Cummings Lauds House Passage of Bill to Strengthen Protections for Federal Employees

Jul 11, 2017
Press Release

Cummings Lauds House Passage of Bill to  Strengthen Protections for Federal Employees

 

Washington, D.C. (July 11, 2017)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, lauded the House passage of the Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act of 2017—legislation he introduced to strengthen protections for federal employees. 

“Federal Equal Employment Opportunity programs exist to uphold the guarantee of equal opportunity that is the right of every citizen in this nation and to ensure that any barriers impeding fairness in personnel decisions are identified and eliminated,” Cummings said. “While the vast majority of federal workplaces comply with EEO requirements, this bill will ensure that all federal workplaces are required to meet the standards of a model EEO program.”

The bill, which is cosponsored by Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton, James F. Sensenbrenner, and Sheila Jackson Lee, would:

  •        ensure that the head of an agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity program reports directly to the agency head;
  •        expand notifications that agencies are required to provide when discrimination is found to have occurred, and require agencies to track and report whether such findings resulted in any disciplinary action; and
  •        prohibit non-disclosure agreements that seek to prevent federal employees from disclosing to Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, or an Inspector General any information that relates to violations of laws, rules, regulations, or instance of waste, fraud or abuse.

The bill was introduced in January of this year, and it was passed by the Oversight Committee in February.

Click here to read Cummings’ statement for the record.

Click here to watch Rep. Gerald E. Connolly’s floor statement in support of the bill.

115th Congress