When are Contractors Required to Identify Veterans with Disabilities?

Many Federal Contractors are left confused regarding their responsibility to solicit Veteran data in the application process, specifically when they are required to identify Veterans with Disabilities. This responsibility is in direct conflict with the American with Disabilities Act, so contractors are left wondering “should I ask” and “when should I ask” for Veteran’s to self-ID.  The EEOC provides guidance for soliciting such information as well as providing specific steps/wording that an employer should use on their voluntary self-ID forms. See the EEOC 's FAQ responses below for guidance.

Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/ada_veterans_employers.cfm

May an employer ask if an applicant is a "disabled veteran" if it is seeking to hire someone with a disability?
Yes. Although employers generally may not ask for medical information from applicants prior to making a job offer, they may do so for affirmative action purposes. See EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Pre-employment Disability-Related Questions and Medical Examinations Under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (1995) at www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/preemp.html. An employer, therefore, may ask applicants to voluntarily self-identify as individuals with disabilities or "disabled veterans" when the employer is:

• undertaking affirmative action because of a federal, state, or local law (including a veterans' preference law) that requires affirmative action for individuals with disabilities; or,

• voluntarily using the information to benefit individuals with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities.

An employer also may ask organizations that help find employment for veterans with disabilities whether they have suitable applicants for particular jobs and may access websites on which veterans with disabilities post resumes or otherwise express interest in employment.

What steps should an employer take if it asks an applicant to self-identify as a "disabled veteran" for affirmative action purposes?
If an employer invites applicants to voluntarily self-identify, the employer must indicate clearly and conspicuously on any written questionnaire used for this purpose, or state clearly (if no written questionnaire is used), that:

• the information requested is intended for use solely in connection with its affirmative action obligations or its voluntary affirmative action efforts; and

• the specific information is being requested on a voluntary basis, it will be kept confidential in accordance with the ADA, refusal to provide it will not subject the applicant to any adverse treatment, and it will be used only in accordance with the ADA.

Information collected for affirmative action purposes must be kept separate from the application to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.

To read more about Veterans and American with Disabilities Act (ADA) click on the following link:

http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/ada_veterans_employers.cfm

Additional E-Mail Sent Regarding 2010 EEO Census File

On December 17th, staff from the EEOC sent an e-mail to subscribers regarding additional details about the 2010 EEO census file. Below are the highlights of the e-mail. 

Summary:

• Informal update on the status of the American Community Survey 2010 Special EEO Tabulation from the Census Bureau. These updates will continue, as needed, until the EEO (Tabulation) File and its accompanying means for accessing data from the File are released in the fall of 2012. This information is unofficial and provisional, as it will only be finalized shortly before the Census Bureau releases the EEO File and its mechanism for accessing it.
• As for the information on “disability,” it could not be made part of this upcoming File.
• As mentioned in the first update, the occupational crosswalks for the 2010 File will be based in the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification System.
• In the works is a proposed crosswalk from the 840 detailed occupational codes contained in the SOC system to the approximately 479 detailed occupational categories coded by and available from Census for worksite data. (There will an additional category for residence data.) This same attachment contains the crosswalks between and among the various occupational groupings required for various purposes.
• In addition to the primary SOC to Census crosswalk, the attachment shows the proposed crosswalks for the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) job categories; the EEOC’s nine EEO-1 form categories; the EEOC’s nine MD-715 Federal Sector categories; and the generally useful 14 EEO categories, which can be easily collapsed into the nine EEO-1 categories.
• The Census codes will, more likely than not, consist of four digit codes.
• In addition to the standard numbers and derived percents, the EEO File will have a standard-error or margin-of-error available for every number or estimate. 
• It now appears that Combined Statistical Areas (CBA’s) will not be provided for several reasons, including the fact that they can be constructed from lower level geographies.
• The mechanism for accessing and tabulating information from the Census 2010 Special EEO File will be created by the Census Bureau for the Federal Consortium of civil rights agencies. It will be part of the American FactFinder and will have a new look and feel, be more powerful, and - at the same time - be more user-friendly. 
• The basic EEO tables produced will probably consist of a standard or user-modified table of numbers and table of percents, just as with the previous 2000 EEO File Data Tool(http://www.census.gov/eeo2000/index.html). It will most likely be able produce an additional table of standard-errors or margins-of-error that correspond to each of the estimates contained in the table of numbers.
• In addition to the general tools that are available to everyone for accessing and using the data in the EEO Special File, there will be query and report tools created by the various civil rights agencies that will make it easy for users of the File to find and produce what they need. Traditional users of the EEO Special File will be guided by American FactFinder to special sections that have been developed for them by the Federal civil rights agencies. In essence, the features and capabilities of the previous 2000 Special EEO File Data Tool will be incorporated in FactFinder through special EEO sections, which will provide steps for the EEO community to find, format, print and download what they need.

Despite all of the preceding information on the current status of the Special EEO File and the means for accessing it, the entire project is still a work-in-progress.

More Details on 2010 EEO Census File Emerge

More details are being posted regarding the 2010 EEO census file for use in the development of Affirmative Action Plans. First, the list of census codes has been released and can be found here:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/ioindex/ioindex.html

The 2010 EEO census occupational list has 539 codes and 4 military codes. The list, available in spreadsheet format, is separated by job category.

Additional details were made available in a Powerpoint presentation by the US Census Bureau. The summary is as follows:

- File is sponsored by The EEOC, OFCCP, Dept. of Justice Civil Rights Division and the Office of Personnel Management

- Similar to the 2000 EEO file, the 2010 file is a special tabulation of the civilian labor force (CLF) aged 16 and older

- Occupation by sex by race/ethnicity, and other characteristics for detailed geography

- External benchmark for conducting comparisons between the racial, ethnic, and sex composition of each employer's workforce to its available labor market

- Used by organizations to develop and update their affirmative action plans

- Monitoring/enforcing Civil Rights laws:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA)
Rehabilitation Act of 1973

- New for the 2010 EEO File
ACS 2006-2010 5-year file
Margins of error
2010 Census population base
2010 SOC Occupation categories
Additional variable: Citizenship

- Three Geography Types
Residence
Worksite
Worflow Geography

- Geography Levels
U.S. Total
All states
Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSA’s) of 50,000 or more
Counties and County Sets (Counties with populations of 50,000 or more or aggregations of counties that together have a population of 50,000 or more.)
Places of 50,000 or more

- Expected Availability - Fall 2012

Link to the slides is here:

http://search.census.gov/search?q=2010+eeo+tabulation&filter=0&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&ud=1&client=subsite&proxystylesheet=subsite&hq=inurl%3Awww.census.gov%2Fhhes%2Fwww%2Feeoindex&subtitle=&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8