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The Department received a total of 23,157 initial requests for records during fiscal year 2006. I. Basic Information Regarding Report. A. For questions concerning this report, please contact Joseph J. Plick, Counsel for FOIA/FACA/Privacy Act, Office of the Solicitor, Room N-2428, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210, telephone number (202) 693-5527. B. The electronic address for this report is on the World Wide Web at http://www.dol.gov/dol/foia/main.htm. C. You may obtain a paper copy of this report by writing to Mr. Plick at the above address. II. How to Make a FOIA Request. The Department of Labor is organized into divisions and agencies often referred to as "components." Within the Labor Department, each component processes its own FOIA requests. Therefore, a request will receive the fastest possible response if it is addressed directly to the disclosure officer for the component that a requester believes has the records. Requesters who cannot determine the proper disclosure officer to which the request should be addressed may direct the request to the Counsel for FOIA, Office of the Solicitor, Division of Management and Administrative Legal Services, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Room N-2428, Washington, D.C. 20210 or by e-mail to foiarequest@dol.gov. (Prior to amendments to the Department's FOIA regulation effective June 30, 2006 requesters were directed to the Office of Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Room S-5526, Washington, D.C. 20210.) A. The following list contains the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the individual agency components and offices in the national and regional offices of the Department of Labor. The heads of each component shall make available for inspection and copying, in accordance with the provisions of the FOIA, records in their custody or in the custody of component units within their organizations, either directly or through their authorized representative in particular offices and locations. Unless otherwise specified, the mailing address for the following national office components is as follows: U.S. Department of Labor 1. Office of the Secretary of Labor, (202) 693-7277. The addresses and telephone numbers for the various regional offices are presented below. The telephone number which is listed is for the Department's Office of Administration and Management (OASAM) for that region. That office can provide the requester with a more specific telephone number for the respective component. Unless otherwise specified, the mailing address for these regional offices shall be: Region I: U.S. Department of Labor Region II: U.S. Department of Labor Region III: U.S. Department of Labor Region IV: U.S. Department of Labor (For ESA, Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWCP) Only) Region V: U.S. Department of Labor (For OWCP, Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA) only) Region VI: U.S. Department of Labor Region VII: U.S. Department of Labor (For ESA, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) only) Region VIII: U.S. Department of Labor (For OWCP only) The mailing address for the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Director of the Regional Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training in Region VIII is: Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training Region IX: U.S. Department of Labor U.S. Department of Labor B. Agency response-time. The agency's response-time ranges generally from five to fifty days. Complex requests usually take more time. C. Why some requests are not granted. A FOIA request can be made for any agency record. This does not mean, however, that the Labor Department will disclose every record sought. There are statutory exemptions that authorize the withholding of certain information. In addition, the agency cannot comply with a FOIA request if there are no responsive records. Another reason for not granting a FOIA request is that the FOIA does not require agencies to do research for the requester, to analyze data, to answer questions, or to create records in order to respond to a FOIA request. III. Definitions of Terms and Acronyms Used in the Report (To be included in each report). A. Agency-specific acronyms or other terms.
B. Basic terms, expressed in common terminology. 1. FOIA/PA request--Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act request. A FOIA request is generally a request for access to records concerning a third party, an organization, or a particular topic of interest. A Privacy Act request is a request for records concerning oneself; such requests are also treated as FOIA requests. (All requests for access to records, regardless of which law is cited by the requester, are included in this report.) 2. Initial Request--a request to a federal agency for access to records under the Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act. 3. Appeal--a request to a federal agency asking that it review at a higher administrative level a full denial or partial denial of access to records under the Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act, or any other FOIA determination, such as a matter pertaining to fees. 4. Processed Request or Appeal--a request or appeal for which an agency has taken a final action on the initial request or the appeal in all respects. 5. Multi-track processing--a system in which simple requests requiring relatively minimal search and review are placed in one processing track and more voluminous and complex requests are placed in one or more other tracks. Requests in each track are processed on a first-in/first-out basis. A requester who has an urgent need for records may request expedited processing (see below). 6. Expedited processing--an agency will process a FOIA request on an expedited basis when a requester has shown an exceptional need or urgency for the records which warrants giving priority to his or her request over other requests that were made earlier. 7. Simple request--a FOIA request that an agency using multi-tracking processing places in its fastest (nonexpedited) track based on the volume and/or simplicity of the search and review of the records requested. 8. Complex request--a FOIA request that an agency using multi-track processing places in a slower track based on the volume and/or complexity of the search and review of the records requested. 9. Grant--an agency decision to disclose all records in-full in response to a FOIA request. 10. Partial grant--an agency decision to disclose a record in-part in response to a FOIA request, deleting information determined to be exempt under one or more of the FOIA's exemptions; or a decision to disclose some records in their entireties, but to withhold others in whole or in-part. 11. Denial--an agency decision not to release any part of a record or records in response to a FOIA request because all the information in the requested record is determined by the agency to be exempt under one or more of the FOIA's exemptions, or for some procedural reason (such as because no record is located in response to a FOIA request). 12. Time limits--the time period in the Freedom of Information Act for an agency to respond to a FOIA request (ordinarily 20 working days from proper receipt of a perfected FOIA request). 13. A perfected request--a FOIA request for records which adequately describes the records sought, which has been received by the FOIA office of the agency or agency component in possession of the records, and for which there is no remaining question about the payment of applicable fees. 14. Exemption 3 statute--a separate federal statute prohibiting the disclosure of a certain type of information and authorizing its withholding under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3). 15. Median number--the middle, not average, number. For example, of 3, 7, and 14, the median number is 7. 16. Average number--the number obtained by dividing the sum of a group of numbers by the quantity of numbers in the group. For example, of 3, 7, and 14, the average is 8. IV. Exemption 3 Statutes. A. List of Exemption 3 statutes relied on by this agency during fiscal year 2006. 1. The Office of Labor-Management Standards, Employment Standards Administration, invoked section 304(a) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA) (29 U.S.C. § 464(a)) to protect the identity of a complainant in a union trusteeship investigation. 2. The Mine Safety and Health Administration withheld the name of a person who requested a safety inspection pursuant to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, section 103(g)(1) (30 U.S.C. § 813(g)(1)). This statute was cited on six occasions. 3. The Office of the Inspector General withheld grand jury information pursuant to Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. 4. The Bureau of Labor Statistics withheld confidential data pursuant to the authority of the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA)(44 U.S.C. § 3541). This statute prohibits federal agencies from releasing in identifiable form information acquired under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes. 5. The Employment and Training Administration withheld confidential business data pursuant to the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act of 1974, as amended, sec. 90.33 (18 U.S.C. § 1905). This statute prohibits federal agencies from disclosing any confidential business information such as trade secrets and commercial or financial information, which is obtained from a person as part of an investigation. B. The use of Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure was upheld by a court in the case of Senate of Puerto Rico v. United States Department of Justice, 823 F.2d 574 (D.C. Cir. 1987). The use of the other statutes, cited above, has not been litigated. V. Initial FOIA/PA Access Requests. A. Number of Initial Requests.
B. Disposition of Initial Requests.
B.1. Exemptions Claims Under the Freedom of Information Act; Each Exemption is Counted Only Once Per Request.
B.2. Other Reasons for Nondisclosure
** Explanation of Disposition of FOIA/PA Initial
Requests:
VI. Appeals of Initial Denials of FOIA/PA Requests.
VII. Compliance With Time Limits/Status of Pending Requests. A. Median Processing Time For Requests Processed During The Year.
B. Status of Pending Requests.
VIII. Comparisons with Previous Year(s). A. Comparison of number of requests received: 2006 (23,194); 2005 (23,505); 2004 (21,833) B. Comparison of number of requests processed: 2006 (23,068); 2005 (23,284); 2004 (21,860) C. Comparison of number of requests pending: 2006 (906); 2005 (780); 2004 (559) IX. FOIA Staffing and Costs.
X. Fees. A. Total Amount of Fees Collected By Agency For Processing Requests. The Department collected $ 316,404.27 in fees. B. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL COSTS: 1.98 % XI. FOIA Regulations (Including Fee Schedule). The electronic address for accessing the Department's FOIA regulations, 29 CFR Part 70, is on the Department's web site at: http://www.dol.gov/dol/foia/main.htm. In addition, they can be accessed on the World Wide Web at GPO Access, a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html. XII. Report on FOIA Executive Order Implementation. A. Description of supplementation/modification of agency improvement plan. The Department of Labor issued a plan modification on December 8, 2006. The modification was made as a result of the Department's continued assessment of the plan, as well as in response to useful input provided by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO). The objective of the modification is to set specific outcome oriented goals to reduce any backlogs in responding to initial requests, and to provide timetables for the achievement of these goals. This will be accomplished by having agencies identify their oldest pending requests, and setting percentage targets for the reduction of these requests. In addition, agencies are being asked to develop ongoing monitoring systems with an "early alert" system for any growing backlogs. B. Report on agency implementation of the plan, including its performance in meeting milestones, with respect to each improvement plan. The Department reached all milestones for all seven major areas contained in its plan. 1. Improve communication with requesters. This objective consisted of two specific milestones. First, the Department committed to focus on its outreach to the requester community and to solicit suggestions from the public on its FOIA processes. On December 18, 2006, the Department held a FOIA Requester Public Forum. The Department provided extensive advance publicity for this event, through a Federal Register notice, a press release, and prominent placement on its Web site. The Department's Chief FOIA Officer and its Public Liaison served as moderators for the meeting. The program consisted of presentations by a panel of the Department's legal and program experts on FOIA. This was followed by an open microphone session wherein members of the public raised questions and made suggestions to the Department panelists about the Department's FOIA process. The Department is still accepting written input for the meeting, and is studying ways for continued dialogue with its requester community. During 2007, the Department will assess the feasibility and benefits of an electronic suggestion box. Second, the Chief FOIA Officer has prepared and distributed a template acknowledgement letter to agency FOIA coordinators for use by departmental Disclosure Officers. 2. Increase Web Presence and Proactive Disclosure To increase its web presence and proactive disclosure, the Department evaluated the Department and agency FOIA Web sites, developed a plan for improving the agencies' required affirmative disclosure of information and developed a plan for disclosing classes of documents proactively. The Department's Chief FOIA Officer held several meetings with the Office of Public Affairs web content team to evaluate the Department's FOIA web presence and the web presence of individual agencies. Other areas needing improvement were also identified, including format changes for enhanced readability and navigation. These meetings will continue on a regular basis. To help assess the progress of the Department's Plan implementation, the Chief FOIA Officer surveyed the agencies on their disclosure measures, electronic FOIA processing, including the use of multi-track or expedited systems, backlog reduction efforts and FOIA staff training. Department agencies established processes to systematically review the documents which are required by the FOIA and other laws, policies and regulations to be made publicly available to ensure their accuracy and relevance. Several types of information are available for public review on the Department's Web site, including:
However, the Department has several categories of publicly available records that, due to the volume of documents involved, it is unable to put on the Web site. The EBSA, for example, is seeking to provide online access to ERISA required Form 5500 filings through the next development phase of the ERISA Filing Acceptance System (E-FAST). In these instances, the Department will post additional material to the Web site as improved technology becomes available. The Department also developed procedures to provide for proactive disclosure by closely monitoring and reviewing classes of material provided on its website likely to be of interest to the public, even though the posting of such material is not legally required. For example, the Department routinely provides the following information on its Web site:
The Department is committed to providing more information in its online "electronic reading rooms." For example, greater access to Adjudicatory Boards documents will be completed upon full implementation of eJudication, an interactive website offering a broad range of information on the status of a case or appeal. In addition, several agencies are developing new web pages with the capacity to respond to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The Department's Chief FOIA Officer will be working with the agencies throughout 2007 to identify other potential areas for proactive disclosure. 3. Improve FOIA Tracking and Control During the third quarter of FY 06, an informal group of FOIA coordinators and IT staff transitioned into a FOIA Tracking System Working Group, which also includes the Chief FOIA Officer and the Counsel for FOIA and Privacy Act. At the November 30, 2006 meeting, the group discussed the new enhancements to the Secretary's Information Management Systems/FOIA (SIMS/FOIA), which will be released in 2007. The new enhancements will enable users to track FOIA requests by short subject and allow them to produce overdue reports for requests that are past assigned due dates. In addition, users will be permitted to conduct searches of FOIA requests by assignments, responding office/agency, and hot/ sensitive status. Agencies may access requests from within their subordinate components or divisions as well. The FOIA Working Group will meet quarterly throughout 2007 to continue discussing ways to improve the current system. Department agencies will also evaluate more cost effective software that is dedicated to the FOIA and redaction, which can either operate in conjunction with the SIMS/FOIA system or as a stand-alone system for utilization by all Department agencies. 4. Increase use of Technology in FOIA Processing The majority of Department agencies currently use the SIMS/FOIA system for inputting and tracking FOIA requests. The agencies use other products such as scanners, CD's, email, and internal databases for retrieval and processing of FOIA requests. Redaction is noted as a problem for large volumes of records; however, one agency uses Redax™, a software product of Appligent, Inc, which purportedly removes text and scanned images within a PDF file based on search criteria entered by the user. Redax™ also claims to remove sensitive or private information in accordance with FOIA and the Privacy Act Based on current resources and the low volume of requests produced by some agencies, the use of electronic tools is limited to scanners and email deliveries for FOIA requests. Further discussions with Department agencies will be conducted to find lower cost effective means, and to encourage agencies to use as much technology as possible to handle FOIA processing. 5. Encourage and Improve Multi-track processing and Expedited Processing Currently, due to limited or no FOIA activity requiring large volumes of records or expedited material, Department agencies rely on systematic reviews of their processes for handling multi-track and expedited FOIA requests. In instances where FOIA requests are received requesting expeditious responses, agencies review the requests, determine the need, and notify the requester of its determination. Requesters are also notified of the option of paying half the estimated fee in advance or narrowing the scope of the request for large volumes of records. All requests that are determined to be expedited are processed in a timely manner. Agencies maintain constant contact with the requester on all matters that may delay processing of any FOIA requests. Due to continuous changes in technology and increases in the release of information, future discussions with the agencies will be conducted to establish and implement multi-tracking and expedited processes that will ensure proper processing time of FOIA requests. 6. Increase Appeals Capacity, Backlog Reduction and Improve Timeliness. As noted in section A, the Department recently modified its plan to set specific targets for the reduction of its oldest initial requests. Since the time of that modification, each agency was asked to identify and quantify the number of initial requests in the various target periods. This information has been provided to the Chief FOIA Officer, and will be used as the basis of monitoring the achievement of these goals throughout 2007. The Chief FOIA Officer will be working with the individual agencies to provide guidance and, if necessary, to suggest that agency leadership provide the necessary resources to attain the goals. At the administrative appeals level, the plan provided that the number of appeals completed and closed would increase 61 percent over the 2005 baseline. In fact, that goal was exceeded. In calendar year 2005, the Department closed 204 appeals; in calendar year 2006, the number of closed appeals was 339, thereby accounting for a 66 percent increase. 7. Enhance Staff Expertise and Training. As the first step in establishing a continued dialogue and forum to share best practices, a meeting of all Department agency FOIA Coordinators and FOIA Service Center Contacts was held on November 3, 2006. (In most cases, the FOIA coordinators for Department agencies also serve as the Service Center Contact.) The Department's Chief FOIA Officer convened the meeting and was joined by the FOIA Public Liaison. The major purpose of the forum was to describe and discuss the components of the FOIA improvement plan, and to outline the specific steps that each agency needed to take to meet the goals. Strong emphasis was placed on the importance of customer service and courtesy in dealings with the public on FOIA maters. The participants also discussed general experiences since the issuance of Executive Order 13392 in December 2005 and the FOIA improvement plan in June 2006. It is expected that these meetings will continue throughout 2007. Second, the Department increased its efforts to provide resource material to FOIA staff. These efforts included an electronic version of the DOJ FOIA guide and written instructions for providing requested documents and other materials online. The Department also continues to explore new training opportunities consistent with existing resources, such as electronically based courses on the Department Intranet and periodic DOJ or other FOIA training, as well as programs offered by the American Society of Access Professionals. C. Identification and discussion of any deficiency in meeting plan milestones (if applicable). The Department met or exceeded all of its milestones for 2006. D. Additional narrative statement regarding other executive-order related activities. The Department's leadership is strongly committed to the objectives of Executive Order 13392, and to fully and successfully implementing its FOIA improvement plan. The senior leadership of the Department has been briefed about the components of the plan and has been provided regular updates as to its progress. An important part of these briefings and updates has been to encourage officials to provide the necessary support to its FOIA staff to achieve the various milestones. E. Concise descriptions of FOIA exemptions in 5 U.S.C § 552(b) The nine exemptions to the FOIA authorize federal agencies to withhold information covering: (1) classified national defense and foreign relations information; (2) internal agency rules and practices; (3) information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law; (4) trade secrets and other confidential business information; (5) inter-agency or intra-agency communications that are protected by legal privileges; (6) information involving matters of personal privacy; (7) records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, to the extent that the production of those records (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, (E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or (F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual; (8) information relating to the supervision of financial institutions; and (9) geological information on wells. F. Additional Statistics. 1. Time range of requests pending, by date of request (or, where applicable, by date of referral from another agency). April 5, 2005 to January 24, 2007 2. Time range of consultations pending with other agencies at this time. N/A G. Attachment: Agency improvement plan: The FOIA Improvement Plan for the Department of Labor and an Agency Plan and Report Modification are attached.
Signed at Washington, D.C. this 26th day of February, 2007.
______[signed]_____________________
Footnotes: [1] The numbering and lettering of sections corresponds to the Department of Justice, Office of Information and Privacy's "Annual Report Guidance Outline," FOIA Update Vol. XVIII, No. 3, 1997. [2] This column is repeated in Column 2 of the table on page 12. [3] These numbers when added together equal 23,068, which corresponds to the total of Column 3 of Table V.A. above. [4] This column is a repeat of the information contained in column 4 of the table on page 10
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