On February 1, 2022, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) formally opened its new “Contractor Portal,” a key step in the rollout of the agency’s Affirmative Action Program Verification Interface (AAP-VI) initiative. Under the AAP-VI, covered federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to certify to the agency by June 30, 2022, that they have developed and maintained Affirmative Action Programs (AAPs) in accordance with OFCCP’s regulations, and will be required to certify annually thereafter as long as they remain a federal contractor.
And although contractors can now register with the Contractor Portal, little else is known at this time about how the AAP-VI certification process will work. OFCCP has stated that additional information about the process will be provided in advance of March 31, 2022, which is the date on which contractors can begin certifying their compliance with OFCCP’s regulations. An online information session held by OFCCP on February 1, 2022, provided very little useful information.
Basic compliance questions such as what precisely contractors are being asked to certify about each of their establishments, or even which establishments are subject to the certification requirement, have not been answered.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.