The latest change in the EEO-1 Form announced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is that the May 31 deadline remains for employers to file basic data and Sept. 30 for filing more complex data covering the year 2018 (AA, 4-15-19, P. 2).
However, under pressure from a federal judge, the commission added a requirement: Employers must submit pay data for 2017 also by the same Sept. 30 deadline.
The new deadlines were approved by the federal district court judge who overturned an earlier attempt by the commission to simplify the EEO-1 Form, removing enlarged reporting requirements that were imposed by the Obama-era EEOC.
The end result is that employers now have only about two weeks to file the first part of the newly- required form. The May 31 deadline applies to what EEOC calls Component 1 data, which includes workforce demographics by job category, race, ethnicity and gender. Employers may request an extension until June 14, but requests for deadline extensions beyond then require EEOC approval.
The Component 2 data due by Sept. 30 must include aggregated data for 2017 and 2018 regarding the pay and hours employees worked, broken down into 12 pay “bands” that range from about $19,000 to more than $208,000 a year, spread across 10 job categories, and then divided into the same racial, ethnic and gender groupings used in the past.
Employers must draw this data from a single payroll period of the employer’s choosing that occured between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of each reporting year.
All U.S. employers with 100 or more employees, as well as by federal contractors and subcontractors who employ 50 or more workers, are required to file both the Component 1 and 2 forms.
EEOC also announced that collection of Component 2 data for 2017 and 2018 will begin in mid-July, with a deadline of Sept. 30. The precise date the Web portal will be open will be announced soon. EEOC also intends to provide some employers with two-week extensions for the Sept. 30 deadline.
Chem Data Says Economy Better
The Chemical Activity Barometer, a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council, rose 0.5% in April on a three- month moving average (3MMA) basis, the second monthly gain after several weak months.
On a year-over-year (Y/Y) basis, the barometer is up 0.3% 3MMA, according to the council. The CAB provides a lead of two to 14 months, with an average lead of eight months at cycle peaks.
The CAB has four primary components, each consisting of a variety of indicators: production; equity prices; product prices; and inventories and other indicators.
The unadjusted measure of the CAB rose 0.8% in April and 0.7% in March. The barometer’s diffusion index was steady at 65% in April, an improvement over the winter months.
The diffusion index marks the number of positive contributors relative to the total number of indicators monitored. The CAB reading for March was revised upward by 0.64 points and that for February by 0.10 points (AA, 4-15-19, P. .
“The latest CAB signals gains in U.S. commercial and industrial activity through mid-2019, but at a slow pace,” said ACC chief economist Kevin Swift.
“As a result, the recovery and expansion underway is likely to surpass the record of 120 months set during the 1990s. “The CAB reading suggests that there are glimmers of hope for improving activity in the closing months of the year.”
Production-related indicators in April were mixed. Trends in construction-related resins, pigments and related performance chemistry were mixed and suggest further, but slow, gains in housing activity. Plastic resins used in packaging and in consumer and institutional applications were slightly positive.
Performance chemistry and U.S. exports were mixed. Equity prices rebounded sharply in April, while product and input prices rose. Inventory and other indicators also were positive, ACC reported.
Court Reviews Contractor Case
A federal appeals court will review last year’s California Supreme Court decision nearly wiping out independent contractor status in that state.
The state court threw out a more flexible standard for defining independent contractors that had been in place since 1989, called the Borello test, replacing it with a three-pronged “ABC Test” (AA, 5-31-18, P. 1).
Under the new test, contractor status cannot exist for anyone who is operating in the same business as the company they work for, such as truck owner- operators who lease themselves to trucking firms.
Specifically, the California court said an independent contractor must perform work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business. Other states with ABC tests say the work must be outside the employer’s physical location.
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will decide whether the California decision violates the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which preempts state laws relating to “a price, route, or service of any motor carrier” hauling freight, even if those laws do so indirectly.
Truckers may find some relief in this proceeding, according to attorneys Mara Curtis and Michael Kleinmann of the law firm of Reed Smith “There is reason to believe that the 9th Circuit may find the ABC test preempted by the FAAAA, thus placing companies in the transportation industry contracting with truck drivers back under the traditional Borello test for independent contractor classification.”
Since writing that, the 9th Circuit has upheld the Supreme Court decision’s retroactive application to cases that arose before it was issued, using language complimentary to the original decision. Also, a bill is advancing in the state legislature that would codify the Supreme Court decision into state law.
