EEO Data Collection Commenters Spar on Extensiveness
Commenters on FCC-proposed collection of equal employment opportunity data agreed the agency should gather broadcast ownership information but disagreed on how that should be collected, in filings posted in docket 98-204 by Thursday’s deadline.
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The Center for Workplace Compliance said the FCC plan could limit the demographic information the agency can gather. NAB said published data results shouldn’t be attributable to specific stations, called for exceptions for some broadcasters and said the effort won’t aid diversity. “Publishing the racial composition of each broadcaster’s workforce would clearly exceed the FCC’s authority,” NAB said.
If the FCC does resume collecting data through Form 395-B, do it anonymously because public reporting would be “beyond its constitutional authority,” said NAB. FCC EEO workforce data collection was suspended in 2001 after two court cases raised constitutional concerns, and a 2004 Further NPRM didn’t lead to action (see 2103260038). Publishing specific station diversity data could be used to “unlawfully pressure broadcasters to make race- and gender-based hiring decisions,” NAB said. “Disclosure would reveal trade secrets and commercial information to competitors,” said the CWC, an employer trade group. This could reveal the size of a company's sales staff, “which in combination with other available financial information could be used to calculate approximate revenue generated per Sales Worker,” CWC said.
Diversity and public interest groups didn’t call for the data collected to be station attributable, though the NPRM asked about it.
The Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights said the information must be collected and should be aggregated in a searchable database. “Employment data is necessary to understand whether the FCC’s existing EEO rules are working,” said the conference, which includes the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, Asian American Journalists Association, League of United Latin American Citizens and other diversity groups jointly seconded the conference’s position on data collection. The conference said collection of demographic data is well within agency authority and the Constitution.
NAB and CWC said the FCC could get much of the same information from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Nearly identical data” is already collected by the annual EEO-1 Report, CWC said. Exempt companies that are required to fill out the EEO-1 report from the Form 395-B requirement, or allow the EEO form to be submitted in its place, said NAB. “There is no evidence that piling on more rules or reports” will further the goal of increasing employment diversity in broadcasting, NAB said.
Update gender choices on the form, said broadcast law firm Foster Garvey and a collection of 18 public media broadcast clients. Form 395-B should have “additional options beyond the binary responses of ‘Male’ or ‘Female,’” said Foster Garvey: That would reflect congressional requirements.
Go beyond collecting data and step up compliance and enforcement, said MMTC et alia: Do more thorough EEO audits, extend enforcement to tech companies and examine whether violations of EEO job outreach requirements also violate nondiscrimination rules. NAB took aim at audits. The association said the FCC has audited at least 15,000 stations, which “resulted in fewer than 20 Notices of Apparent Liability or Admonishments to broadcasters for EEO rules violations.”