STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance (OOC) is pleased to present OOC’s Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2013. FY 2013 has been a challenging and exciting year for the OOC. At the end of this year, we made several new appointments to our executive staff including two new Executive Deputy Directors and a new General Counsel. We look forward to working with our new and existing staff members in 2014–2015 as we seek to provide the most effective and optimal services and workplace protections to the Congressional community.
The OOC is a small agency with a large and important statutory mission. With only 22 full-time equivalent employees and several contractors, the OOC ensures workplace protections for some 30,000 Legislative Branch employees here on Capitol Hill and in district offices throughout the United States. The work we do on behalf of the Legislative Branch is equivalent to that performed by several different agencies and offices within the Executive Branch: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to name a few.
During FY 2013, the OOC continued its risk-based safety and health inspections of the legislative campus, provided educational materials and training in cost-efficient and effective ways, and ensured unfettered access to the agency’s confidential dispute resolution program. Although the number of workplaces to be inspected continued to increase and employees continued to seek OOC’s services to resolve workplace issues, the resources provided to the agency dwindled. However, the quality of services provided by OOC remained excellent, largely due to the skill level, commitment, and professionalism of OOC staff.
