Chair Burrows speaks at NILG conference

On August 3, 2023, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Charlotte Burrows spoke to the National Industry Liaison Group (NILG) conference. According to Chair Burrows now that Kalpana Kotagal has been confirmed as an EEOC commissioner, equal pay, harassment guidance, artificial intelligence bias, and protection for pregnant works are the top issues for the commission to tackle. The chair expects the agency to focus on “tackling systemic discrimination in all its forms, including developing guidance on harassment including for the construction industry.”

On the subject of pay data reporting, Burrows told the audience they are carefully considering the National Academy of Science’s report from 2022 to ensure they “get this right.” While she declined to say more so as not to “get ahead of the commission’s process,” she did say the audience would be hearing more as the commission seeks stakeholder input as part of its process. She did say she believes pay data reporting is “something they are moving towards.”

Burrows said that the audience could expect the draft Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) regulations to be issued soon. (The draft regulations issued on August 7, 2023, and are discussed in a separate article.) She ended her comments with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, saying that implementation of those “things that matter, the things that make a difference” may be tedious, but “when you put it all together at the end, it’s magical.”

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