Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Relating to ``Update of Commission's Conciliation Procedures''

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to S.J. Res. 13, which negates a recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, rule. I urge Members to reject this misguided resolution.

The rule in question, often referred to as the conciliation rule, is fair, increases transparency, reduces senseless litigation, and upholds a Federal statute.

There are dozens of pressing problems demanding Congress' attention. Our southern border is being run over by drug dealers and human traffickers. America is vulnerable to cyberattacks from adversarial foreign nations, like China and Russia. Our children are months behind in their schoolwork because of Democrats' insistence on putting teachers' union leadership demands before students' interests.

We could be addressing those problems, but Democrats are choosing to elevate the repeal of this commonsense rule before all those other immediate issues.

Let's examine the facts of the matter. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires EEOC to engage in conciliation. Before the EEOC can pursue court proceedings against an employer for a discrimination claim, the agency must work with the business to resolve the dispute.

There are good reasons Congress established this requirement. Successful conciliations provide immediate relief to employees who suffered discrimination. Conciliations also save these employees time and money. Court cases are adversarial and can last years. Individuals who experience discrimination should not have to wait years for justice.

Nothing in the regulation prohibits the EEOC from using the court system if conciliation fails. For over four decades, EEOC's conciliation process remained largely ineffectual and unaltered. Antiquated bureaucratic systems deserve scrutiny, and this opaque practice was long overdue for improvement.

Prior to the rule's promulgation, a paltry 41 percent of the conciliations were successful. One out of every three employers declined to participate in this broken process.

In 2015, the Supreme Court reprimanded the EEOC for its inadequate conciliation process, which included failing to communicate basic information about the alleged discrimination to employers. The mounting evidence of a failed conciliation process grew harder and harder for the EEOC to ignore. That is why the conciliation rule was issued on January 14, after an extensive notice-and-comment rulemaking.

Under the rule, the core tenets of conciliation remain unchanged. Conciliation stays voluntary, does not favor either the employer or the worker, and protects individuals' privacy.

The rule requires the EEOC to provide employers with basic but important information in support of the agency's findings, including simple underlying facts, the legal basis for the finding, an explanation of the monetary relief calculations, and whether the EEOC designated the case for a class of individuals.

The rule also does not increase costs to taxpayers. EEOC is on the record saying its operating budget will absorb any minor costs associated with implementing the rule.

In summary, S.J. Res. 13 harms the victims of discrimination; encourages the EEOC to pursue needless, combative, and expensive litigation; and turns the EEOC back into a politically driven, runaway bureaucracy.

Madam Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on S.J. Res. 13, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, Democrats have claimed that EEOC's conciliation rule could subject employees to retaliation. This claim could not be further from the truth.

First, the rule explicitly states that employees may remain anonymous in the conciliation process if they so choose. In such cases, settlement discussions would proceed with the employee or employees making claims of discrimination remaining anonymous.

Second, the existing statutes to which the conciliation rule applies all make it illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee for filing a charge with EEOC or participating in EEOC proceedings. An employer would be compounding its legal exposure if it unwisely tried to act against employees for making a complaint to the EEOC.

The claim that the conciliation rule will expose employees to retaliation is a red herring.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, in 2015, the Supreme Court harshly criticized EEOC's conciliation process in the Mach Mining decision, which held that a court may review whether the EEOC satisfied its statutory obligation to engage in conciliation before filing a lawsuit.

The agency claimed that two ``bookend letters'' were all that was needed to satisfy the statutory conciliation requirement, one at the beginning of the process announcing a finding of discrimination, and one at the end stating that conciliation had failed.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, S.J. Res. 13 is a partisan maneuver to overturn an eminently reasonable regulation. Before the rule, the EEOC's conciliation process was out of date, opaque, and ineffective. Individuals subject to workplace discrimination should not have to wait years for justice.

Employers are not asking too much when they request basic information about the EEOC's findings. The conciliation rule updates a broken system and is beneficial to both workers and employers.

S.J. Res. 13 delivers a partisan victory for the Democrats' technocrat base.

Madam Speaker, I reject S.J. Res. 13, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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