percent of our service workers and only 28 percent of our managers, officials and proprietors. Another dimension of this situation emerges when attention is directed not at the over-all national figures (which average success with failure) but at those for the urban and rural slum The Department of Labor made an intensive survey last November of the slum The population in these areas turned out to be 70 percent Negro, 10 percent This survey showed that if the traditical statistical concept of "unemploy- But this leaves out a person who is working only part-time, although he is trying to find full-time work: gives no consideration to the amount of earnings; omits those who are not "actively looking for work"-even though the reason for this is their conviction (whether right or wrong) that they can't find a job; and disregards the "undercount" factor-those who are known to be present but simply don't show up at all in present surveys. When these factors are taken into account, the “sub-employment” rate for these slum areas is 33.9 percent. This means that one out of every three of those in slums who are or ought to be working has a serious employment problem. In one slum area where over 80 percent of the population was Mexican American, almost one out of every two persons had this problem. How much of this results from current "discrimination" in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act-which S. 1308 would help stop? The figures set out above do not answer this. Furthermore it cannot be measured statistically-at least from data presently at hand. There is an increasing, and dangerous, tendency to do something about only The great majority of employers are according infinitely larger entry-level But the rest of this picture is that there are still a substantial percentage of When it comes to up-grading, promotions, and hiring in higher level jobs, hardly more than a dent has been made. And if lack of training and adequate qualication is part of the reason for this, it is only part of it. The basement doors have been opened, but the doors on the stairs are still locked. There are, however, numerous examples of progress in upgrading minority group employees where the Government has the power to invoke sanctions and penalties, as under Executive Order 11246. Some indication of this potential is found in the upgrading that followed conciliation efforts of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Departments of Justice, Defense and Labor with the world's largest shipbuilding company. In the one year since these efforts, promotions have been given to 3.890 of the company's 5,000 Negro employees, 34 have been or are to be promoted to supervisory jobs, 65 others are on promotional lists for supervisory jobs as they develop and 42 Negro employees have entered the apprenticeship program, compared with a total of six in the previous 81-year history of the company. In addition, seven hundred and eighty-five Negroes have entered other formal educational and training programs to improve their chances for promotion. In March 1966, an informal hearing was held with another Government contractor. By January, 1967, a massive minority group recruitment program and personal visits to the field by the corporate president had increased the number of minority group employees by over 50 percent from 278 to 429. Three out of every four new hires were minority employees and the number of minority group reporters and supervisors more than doubled-from 13 to 33. As a final example-a Government contractor's Negro employees with long term seniority could not advance in lines of progression because of discrimination. The company has since placed Negroes in jobs they would be holding if they had not been discriminated against since 1961. If the job still remained the same, the company credited seniority to the individual in that job back to 1961. About 85-100 Negroes now have been given such seniority proportionate with service. I testify from what are now literally hundreds of personal experiences in this situation. The clear lesson from them is that there is a big difference, that there is a change of mind and heart, that there is infinitely more eqality of opportunity than there was before-but that we have gone perhaps about as far as the present legislative vehicles will carry us, that there is still a long way to go, and that the more effective enforcement provisions in S. 1308 are essential. Particular importance must be attached to the additional enforcement authority and procedures which are proposed for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For the lesson of experience is that an agency charged with the responsibilities given the Commission can discharge that responsibility effectively only when it is also given enforcement authority. And it cannot be expected that many complainants will undertake the burden of an individual suit. Of the 38 States which have passed fair employment practice laws, 31 provide for enforcement through administrative agencies. The State experience also demonstrates that where these agencies have adequate enforcement powers, nearly all cases are disposed of without court proceedings. A 1962 report on the structure and operations of the former President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (the predecessor organization to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance) also pointed out that experience proves that conciliation, coupled with potential power to apply legal or administrative sanctions, is the most effective means of achieving voluntary compliance. The National Labor Relations Board has had experience with the power to issue cease and desist orders for over 30 years. The experience of this agency shows that strong enforcement power often leads to voluntary settlement. The latest Annual Report of the NLRB states that a large proportion of the cases coming before the Board are voluntarily settled. In fiscal 1965, only 6.2 percent of the unfair labor practice cases went to the Board for decision. The others were withdrawn, settled, or dismissed. The bill gives the EEOC power to issue cease and desist orders in the case of "unfair employment practices" which is very similar to the cease and desist power given the National Labor Relations Board to remedy "unfair labor practices." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is, like the labor Board, equipped to deal with a specialized field of knowledge. However, at the present time, the Commission is not empowered to exercise its expertise in a meaningful way. Administrative enforcement is best suited for the complicated questions which arise and makes possible uniformity of applications throughout the country. It has been determined that there is a public interest in remedying unfair labor practices. The Supreme Court has pointed out that the NLRB "was created not to adjudicate private controversies but to advance the public interest. . . ." NLRB v. Fant Milling Co., 360 U.S. 301, 307-8 (1959). In contrast, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 puts emphasis on the individual's resolution of his grievances instead of the vindication of public rights. Unfair employment practices, like an unfair labor practice or unfair trade practice, injure the public as well as the individual. The Government and not the individual should bear the burden of redressing his injury to the public. There can be no doubt that discrimination is sufficiently injurious to the community to justify judicial enforcement by an agency of the Federal Government. It is clear that discrimination in employment has an adverse effect on the economy. Purchasing power is not fully developed; manpower is not efficiently used; welfare costs increase; underutilization of the Nation's manpower resources prevents the attainment of full national productivity and economic growth. As President Johnson pointed out in his Civil Rights Message, "If Negroes today had the same skills as other Americans, and if they were free from discrimi nation in employment, our Gross National Product could become $30 billion higher." Yet it is the loss within the individual which counts most-the loss of the S. 1308 represents a proper and necessary assumption of public responsibility Mr. Secretary, we had a rather extensive discussion with Mr. Shul- Mr. Shulman appeared to be of the view that he could not tell from STATEMENT OF HON. W. WILLARD WIRTZ, SECRETARY OF LABOR Secretary WIRTZ. There would be these, Mr. Chairman: In general, I think that the racial discrimination as far as the labor unions are concerned permits this fair judgment. I believe there has been less discrimination on the part of labor unions as a whole than any institution I know of. I say that regretfully, because that includes our schools, churches, business organizations, our sororities and fraternities, and everybody else. Your question refers to the craft and industrial organizations. There is another breakdown that seems probably more basic and that is between skilled jobs and unskilled jobs. Now the craft unions, most of them, involve skilled jobs, so do some of the industrial unions. Senator CLARK. We have to use that word "skilled" pretty carefully. Senator CLARK. Vocationally and technologically skilled. You are not talking about professional skills? Secretary WIRTZ. No; I am not. I am talking in general about the crafts. My guess is that if you take the distinction between skilled and unskilled, you will find no more discrimination on the part of the craft unions than you do on the part of the industrial unions; or putting it differently, that there is as much discrimination remaining in the one area as in the other. But I don't mean to avoid for a moment the suggestion which is implicit in your question and is clear in the public's mind. There has been an identification of particular responsibility for racial discrimination on the part of the building trades and the metal trades unions. With respect to that, I would say only this: There is discrimination on the part of some locals of some of those international organizations, and I mean current discrimination and prejudice and bigotry. That is far and away the laggard, the minority position, and the basic position of those unions is against discrimination. I think it is true that with respect to all except two or three of the craft unions now there is equal apprenticeship opportunity. The problem is more the disadvantage of the minority groups in meeting the qualifications for apprenticeship than it is anything else. Now, that is discrimination, but it is the disadvantage which comes from past discrimination. Putting it differently: I don't believe that there is much today in any craft union of discrimination against qualified people. There is somewe have two or three cases before us right now-but in general the position is today, as far as the apprenticeship training programs are concerned, that the same rules are applied. It is just that there is a century of difference in getting ready to meet those rules and that results in what seems discrimination. Senator CLARK. This points up a need, does it not, for further intensified efforts to upgrade the caliber of the schools to which disadvantanged children go and also to put renewed emphasis on manpower development and training activities, including, of course, onthe-job training? Secretary WIRTZ. Yes, sir; and I don't think there is any question but that we have to recognize an obligation to give preferred education and training to make up for the lag which has developed, and that doesn't bother me one bit. Senator CLARK. You say in your statement that the Department of Labor made an intensive survey-the top of the page-last November, in the slum areas in eight cities. Can you tell us what cities those were? Secretary WIRTZ. In November 1966, a series of intensive surveys were made in slum areas in eight U.S. cities: three areas in New York City, and one each in Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis, San Antonio, and San Francisco. The information obtained was supplemented by previous but recent studies covering unemployment in the slum areas of Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Oak land. Senator CLARK. That is a pretty good geographical spread so you ought to be able to draw some conclusions from the data you received. Secretary WIRTZ. We are confident of being able to do so. Senator CLARK. You further state that the subemployment rate for these slum areas is 33.9 percent, which means that one out of every three of those in the slums who are or ought to be working has a serious employment problem. There is a close relationship between that figure, which I find startling-I didn't realize it was that bad-and our efforts under the poverty program to do something effective about upgrading the skills in these ghetto areas, is that not right? Secretary WIRTZ. Yes, sir. Senator CLARK. And I suspect if you made studies of rural poverty in certain parts of this country, you would find the same thing existed there. Don't you think so? Secretary WIRTZ. Yes, we do. The comparable figure in the Mississippi Delta area right now on a subemployment basis would be about 70 percent. Senator CLARK. That is about what we found-Senator Javits, Senator Murphy, Senator Kennedy, and I. We were down there not too long ago. I will not detain you now with what we might do about that. I will discuss it with you at some later date. It seems to me that the situation in the delta is tragic. I am glad to see that the President, you, Mr. Shriver, Secretary Gardner, and Secretary Freeman are about to do something about it and I want to congratulate you for what you are doing in that regard. I want to commend you on your statement that there is an increasing and dangerous tendency to do something about only what we can measure, and that this is part of the inclination to let the computers take over. I think this subcommittee ought to pay very serious attention to what you say here, because so much of what we need to know about job discrimination and also about poverty cannot be measured with a computer; you have to look at it in human terms and you really have to go out and see it in order to have a real understanding of what the situation is, and therefore I think this is a most useful statement to us. I don't know whether you want to elaborate on it or not. Secretary WIRTZ, No, sir. Senator CLARK. Now I notice also a statement which seems, to me, to be very important indeed: When it comes to upgrading, promotions and hiring in higher level jobs, hardly more than a dent has been made. And if lack of training and adequate qualification is part of the reason for this, it is only part of it. The basement doors have been opened, but the doors on stairs are still locked. This emphasizes, does it not, your view that the major problem today with respect to equal opportunity in employment comes after and not before a job has been secured? Is that correct? Secretary WIRTZ. That is correct. Senator CLARK. And you certainly buttress that with your statement and the statistics which you give. Secretary WIRTZ. My statement also includes an expression of the conviction that that problem, too, subtle as it may be, can be met if there is enforcement power to back it up. Senator CLARK. I think that is correct. I am also pleased with the example which you gave of the quite heartening progress in upgrading minority group employees which has occurred where the Government has the power to invoke sanctions and penalties under Executive Order 11246. This does, I think, buttress very much the request for the ceaseand-desist power with the right to enforce through courts of appeals which you advocate in your statement. I am making these comments just to stress, since you are not reading your statement, for the press and others who might be listening, the important points you have made, with which I find myself in accord. Secretary WIRTZ. Mr. Chairman, might I just improve the opportunity that you just presented to mention that in connection with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, I think the committee should know that there is being-these are all illustrations of the work of that office there is being done what is in my judgment |