Pryor Cashman Partner Joshua Zuckerberg, co-chair of the Labor + Employment Group and the Discrimination + Harassment, Labor-Management Relations, and Restrictive Covenants + Trade Secrets Practices, spoke with Corporate Counsel about a recent enforcement push by the U.S. Department of Labor against discriminatory hiring practices.
In "Feds Putting Squeeze on Federal Contractors for Hiring Disparities," Josh notes that in instances when companies are involved with government business, "Federal contractors have different types of obligations than private employers do."
He also talks about some factors that contractors may want to consider going forward:
Zuckerberg said he's seen a number of creative solutions being proposed by private employers to get around that, and possibly could be useful for government contractors. These include committing to having a certain percentage of minority candidates in a company's applicant pool, and more actively recruiting at minority campuses and communities.
Holt noted that, unlike the college admissions scenarios in Students v. Harvard, federal contractors' affirmative action obligations explicitly do not involve the consideration of gender or race as a factor in applicant selection.
"The regulations governing federal contractors require positive outreach and recruitment, and an analysis of hiring policies and practices to confirm there is no barrier to selection for any race or gender, she said.
"The regulations place no obligations on employers to do anything but select the best qualified candidates for a position, without regard to their race, gender or any protected characteristic."
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