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Overview:

The Employment Standards Administration (ESA), which was eliminated Novenber 8, 2009, enforced compliance and monitors laws governing legally mandated equal employment opportunity, minimum wages and working conditions. ESA works with employers by giving technical assistance and training regarding proper administration of laws, including nondiscrimination, affirmative action, workers’ compensation, labor union standards, minimum wage, overtime and child labor.

History:

The ESA was established in 1971 as the Workplace Standards Administration and changed to the Employment Standards Administration in the Department of Labor to combine major components under management of one assistant secretary and office. The Wage and Hour Division was the earliest program created by the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. It included minimum wage, overtime pay and child labor policy. Since then it has come to enforce many other labor acts, including the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. The Office of Federal Contract and Compliance was formed in 1965 and by 1978 included all federal government contract compliances. The Office of Workers’ Compensation Program began with an organization created in 1916 to file claims under the Federal Employees Compensation Act. It now also includes acts to protect coal miners and maritime workers and their families in cases of work-related injury, illness or death. The Office of Labor-Management Standards was first established as the Bureau of Labor-Management Reports with the 1959 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Its main purpose was to maintain standards in labor organizations representing employees in private industry. With the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and the Foreign Service Act of 1980, this office also included federal-sector unions. The office gained its current name in 1984 and became part of ESA in 1992, and was transferred back in 1996 after a brief stay at the Office of the American Workplace.

What it Does:

The ESA is comprised of four divisions to enforce employment standards:

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is responsible for ensuring that employers working with the federal government are adhering to nondiscrimination policies and pursuing affirmative action policies. The reasoning is that employees paid with federal money should be given equal employment opportunity (EEO) and equal treatment. OFCCP enforces legislation by offering technical assistance to federal contractor and subcontractors to train them regarding regulations and requirements. This office also monitors and conducts compliance evaluations of all contractors working with the federal government. OFCCP investigates complaints, aids contractors in recruiting qualified workers and provides sanctions for violating the policies, such as disbarment from contracting with the government. OFCCP enforces five laws and regulations. Executive Order 11246 of 1965 prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, gender, religion and national origin for contracts over $10,000. Federal contractors with contracts of $50,000 or more or fifty or more employees must implement affirmative action programs to provide EEO. Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects qualified individuals with disabilities from discrimination in all personnel practices and helps them gain employment through affirmative action programs. The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 extends OFCCP responsibility to veterans who served on active duty in any U.S. armed services who are disabled, Vietnam veterans, and recently discharged veterans. OFCCO also monitors the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 by ensuring that employers maintain records of the citizenship status of employees. Finally, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 provides for qualified individuals with disabilities protection against employment discrimination.

Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) administers the regulations under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). LMRDA regulations create standards for unions representing private industry employees and Federal employees. OLMS coordinates with labor organizations to create democratic components, such as a Bill of Rights for members and fair elections of union officers. It also aims to make unions fiscally responsible by maintaining requirements for transparency of financial information and administrative practices, while also safeguarding union funds and assets. Transit employees are also protected when federal funds are used improve or operate a transit system. OLMS ensures fair and equitable standards by the Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration before funds are released. OLMS holds Compliance Assistance Seminars with labor unions to educate union members and to promote voluntary compliance with regulations.

Office of Workers’ Compensation Program (OWCP) is comprised of four programs concerning work-related disability compensation, benefits, treatment and rehabilitation. The Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation provides coverage to three million Federal and Postal workers for employment-related injury and disease. This program is funded by the agencies employing federal workers, and benefits include wage compensation, payment of medical bills and rehabilitation to re-enter the workforce. The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act extends protection for work-related injury to maritime workers in the waters of the U.S. or protecting U.S. defenses or interests internationally. The Division of Coal Mine Workers’ Compensation enforces the Black Lung Benefits Act that protects coal mine workers disabled by pneumoconiosis or other mine-related injuries. This division manages claims by miners and their families and payments due to injury, illness or death. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation program, founded in 2001, compensates Department of Energy workers and their families for disability, illness and death related to radiation, toxin and other exposures. By 2008, it had a backlog of 20,000 claims relating to cancer caused by workplace exposure to radiation and illness associated with beryllium, and 25,000 claims related to illnesses caused by toxic chemicals and nonradioactive materials.

Sick Nuclear Workers, Advocates Say Government Hasn’t Done Enough (by Frank Munger, Knox News)

Wage and Hour Division (WHD) enforces many national labor laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act to enforce national minimum wage, overtime work pay and standards for hours worked. The Family and Medical Leave Act allows employees to leave work for up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave to care for family members who have serious health condition, for the birth and care of a newborn child, for employee medical leave or to take care of family members recuperating from serving in the armed services. The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act protects temporary or migrant farm laborers. WHD also enforces regulations for farm laborers in general relating to child labor laws, employee rights and pay standards. This division also works with Immigration to maintain records of employee citizenship status.

Wage and Hour Division Press Releases

Congressional Oversight:

House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy; Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies; Committee on Appropriations

Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families; Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies; Committee on Appropriations

Comments

Teresa Howard 14 years ago

Hello Ms. Lipnic, My name is Teresa Howard and I have recently been hired as transition coordinator with Ouachita Parish School System in West Monroe , LA. I am going through the files of my predaccessor and found a copy of Guidelines for students who are placed in a work study program. I did not want to disperse this if there was a newer version. It was signed by Robert Davila; Assistant Secretary, Offfice of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services of US Dept. of Educa...

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Table of Contents
Overview
History
What it Does
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Founded: 1971

Annual Budget: $463 million

Employees: 3,380

Official Website: http://

Employment Standards Administration

Lipnic, Victoria

Acting Chair

Victoria Lipnic, a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) who had been widely seen as a possible secretary of labor in the Donald Trump administration, instead settled for being named acting chairman of the EEOC on January 25, 2017. The EEOC is responsible for eliminating all forms of discrimination in the workplace.

Lipnic is from Carrolltown, Pennsylvania, where her father Ed, a teacher, also served as mayor. She attended Cambria Heights High School and went on to Allegheny College, where she earned a B.A. in political science and history in 1982.

Lipnic found a job in the Reagan-era Commerce Department under then-Secretary Malcolm Baldridge, ending her stint there as special assistant to the assistant secretary for trade development and the International Trade Administration.

She then went to law school at George Mason, earning her J.D. in 1991. Lipnic worked for a time as an attorney in private practice before landing a spot in 1994 with the U.S. Postal Service as their in-house counsel for employment matters. After six years there, she moved to Congress as the workforce policy counsel to the House Education and Labor Committee.

Lipnic joined the George W. Bush administration’s Department of Labor as assistant secretary for employment standards. In that position, Lipnic backed employers’ calls to weaken the Family and Medical Leave Act and pushed through a change in overtime policy that allowed employers to exempt more of their workers from earning overtime pay.

After the Bush administration left office, Lipnic worked briefly at the Seyforth Shaw law firm before being appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama in 2010. She was reappointed in 2015. While a member of the commission, Lipnic dissented in a decision that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sexual discrimination and a violation of Title VII. She also voted against a proposal requiring employers to submit detailed pay data by gender, race and ethnicity as a way of curbing pay discrimination.

Speaking at the offices of her former employer, Seyfarth Shaw, on February 9, 2017, in her first speech as acting chair, Lipnic announced that she hoped the EEOC would increase its focus on age discrimination and equal pay issues and on job creation. She also expressed her intention of having EEOC commissioners vote on more complaints before they are filed in federal court, rather than having general counsel make the decisions. The EEOC currently has a Democratic majority, but that will probably be reversed in July.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Under Trump, EEOC Will Focus on Job Growth (by Kate McGovern Tornone, HR Daily Advisor)

Official Biography

What Trump’s Secretary of Labor Could Do (by Alexia Fernández Campbell, The Atlantic)