Gabrielle Martin, President of the National Council of EEOC Locals, No. 216, AFGE/AFL-CIO, (“the Council”), which represents EEOC’s employees, states with concern, “Workplace discrimination will continue unabated, while EEOC offices will shutdown.” 

The EEOC’s budget has been frozen since FY10 at $367M.  The agency is currently funded through a continuing resolution that includes a $5.5M cut.  House appropriators have left EEOC’s budget in tact for FY12.  However, on the Senate side, EEOC did not escape a 2% across the board reduction that amounts to a $7M cut.   The harm this cut would take on EEOC was not taken lightly be Senate appropriators.  The Senate Report states:

The EEOC anticipates 108,000 discrimination charges will be filed by the end of fiscal year 2012, with the goal of having 93,000 end-of-year pending cases. Budget cuts and expanding enforcement responsibilities will make EEOC hard-pressed to meet this goal, leaving the Commission with an erosion of mission-critical staff, increased discrimination charge inventory, limits on its litigation docket, diminished employment sector enforcement efforts and delayed customer service.

EEOC would not be shutting down on furlough days for lack of work.  The fiscal year that ended last week is anticipated to be the third year of record high filings of over 100,000 discrimination charges.  According to Martin, “If the public is frustrated with EEOC’s current nine month average processing time, it will only get worse when you factor in furlough days.”

As Martin awaits information from the agency regarding the number of furlough days, she laments, “I was surprised that the Chair sent such a demoralizing message to staff during the critical final week of the fiscal year.”    Martin appreciates that the cuts could be worse, but states, “In today’s economy, workers cannot afford for EEOC to shutdown from enforcing laws that prevent job destroying discrimination.”

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