In court documents filed on April 3, 2019, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) announced that employers may be required to submit pay data to the agency by September 30, 2019.

The filing was made after Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the EEOC to describe when and how it will comply with the Court’s March 4th Order lifting the White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s August 2017 stay on the EEOC’s collection of pay data.

Pay data has received much attention from employers and advocates alike since the Court’s March 4th Order, but the EEOC has largely remained silent until this recent filing.  For example, on March 18, 2019, when the EEOC opened its online portal for filing EEO-1 reports for 2018 (which are due by May 31, 2019), the portal did not include any request for pay data. 

While no federal law requires employers to provide employees with paid sick leave benefits, such an obligation does exist under certain state and municipal laws, including but not limited to those in Connecticut, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and New York City.

The scope of each of these laws, however, varies greatly. For example, while Connecticut’s law generally only applies to hourly workers in certain “service” occupations, California’s law generally applies to all employees, including temporary employees, who work in the state for 30 or more days per year. The consequences for failing to comply with the relevant state or municipal law likewise vary, with certain locales providing employees with their own private right of action.

In order to determine what, if any, paid sick leave obligations it has, employers should be sure to familiarize themselves with the following information:

• The states or municipalities that have