Quick Hits
- On November 21, 2024, OFCCP released “A Guide to Combatting Harassment in the Construction Industry,” providing information and resources for federal construction contractors and subcontractors.
- OFCCP’s guide is prepared in a Q&A chart format detailing the agency’s responsibilities, generally, and discussing harassment examples, obligations related to combatting harassment in the construction industry, worker rights, and best practices for maintaining harassment-free workplaces.
- OFCCP’s guide follows similar guidance from the EEOC about preventing harassment in the construction industry.
OFCCP explains that its new guide “helps the public understand OFCCP’s jurisdiction in the construction industry, clarifies what is harassment, includes helpful information for workers, and offers information and guidelines for federal construction contractors and subcontractors and federally assisted construction contractors.”
The guide offers information in a question-and-answer (Q&A) chart format that details:
- what OFCCP is and does, the agency’s general responsibilities, and the laws and regulations it enforces—including those specific to the construction industry;
- how harassment is defined, how to identify it, where it could come from, and examples of harassment;
- contractor obligations to combat sexual harassment and gender- or sex-based harassment;
- the rights of workers to harassment-free workplaces; and
- best practices for contractors to implement and maintain harassment-free workplaces.
OFCCP reminds contractors that “[t]he harasser may be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a third party (such as a client, customer, vendor, subcontractor, etc.).” The guide also offers a nonexhaustive list of examples of harassment, along with a hyperlink to the EEOC’s April 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, which offers even more detailed examples of harassment and harassment scenarios.
Links to agency resources are provided throughout OFCCP’s guide, including those for jurisdictional thresholds, materials for the Mega Construction Project Program, complaint procedures, and various OFCCP and EEOC websites and guides applicable to construction contractors. Also addressed are other compliance obligations specific to the construction industry, including the sixteen affirmative action steps, participation goals for minorities and women, and procedures related to individuals with disabilities and protected veterans.
Compared to the EEOC’s lengthier and more detailed guidance from April and June 2024, OFCCP’s guide is set up in a summary fashion that allows the reader not only to review significant points quickly but also to easily access more details and examples through hyperlinks provided. The EEOC’s June 2024 publication also makes specific reference to possible “additional legal obligations arising under laws or regulations enforced by [OFCCP]” for some entities. Thus, federal construction contractors and subcontractors will likely want to become familiar with all the guides published by OFCCP and the EEOC.
Ogletree Deakins’ OFCCP Compliance, Government Contracting, and Reporting Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Construction, Government Contractors, and OFCCP Compliance, Government Contracting, and Reporting blogs as additional information becomes available.
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