Husch Blackwell attorney Tracey O’Brien has posted about the new guidelines OFCCP released on veteran hiring benchmarks, reducing the national annual benchmark to 5.4%. Continue Reading OFCCP Publishes Annual Veteran Hiring Benchmark and New Self-Identification of Disability Form
New OFCCP rules amending the nondiscrimination and affirmative action provisions of the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment and Assistance Act and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act are expected to be effective March 24, 2014. OFCCP has published a set of forms that are to be used in implementing the new rules, which are available in this client alert from Husch Blackwell’s OFCCP compliance team.
As we have discussed in several earlier posts, the new rules represent an aggressive move by OFCCP. They impose significant new recordkeeping obligations on federal contractors and subcontractors. They set high placement goals and hiring benchmarks for veterans and individuals with disabilities. They authorize OFCCP to obtain more contractor information during compliance reviews.
One of the key issues with the new rules is that they require federal contractors and subcontractors to ask job applicants and current employees whether they are individuals with disabilities. Such questioning is normally prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Needless to say, there has been a lot of opposition to the new OFCCP rules.
Affirmative action requirements for disabled workers have always taken a back seat to those for women and minorities. New regulations proposed by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs put recruiting and retention of disabled workers on center stage. OFCCP seeks to impose a hiring goal of 7% disabled workers and to enhance obligations for
Is it proper to discharge an employee whose morbid obesity makes it impossible for him to perform his job? Or is obesity a “disability” that must be accommodated under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act? The EEOC weighed in on these questions in its new complaint against BAE Systems, Inc. [pdf].
Continue Reading Morbid obesity as a disability under the ADA