- Overview
- EEO Regulations: What You Should Know
- Sharing Your Equal Opportunity Policy
- Conducting Outreach and Recruitment
- Preventing Harassment, Intimidation, and Retaliation
- Providing Reasonable Accommodations
- Developing and Implementing an Affirmative Action Program (AAP)
- Encouraging Self-Identification and Measuring Against the 7% Utilization Goal
Who is required to comply with the EEO regulations?
All sponsors of RAPs have a general duty to engage in steps to ensure they provide equal opportunity to all apprentices and apprenticeship candidates. They are prohibited from discriminating against potential and existing apprentices on the basis of disability status, race, gender, and ethnicity.
The steps sponsors are required to follow include:
- Assigning responsibility to a staff member to oversee EEO-related activities.
- Internally distributing an EEO policy as well as conducting orientation and information sessions for apprentices regarding the EEO policy.
- Conducting outreach and recruitment and providing notice about apprenticeship openings to community-based organizations, schools, and other groups that represent diverse population groups.
- Keeping the workplace free from harassment, intimidation, and retaliation, which includes anti-harassment training and maintaining procedures for handling and resolving complaints.
- Maintaining compliance with Federal and State EEO laws.
Other guidelines sponsors must follow include:
- Providing reasonable accommodations to applicants and apprentices with disabilities to allow them to perform the essential functions of the job.
- Using recruitment methods that comply with Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures and the Americans with Disabilities Act. View the Apprentice Selection Quick Reference Guide for details on selection procedures.
- Using complaint procedures for individuals to file EEO complaints and for Office of Apprenticeship (OA) and State Apprenticeship to handle these complaints.
RAPs with 5 or more apprentices must follow these steps:
- Develop and implement an Affirmative Action Program.
- Invite all apprentices and applicants for apprenticeship to voluntarily self-identify as people with disabilities.
- Measure the proportion of apprentices with disabilities in the program against a national 7% utilization goal.
Read more about the history of EEO regulations
On December 19, 2016 the U.S. Department of Labor issued updated regulations to modernize and simplify Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) practices in registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). These rules, which had not been updated since 1978, originally barred employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex, but they were revised in 2016 to extend protections for under-represented workers and apprentices, including women, minorities, and people with disabilities.