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Costs Of Influencing Collective Bargaining Decisions Proposed For Disallowance

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 04.22.10

To implement the provisions of Executive Order No. 13494, Economy in Government Contracting, the FAR Council has proposed changes to the labor relations cost principle, FAR 31.205-21, expressly to disallow the costs of activities to persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise their collective bargaining rights, such as the costs of preparing and distributing materials, legal and consultant fees, costs of meetings (including salaries of attendees), and planning and conducting activities by managers, supervisors, or union representatives during working hours. Comments on the proposed rule are due June 14, 2010.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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