A federal contractor’s Constitutional challenges against the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) audit scheduling process took an unusual turn last week after U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh formally intervened in what is already one of the longest running administrative cases between a federal contractor and OFCCP.
The Secretary of Labor’s decision to intervene “to undertake further review” in OFCCP v. Convergys Customer Management Group, Inc. sets aside (at least temporarily) an order issued early this month by the Department of Labor (DOL) Administrative Review Board (ARB). The ARB’s now-suspended order would have sent a recent decision issued by a Labor Department administrative law judge (ALJ) back to the ALJ to conduct additional legal proceedings to determine whether OFCCP in fact applied specific, neutral criteria in selecting several Convergys facilities for compliance evaluations starting back in 2013.
Notably, the Secretary’s intervention is the first exercise of this power in an OFCCP case taken pursuant to Secretary of Labor Order 01-2020, which was issued by Trump Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia and which among other things gives the Secretary of Labor authority to intervene in ARB decisions.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.