A coalition of industry groups urged the Labor Department to drop its proposed 7% goal for federal contractors to hire people with disabilities. The Council of Defense and Space Industry Associations said the rule is “unworkable” and “burdensome.”

In proposing the hiring goal in December, Patricia Shiu, director of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said the current rule, requiring contractors to make a “good faith” effort to recruit and hire people with disabilities, is “not working” because of the high unemployment among those people. A department spokeswoman said it was the first time Labor had proposed a numerical hiring goal for all federal contractors’ affirmative action programs. (SAA, 12/16/2011)

In its comment on the proposed rule, the industry coalition said, “First, setting a nationwide utilization goal that is the same in every job group assumes that the population of disabled workers is distributed evenly throughout the country and across occupations. Our members’ experience in implementing affirmative action plans suggests that this is not the case. As might be expected, different regions and different occupations register wildly varying percentages of available and qualified disabled employees.”

The group said an accurate count of disabled employees or job candidates is difficult because “people often refuse to identify themselves as disabled for a variety of personal reasons.”

The Labor Department’s proposed rule encourages contractors to “provide priority consideration to individuals with disabilities in recruitment and/or hiring.” In evaluating a contractor’s affirmative action program, Labor said, “The primary indicator of effectiveness is whether qualified individuals with disabilities have been hired.”

The industry group said that criterion “suggests a shift toward a quota system, and would greatly increase the pressure on contractors to engage, in some instances, in reverse discrimination (i.e., in favor of individuals with disabilities to ensure that individuals with disabilities are hired).”

The comment was signed by the Professional Services Council, TechAmerica, the National Defense Industrial Association, the American Council of Engineering Companies and the Aereospace Industries Association.

The deadline for comments on the proposed rule has been extended to Feb. 21. The rule is RIN number 1250-AA02.