DOL Puts Contractor Watchdog Employees on Leave as Layoffs Loom

The vast majority of employees at most of the Department of Labor’s federal contractor watchdog’s offices across the country have been placed on administrative leave as part of federal workforce downsizing, according to an email viewed by Bloomberg Law.

Employees in the enforcement branch of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ national office and workers at the agency’s outposts across five of six US regions received notice of their change in status in the email sent Wednesday by new OFCCP Director Catherine Eschbach.

The action was taken due to the agency’s “significantly reduced scope of mission,” Eschbach said in the email to staff.

The OFCCP has become a major target of planned federal workforce cuts within the DOL carried out by the Trump administration, after the president gutted the office’s legal and oversight power at the start of his second term.

A Feb. 25 DOL memo indicated the department plans to ultimately cut 90% of the OFCCP’s workforce.

More reductions in force across the federal government are coming, as agencies including the DOL had a March 13 deadline to submit their plans to the Trump administration.

The new notice to OFCCP workers came two days after their third deadline to opt into deferred resignations and early retirement that would give them an exit route before expected layoffs.

Eschbach’s notice went to all employees within the impacted offices and largely affects those who were “trying to ride it out” and chose not to accept the three deferred resignation offers, said Brent Barron, president of American Federation Of Government Employees Local 648 and a vice president of the National Council of Field Labor Locals.

“This is a hell of a way to run the government,” Barron added.

The administrative leave announcement does not affect the policy, operations, and administrative branches of the OFCCP’s national office, as well as its offices in one geographic area—-the Southwest and Rocky Mountain Region, according to the email.

Spokespeople for DOL and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Shrinking Authority

President Donald Trump’s executive order on Jan. 21 rescinded the decades-old EO 11246 that established most of the DOL watchdog’s authority to audit federal contractors’ hiring and pay practices for potential discrimination, leaving in place only its statutory authority to enforce antibias laws for disabled workers and veterans.

In a memo to staff on the day she was named director in March, Eschbach said the agency would review that remaining authority, as well.

AFGE Local 12 received an email Wednesday from the OFCCP’s Office of Human Resources that indicated employees in the enforcement division would be placed on administrative leave the evening of April 15, a day before the email was sent, according to a copy of the union’s message to members viewed by Bloomberg Law.

The union said in the message it believes the notification was “was deliberately delayed—likely due to the grievance filed yesterday by AFGE Local 12 against the Department for failure to provide proper notice to the Union.”

Employees who opted into the deferred resignation program in impacted regions were placed on administrative leave effective Friday evening, AFGE said.

“While we firmly believe this action is a precursor to a Reduction in Force (RIF) or Transfer of Function (TOF), we have not yet received official notification or the required lists to verify that the Department follows the proper bump and retreat protocols,” the union said in the email.

The cuts and lack of OFCCP enforcement will create “open season for federal contractors to just scam the living hell out of us,” Barron said.