It looks as if the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will be prohibited from proceeding with its intention of collecting data on pay from employers with 100 or more workers, thanks to a rider that's been attached to an appropriations bill. 

The rider, if it makes it through to passage, would deny use of any 2018 funding to the EEOC for putting the EEO-1 requirements into effect in 2018, despite providing the commission with fiscal year funding of $3.6 million for 2018, HRDive reports. In addition, the bill also orders EEOC to prioritize the reduction of its claim inventory and to increase efforts to resolve employee complaints before suing employers. 

Although employers that must satisfy EEO-1 filing requirements have had to provide EEOC with data requested by the agency for some time, the addition last year of compensation information as a requirement on the 2018 forms stirred up a hornets' nest of complaints from employers about the burden of additional reporting.