The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is considering the development of a new data tool to collect information on salaries, wages, and other benefits paid to employees of federal contractors and subcontractors.

The tool would improve the compliance office's ability to gather data that could be analyzed for indicators of discrimination, such as disparities faced by female and minority workers. To provide an opportunity for the public to submit feedback, the department published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in the Aug. 10 edition of the Federal Register.

The compliance office enforces Executive Order 11246, which prohibits companies that do business with the federal government from discriminating in employment practices, including compensation, on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. Last year, the agency announced plans to create a compensation data tool in the department's fall 2010 regulatory agenda. In addition to providing the compliance office investigators with insight into potential pay discrimination warranting further review, the proposed tool would provide a self-assessment element to help employers evaluate the effects of their compensation practices.

"Today, almost 50 years after the Equal Pay Act became law, the wage gap has narrowed, but not nearly enough," says Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "The president and I are committed to ending pay discrimination once and for all."

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2010 women were paid an average of 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. In addition to the gender gap, research has shown that race- and ethnicity-based pay gaps put workers of color, including men, at a disadvantage. Eliminating compensation-based discrimination is a priority.

"Pay discrimination continues to plague women and people of color in the workforce," says director Patricia A. Shiu, a member of the president's National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force. "This proposal is about gathering better data, which will allow us to focus our enforcement resources where they are most needed. We can't truly solve this problem until we can see it, measure it, and put dollar figures on it."

The notice poses 15 questions for public response on the types of data that should be requested, the scope of information the compliance office should seek, how the data should be collected, how the data should be used, what the tool should look like, which contractors should be required to submit compensation data and how the tool might create potential burdens for small businesses. The proposal is open to public response for until Oct. 11. To read the proposal or submit a comment, visit the federal rulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov.

In addition to Executive Order 11246, the compliance office's legal authority exists under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. These three laws hold those who do business with the federal government, both contractors and subcontractors, to the fair and reasonable standard that they not discriminate in employment on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.