The Clinton Administration Thursday launched a task force to study and recommend ways to improve the federal equal employment opportunity complaint process.
The task force, announced by Ida Castro, chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Morley Winograd, director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), will develop a report on how agencies can make their EEO redress systems smoother. The group will also foster pilot projects for testing new methods of resolving EEO disputes.
"Our goal will be to improve the workplace and prevent charges from arising, streamline the process for current and new charges and shorten the length of time it will take to resolve these charges through the effective use of early dispute resolution techniques," Castro said.
Federal agencies face a backlog of thousands of EEO complaints and spin-off complaints in various stages of the federal EEO redress system. Managers and employees end up mired in the process, with the average age of cases now more than a year old.
The task force will include a senior leadership committee with representatives from agencies' top management, NPR, the EEOC, unions and other groups interested in the federal EEO system. The task force is looking to identify best practices in dispute prevention and early dispute resolution and to develop better data on EEO issues in the government, which the General Accounting Office has questioned.
The Blacks in Government association has also questioned NPR's effect on EEO issues, charging that personnel reforms such as pay-banding, pass-fail performance appraisal systems and deregulation promote favoritism and discrimination in the federal government.
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