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Senator CLARK. Do you have agencies in Alabama and Georgia and
Mississippi and Louisiana and Florida?

Mr. HARMON. Yes; in every one of those States.

Senator CLARK. You are speaking in your testimony in the light of the experience that these agencies have had!

Mr. HARMON. Yes. In every one of these agencies, according to the reports that we have received. I just can't imagine a person, a competent secretary, a competent file clerk, being turned down for employment in those southern communities because of their particular

race.

Senator CLARK. Do your agencies or at least some of these agencies specialize in placing executives, college graduates, graduate students? Mr. HARMON. Very definitely. This is an area of curious specialization. We have one agency in Chicago that places only insurance agents or insurance company officers. We have one agency in California that places managers for large chainstores. I know one office in New York I visited that specializes in the scientific field.

I never knew there were so many different types of biologists, for example. Counselors have books literally 2 feet high of application and job-order forms for various types of biologists of given particular specialties and the book might be 3 inches wide. Incidentally, most of those applicants are already employed, but are looking for other positions for various reasons.

Senator CLARK. Do you find that Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Spanish, and Mexican-Americans fill these executive positions from time to time?

Mr. HARMON. Yes, they do. Senator, I think this is one of the biggest misunderstandings today. Our agency people are working for a profit and they want to place people, but there is a real shortage of skilled and trained manpower at this time. This is without reservation. I don't think there is a State where you could honestly say there is an overabundance of supply in any one of these areas.

A person in a minority group today, I think, really has an advantage because many companies are making an effort to hire that person. As I stated earlier, there is a real argument at the top in many companies, whether they should actually drop the job qualifications merely to place a person of minority origin on their work force.

Senator CLARK. Secretary Wirtz testified yesterday that he thought, and he expressed the idea rather well, the basement door is open but the door at the top of the stairs is shut by which he meant that in the last several years equal employment opportunity has spread pretty well for vacancies in the lower categories of employment but when this came to promotion the door, let us say, to the dining room is still locked.

Do you have experience in your agencies with individuals who have a job, who come in and want you to find a better one for them?

Mr. HARMON. Very definitely. In fact, much of our business is done this way. Once you have served a person and served him well, and after he has worked several years with a company, it might be that he will tell his sister to come in or his brother, uncle, or friend.

In other words, they did a job, a good job for me. This is a service type agency and he will come back again if he is looking for something

better or of a different type. I don't know that I would completel agree with Secretary Wirtz on his observation. My observation ha been just the opposite regarding the people at the top in the minorit group.

They are trying to open doors for them. They want to place them. They want very much to place them. I think you will find, and this is outside of our business, that many of our larger corporations are interviewing any logical candidate. And I think giving preference to minority groups. In other words, as has been said in some quarters, members of the caucasian race are being discriminated against in some companies.

Senator CLARK. I think the Secretary had reference to moving up the employment ladder in some Southern States, particularly in the area of State and local government. For example, there might be some difficulty about having a Negro chainstore manager in certain parts of the Southern States.

Have you run into anything like that? Or an insurance agent? Would he have great difficulty in soliciting insurance policies?

Mr. HARMON. It is conceivable. Frankly, my knowledge about any governmental placement is limited because in most of your corporate structures in the south such as city halls they do not hire through a private agency.

There is no provision in law to pay a fee. Much of it is done through civil service examination and that type of an arrangement. Senator CLARK. You would not be familiar with it?

Mr. HARMON. No, I would not.

Senator CLARK. Have your agencies had any perceptible number of American Indian clients?

Mr. HARMON. Well

Senator CLARK. I visited an Indian reservation in New Mexico, and it intrigues me to see the eagerness of the young Indian woman or man who wants to better themselves and get off the reservation. Is there any chance for them to get a job?

Mr. HARMON. I have been all through the west but I frankly can't recall having experienced this type of situation. I would say this, that when I think I first met you when we were discussing the advantages of the Manpower Act I did tour the country quite extensively then.

I know in North Dakota, for example, there were some Indian reservations, and at least a few of them would take this training under the Manpower Act and then having received the training would go back to the reservation.

They are still very much in demand. I think if a young Indian boy or girl were adequately trained for the market I believe they could be placed. I believe today there would be less discrimination found on the job market than perhaps earlier because of the shortage, the absolute shortage of skilled manpower.

The thing we have to keep in mind is that if a person has a competency he will find a placement.

Now the question you were referring to a moment ago, I did not mean to hedge on it. It is that I don't know the answer about the South regarding opportunities in these various companies. It is conceivable that they might be discriminated against.

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Everybody wants to see to it that a person who wants to work, who has a desire to work, who does not have a skill, be given the opportunity to learn that skill.

This takes a lot of work and it requires a lot of screening. I think sometimes we are playing a numbers game in the Federal Government on the recording and reporting of job placements. We do not feel it is fair for the U.S. Employment Service to utilize this technique of how many bodies did you interview today?

I think it would be far better to be able to answer the question, how many souls did you salvage today? If they said five in a month that might very well be a full workload. If we could get five people back on the payroll and work out their problems, why should the counselor be adding numbers and comparing them with the private placement sector of numbers? It is a numbers game that really does not make

sense.

Yet they tell how many placements they make. If they have a fellow to distribute telephone directories, that would constitute a placement in their little check marks of placements. Three days of delivering phone books is a placement. Not so with the private sector. I don't think that this is the type of thing that we should be arguing about. We should be trying to salvage these people, and the organization which is best equipped to do this is the U.S. Employment Service.

Senator CLARK. Sort of an aspect of Parkinson's law, don't you think?

Mr. HARMON. It is very definitely.

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Harmon. You have been very useful to the subcommittee.

Mr. HARMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CLARK. Your statement will be printed in the record in its entirety at this point.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Harmon follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN E. HARMON, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is John E. Harmon. I am executive Vice President of the National Employment Association, the single nationwide trade association representing approximately 6,000 private employment agencies in the United States. Accompanying me is Daniel J. Mountin, our Director of Governmental Affairs.

I appear before this Committee to express the support of the private employment agency industry for S. 1308.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever to have been passed into law in the United States. It concerns employment practices to an extent that affects every employer, employee, and employment agency in this country. The broad basic philosophy behind the enactment of Title VII establishes the principle that race, color, religion, sex or national origin are not relevant in the consideration of the applicant's qualification for employment. In a freely competitive society, education, training, experience, ability and talent should be the only criteria by which to judge an applicant's capabilities to do a particular job.

It is well established that the private employment agency industry is in full accord with this philosophy and that it wishes to and will comply both with the letter as well as the spirit of the Civil Rights Law. As a matter of interest to this Committee, the National Employment Association recently appeared before another Senate Subcommittee to express its endorsement of two bills that would ban discrimination in employment based on age. At that time, we suggested to the Subcommittee that it "consider placing the law, with its proposed enforcement

149

provisions under the authority of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as it is generally in the States, so that there can be both a unified and uniform effort directed to all areas of arbitrary discrimination in employment." Earlier this week, the National Employment Association appeared before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during its hearings on proposed amendments and additions to its regulations concerning sex discrimination in employment. Our purpose in testifying was to share with the body the knowledge of job opportunity advertising which we, as the only non-governmental placement organization in the country, have gained in our more than forty years of experience as the organization of placement agencies.

No law, federal, state, or local is of any value to the public unless it contains proper and effective enforcement provisions. Such regulations must be written in such a manner as to be clearly understood in content and intent in order to insure a proper and fair solution to the problems at hand. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while containing admirable solutions to the broad problem areas of discrimination in employment, allows the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the power only to investigate complaints, conciliate disputes, and recommend suits by the Justice Department. S. 1308 would grant the Commission the power to issue cease-and-desist orders which, we feel, are necessary to provide correct enforcement of the intent and spirit of the law.

The private employment agency industry and the National Employment Association have consistently gone on record in favor of local and state laws dealing with equal opportunity in employment practices, vigorously supported the enactment of civil rights legislation, and have a record of compliance with these laws of which the industry can be proud.

While our motives are influenced by the economic desire to enlarge our own opportunities, our observations clearly substantiate the need for legislation such as S. 1308.

In the experiences of private employment agencies operating under laws having discrimination prohibitions, we have found that the stronger the law and the better administered and enforced it is, the greater the economic opportunities offered to all employment applicants.

Mr. Chairman, the National Employment Association stands ready to assist this Committee in all ways possible to achieve the purposes for which this legislation is intended. We recognize the social problems that demand solutions. The private employment agency industry fully endorses your efforts in this connection as exemplified by the bill presently under consideration.

Senator CLARK. Is Mr. James Hunt here? Mr. Hunt, we are very happy to have you with us. Mr. Hunt is the labor relations manager of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

I see you have a prepared statement, Mr. Hunt, which I will ask to have printed in full in the record at this point. I have not had an opportunity to read it. I would appreciate it if you felt, since it is nine pages long, that you could summarize it as opposed to reading it in full, but I will leave that to you.

STATEMENT OF JAMES W. HUNT, LABOR RELATIONS MANAGER, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES

Mr. HUNT. Yes, I would like to submit this for the record and summarize some of the more important arguments.

Senator CLARK. If you will. Proceed in your own way.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Hunt follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES W. HUNT, LABOR RELATIONS MANAGER,
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES

My name is James W. Hunt. I am Labor Relations Manager for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and I am appearing before this Committee on behalf of the National Chamber. I appreciate the opportunity to present our views on S. 1308 which would amend Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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