MINUTES OF THE FEBRUARY 2004 COUNCIL OF FEDERAL EEO AND CIVIL RIGHTS EXECUTIVES

The meeting was held on February 25, 2004, at the Office of Personnel Management. Michelle Payton-Kenner, EEO Director at OPM, hosted the meeting.

Council Chairs Delia Johnson and Jorge Ponce welcomed everyone and outlined the agenda.

Julie Ferguson Queen, an attorney with the OPM’s Office of General Counsel, addressed Title II of the No Fear Act.

OPM has a working group made up of representatives from the Department of Justice, EEOC, Office of Special Counsel, and Treasury to develop the Title II regulations.  OPM has almost completed the interim final rules for the notification/training requirements, which will be published in the Federal Register shortly.   

OPM has issued already the interim final rules for the reimbursement of the judgment fund, so the two rules that remain to be issued are those dealing with the notification/training requirements and the annual reporting requirement [to Congress, EEOC, and the Attorney General] on the disciplinary actions taken and on the payments made to the judgment fund payments.  The first report is due in March 2005.   

ANNUAL NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENT

Requires federal agencies to notify employees of their rights under the discrimination, whistleblower protection, and retaliation laws.  OPM is trying to develop a uniform notification requirement.

TRAINING REQUIREMENT

Requires federal agencies to train all employees (managers, supervisors, and employees) about the EEO and whistleblower rights and protections.  EEOC and OSC are willing to act as consultants.  However, agencies will have to conduct this training yearly or every three years.  OPM is still working on the latter, and the training frequency might depend on the size of the agency workforce. 

It’s a good idea to track this training and place the training certificates in the employees’ OPFs as proof that employees were aware of the various EEO time frames.  Thus, if they file an EEO complaint and claim that they did not know that they had to contact a Counselor within 45 days, the training certificate will act as a defense for the agency.   

ANNUAL REPORTING REQUIREMENT

There is a lot of controversy about this portion.  The majority of federal agencies were waiting for OPM to conduct a comprehensive study of the best practices relating to appropriate disciplinary actions against employees who violate federal discrimination, whistleblower, and discrimination laws before contacting their personnel offices and asking them to change their tables of penalties.  Well, we found out this morning that OPM is waiting for federal agencies to issue their reports to then prepare the best practices report.  We clearly need more guidance on these issues from OPM.