official Joe Kennedy as saying: "We look at contractors who are involved in similar industries in similar geographic areas and compare their profiles." Yup, he actually used the word profile! (Kennedy is DOL's deputy director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.) (Quoted selections from the Washington Post
article, 04/14/00, page A23, by Michael A. Fletcher) DOL Gender-Based Subsidies: This Pay Gap is a Phony (01/31/00) "... To solve this alleged problem [of a male-female pay gap], the president asked Congress to allocate $27 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor and to pass Sen. Thomas A. Daschle's Paycheck Fairness Act, which would set wage guidelines for different occupations." (This ill-conceived, vote-pandering legislation would direct federal agencies to collect data about supposed wage disparities and increase penalties for violating equal-pay statutes. Editor.) "... Unfortunately, the president is ill-served on this question by staffers who let him believe that equally qualified women make only 75 cents on a man's dollar. This is not true. Study after study shows that women who are in the same jobs as men, who have the same qualifications and who don't cut back on their time in the work force because of child-rearing, earn practically the same amount as men--about 95 cents on the dollar. Furchtgott-Roth further questions the need for this boondoggle legilsation when she says: "Moreover, any woman who feels that she is discriminated against [already] has the legal right to sue. The frequently used 75-cents number is the average full-time woman's wage divided by the average full-time man's wage. It compares women who have chosen to be social workers to men who have chosen to be lawyers; women who majored in English literature to men who majored in math; and women who work 35 hours a week to men who work 48 hours.…" "Equal pay for equal work is the law of the land, but the law does not say that men's and women's average wages have to be equal. And the averages are different for many reasons, none of which the Labor Department and the EEOC could change with $27 million. "First, women have not been in the work force as long as men... "Second, even though women now earn [roughly half of all] law and business degrees, as well ... of medical degrees ... many still choose specialties that pay less. "Third, ... they often choose careers with more flexible hours that will enable them to combine work and family, thereby sacrificing higher pay." (Quoted selections from the Washington Post story
Monday, Jan. 31, 2000, Page A19, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a resident fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute.) Pay-Gap Related: Labor
Dept. Invades Corp. Records for Gender Info (02/06/99) "Employers' groups are chafing at what they call overly aggressive tactics from the government. The tougher enforcement comes at a time when the effort to reduce pay inequities is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill. "Several employer groups say the government is becoming too intrusive, making unprecedented requests for sensitive employee information, such as the name, race, sex and salary of every person employed at a targeted company. " 'Nobody wants discrimination in the workplace, but it seems crazy to overburden every employer to capture a handful of misbehaving employers,' said Barry Lawrence, a spokesman for the Washington- based Society of Human Resource Management, among the employer groups opposing the new enforcement efforts. 'It's like trying to catch a fish with an A-bomb,' Lawrence said [echoing the sentiments of many constitutional scholars]. "President Clinton and numerous women and labor groups are supporting tougher [imposition of government collection of private race and gender data, illegally and unconstitutionally, to build an advance prima facie case for gender discrimination against innocent businesses without proof of intent or causaility].
"When he presented his budget Monday, Clinton asked Congress for $14 million to hire
more staff to enforce equal pay laws by both the Labor Department and the Equal
Opportunity Employment Commission [using illegally collected "a priori"
discrimination data from private employers and government contractors]." (San
Francisco Chronicle, 02/06/99, page A4, by Davan Maharaj) More Racial Profiling: Dept.
of Labor to Require Racial Head Counts! (Pay Site) END of USDOL News Page. |
