United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Health, Education, and Human Services Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1995-05-23 monographic deposited born digital GA 1.13:T-HEHS-95-170 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170 P0b002ee1803a34a7 f:the95170 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170 T-HEHS-95-170 Employment discrimination Investigations by federal agencies Civil rights law enforcement Agency missions Human resources utilization Litigation Prioritizing Fair employment programs Agency proceedings Information processing operations Testimony HEHS By law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) must accept every charge of employment discrimination. Today, however, EEOC is burdened with a growing and aging inventory of pending charges. In addition, because employees are more aware of their rights and the number of nondiscrimination laws is sizeable, EEOC faces a growing inflow of new charges. To handle this workload, EEOC would need a large number of new staff--an unlikely development given the current environment of budgetary constraints. EEOC's new Chairman recognizes this dilemma. He has discontinued EEOC's long-standing policy of fully investigating every charge in favor of a policy that targets investigative resources on the basis of the strength of the evidence of discrimination behind discrimination claims. He also directed EEOC to provide selected cases an opportunity to attempt settlement through mediation before resorting to the traditional charge process. Although it believes that these are steps in the right direction, GAO doubts that these efforts alone can solve EEOC's charge-processing problem. Instead, it may be time for EEOC, with the help of Congress and others, to reexamine its mission and how it is carried out. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170/html/GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170.htm GAO/T-HEHS-95-170 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-HEHS-95-170 Testimony GAO/T-HEHS-95-170; EEOC: Burgeoning Workload Calls for New Approaches; Employment discrimination Investigations by federal agencies Civil rights law enforcement Agency missions Human resources utilization Litigation Prioritizing Fair employment programs Agency proceedings Information processing operations