employer will hire him." The enforcement provisions in our laws are in reality the "key" to the "employer's" door for both the individual and this educating agency; without the enforcement provisions little could be accomplished. (2) Can you, further, point to instances of conspicuous success in widening the opportunities of older people? Answer. Definitely. Please, may I now refer you to the enclosed copies of our July 1, 1961, report "Senior Worker Problems as They Relate to Oregon." Part III of that report indicates positive results realized thus far in Oregon. Subsequent to the publication of the above-mentioned report, we have received more than 60 additional complaints relating to age discrimination-all have been thoroughly investigated and resolved, with about the same results as stated on page 11 of the report. It is strongly recommended that any laws passed at national level relating to age discrimination specifically prohibit all offices of the U.S. Public Employment Service from "screening out" employment applicants solely because of age. In this regard, I invite your attention to part IV of the enclosed report, and the enclosed verifax copy of a letter received in our office this date, from an older worker-we often hear the same story from most older workers with whom we have contact. I should comment at this time that the Oregon State Employment Service is a separate State agency and is not a part of the Oregon Bureau of Labor. I have also enclosed some verifax copies of the résumés prepared by individuals who have been turned away by employers because of their age-it is interesting to note that the youngest (age 28) is a graduate of Stanford University with an MBA degree, he was told that he was too old to enter a manager trainee program in the field of finance-we have had others at age 28. All of these individuals are personable, articulate, neat and well dressed, and a check of their references revealed that their character and performance was above average—~ they were unemployed due to mergers, business failures, reorganizations, and layoff due to lack of business. We feel that we have made some progress in eliminating age discrimination from employment in Oregon, but the problem extends beyond the boundaries of our State-it is a national problem of grave economic nature. Sincerely, RAY A. ZIEGLER, Director, Senior Worker Division. Hon. JAMES ROOSEVELT, LOS ANGELES, CALIF., November 9, 1961. Member of Congress, Los Angeles, Calif. DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT: A recent article in the Los Angeles Times was gratifying to read-it concerned the meetings you held recently in the Federal Building with a committee investigating discrimination in employment. I am a white person. Therefore, the discrimination about which I am most concerned is that against age. Many of us are hoping that the Congress will take action which will force employers into using fairer methods when hiring than now exist. From June 16, 1960, until a few days ago (to October 31, 1961) I held a responsible position as executive secretary in the new and expanding electronics field at a salary of $500 per month. Then, on October 17, I was informed that "we've had several meetings and we desire some changes in personnel, so it will probably be to your best interests to look for other work." I was never given a reason for the termination. All my friends and the outside contacts I had made are puzzled and shocked at my termination. Suffice it to say that the new wife of the plant manager (she is 34) now is there. Having reached that unmentionable and unforgiveable old and decrepit age of 49, I suspect that my age finally came to light. It is a young and growing company, and they have a policy of trying not to hire beyond the age of 30. There was no complaint as to my work; they just felt "it was for my own good to look for work with an older, established firm, with older men, less pressure, where it would be quieter," etc., etc. I joined this company after several other (and in fairness to me-younger) girls had not filled the bill in a short period of time. They needed me the worst way those first few months, and did not then question my age. During my employment with this company, I worked 2521⁄2 hours of overtime, for which I did not receive any extra pay, but only compensa tory time (hour for hour) for 231 hours; when I left October 31, I had 21 hours for which I had received nothing. My immediate superior, the president of the company, said that due to my background and experience and training, I should not have any trouble in finding another equally satisfactory job. But little does he apparently know (or care) what I am up against, when 85 percent of all ads for the good positions specify an age barrier of, say, up to 35, and oftentimes, 30. So, it seems that I have been "let out to pasture" at a time when there is such a need everywhere for proven, competent persons, and when I feel I am doing my best work. We older, more mature employees have so much to offer a company. Besides my experience in private industry, I had 10 years service in the diplomatic field in Foreign Service and 61⁄2 years of civil service in Washington. Mr. Roosevelt, anything you and your committees can do to help bring about much-needed laws to prevent discrimination due to so-called age will be much appreciated by me and countless others like me who also must eat and live. are behind your efforts 100 percent. Respectfully, We Miss A. RUTH GREEN. APPENDIX B SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENTS-LOS ANGELES POST OFFICE U.S. POST OFFICE, Los Angeles, Calif., December 6, 1961. Hon. JAMES ROOSEVELT, DEAR CONGRESSMAN ROOSEVELT: I appreciate very much your sending me the transcript of the testimony of Perry C. Parks, Jr., and Oscar H. York, both employees of the Los Angeles Post Office, who appeared before your subcommittee when you were holding hearings in Los Angeles. I am also appreciative of the opportunity to insert this letter in the record. It is unfortunate, indeed, that the only Los Angeles Post Office employees invited to testify were two disgruntled employees who are the type of extremists President Kennedy deplored on his recent visit here. It would appear that the sole purpose of these two men is to stir racism in a place where it has not existed and to poison the minds of other Negroes with continual cries of discrimination. Since there are more than 10,500 employees in this office, the testimony of these two constitutes a very small sampling of opinion. I emphatically deny that discrimination against the Negro race, or any other minority group, exists in the Los Angeles Post Office, nor will I countenance discrimination of any nature. When There are actually two promotional plans in the Post Office Department. The first plan establishes a supervisory eligibility roster. The first examination was held in 1953 and these examinations are held approximately every 2 years. first established, postmasters were permitted to pick anyone on the eligibility list. To accomplish fair and equitable selection of the best qualified, this office obtained evaluations from two of each eligible's immediate supervisors, and careful consideration was given to their selection. When the present administration came into power, the system of selection from the entire register was changed so that the order of consideration depended upon the score made in the examination, plus credits for years of service and work evaluation. The other plan involves the promotion to higher level or preferred assignments of persons who are already in supervisory positions. This plan originated in the Los Angeles Post Office and has been in effect during my entire tenure of office. It received commendation from postal supervisors in every section of the country, and was widely acclaimed as being a fair plan for promotion. In some highly political offices in other sections of the country, it was considered utopian. The National Association of Postal Supervisors adopted resolutions commending me at State and National conventions, and their national magazine carried an honorroll of other post offices which adopted the plan. After 8 years of operation in the Los Angeles Post Office, Postmaster General Day adopted the plan this year and made it a regulation of the Post Office Department on a nationwide basis. The whole purpose of the plan was to make promotions of the best qualified persons without regard to color, religion, political affiliation, or national origin. I am satisfied that this has been achieved, and the great majority of our supervisors believe this, too. While the entire testimony of the two employees is fraught with half-truths, misstatements and falsehoods, I shall elaborate on only a few of the items: (1) Mr. Parks stated that of three Negro women appointed to supervisory positions, two of them were appointed through the efforts of the National Alliance of Postal Employees and Joseph Clarke, a Negro who was Special Assistant to an Assistant Postmaster General during Mr. Summerfield's administration of the Post Office Department. This statement is false. No person has ever been promoted during my tenure of office through influence of special interest groups, and Mr. Clarke never made any request for the promotion of any Negro woman. To set the record straight, Mr. Clarke did ask me to promote Perry C. Parks, Jr., but I could not conscientiously do so. All appointments to supervisory positions in this office are based on merit, and the guiding factor is the evaluation made by the employee's immediate supervisor. (2) Mr. Parks stated that one Negro woman supervisor is a Phi Beta Kappa. This statement is false. Examination of the personnel records fail to reveal a Phi Beta Kappa among the Negro women supervisors, and I doubt that this information would be the kind anyone of them would conceal. No reference has ever been made by any of the Negro women supervisors on applications for promotion indicating she was a Phi Beta Kappa. (3) Mr. Parks made an issue of the Negro employee who was No. 13 on the supervisory eligibility list but failed to attain a promotion. What Mr. Parks did not say was that he, Perry C. Parks, Jr., was No. 13, that he had been interviewed by two separate promotion panels, one of which had a Negro member, and failed to gain their approval. He also did not say that he was frankly informed by the panels that he was a below-average employee, and he failed to acknowledge that the panels picked five other Negroes for promotion. (4) Mr. Parks stated that 40 people were interviewed to select 6 persons for promotion, and that the 40 had to be interviewed in order to reach down to persons acceptable to the panelists. This statement is false. Actually, a number of persons eliminated themselves by refusal to accept night work, which is office policy for beginners, and others in the Postal Transportation Service were eliminated by a departmental ruling restricting their promotions to their own branch of the Service. In all matters of promotion, the Postmaster General's orders are adhered to with meticulous care, and Mr. Parks was grasping thin air when he made the charge. (5) Mr. Parks stated that one other person who suffered discrimination was a Jew. Mr. Parks was not present when that person was interviewed and, therefore, could not know that the other person was pointedly asked if he felt he could assume the duties of management, and he replied that he doubted that he could. (6) Mr. Parks stated there were no Negro supervisors in a position higher than PFS-11, and there were no Negro supervisors in our general accounting section. While this is true at the moment, there had previously been two Negro supervisors in general accounting. One was required to return to the Division of Mails because of lack of seniority during a reduction in force in general accounting. The other bid into a higher position in the Division of Mails, eventually became third in command, a PFS-13, in that Division. Ths year, Postmaster General Day selected him to be a Deputy Assistant Postmaster General, and he holds this position in the Department in Washington. The other person to give testimony was Oscar H. York. At the time of his appearance before the committee, he was under charges because of continued absenteeism and tardiness, and was undoubtedly venting his anger. His testimony was so nebulous that I find nothing worthy of comment. While it did not appear in the testimony, he was also angered at being denied permission to attend school under the GI bill, as he did not meet the basic requirement of the Post Office Department that an employee requesting such permission must have been on the rolls before entering the military service. York entered the postal service on November 1, 1946, resigned April 30, 1947, and later met the requirements through a civil service examination and reentered the service on March 21, 1949. Mr. It should be pointed out that it requires a considerable length of time to attain top ranking in the postal service. Most of our executives in the Los Angeles Post Office have from 30 to 45 years of service. The Negro mentioned before, who is now Deputy Assistant Postmaster General, entered the Los Angeles Post Office on May 11, 1923. He was the first Negro in this office ever to be appointed a supervisor and that was in 1935. The great influx of Negroes into the Los Angeles Post Office did not begin until after World War II and the fact that we now have 82 Negro supervisors in levels from PFS-7 to PFS-11 would indicate that the Negro has made marked progress in the Los Angeles Post Office. While the Negro deplores the slow progress, so do hundreds of employees of all other races. At the present time, there are in excess of 800 eligibles on the supervisory promotion register, and some 600 supervisors in this office. The Los Angeles Post Office is reputedly a garden spot for persons of minority groups. Here they know that equal opportunity exists, and that advancement is made upon the basis of merit performance. The Los Angeles Post Office ranks high in efficiency. My own personal reputation for fair dealing over a period of more than 40 years in the business, civic, and cultural world of Los Angeles is not a responsibility that I take lightly, and I certainly would never take any action to jeopardize it. Sincerely, OTTO K. OLESEN, Postmaster. NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES, Mr. JAMES ROOSEVELT, Congressman, House Office Building, DEAR SIR: I am enclosing some additional material which I hope will be of some help in your investigation. (1) I am sending this copy of the agenda which was used in a conference with representatives of the Civil Service Commission. This will point up some areas in which investigations may prove revealng. Mr. Peter Resty made the investigations for the Civil Service Commission. His entire report on the Los Angeles Post Office's personnel practices should prove interesting. (2) Statement made to the postal inspectors by Henry Gibson, president of the Los Angeles Branch of the National Alliance of Postal Employees and myself on the Monday, October 30, following the Los Angeles hearing October 27. (3) List of promotions for years 1958, 1959, and 1960, with a recap on last page showing ethnic breakdown. I have not completed the analysis as yet. (4) List of applications for promotion of George Roscoe Jones, a man who has the seniority, qualifications, and has many times seen men with less seniority and qualifications promoted over him. This is just a sample others are available if you need them. (5) This letter indicates the decision reached by the regional office after a discussion with Mr. Albert Bergesen, regional personnel director, Roy Hogan, special assistant for employee relations, Henry Gibson, president, Los Angeles Branch of National Alliance of Postal Employees, and myself. We feel that the parts of the report which were sustained indicate incompetence and inability to follow instructions. (6) This statement by Mr. Smith, president of National Alliance Postal Employees, supports our statement at the hearing. Mr. Smith's address is 1644 11th Street NW., Washington 1, D.C. (7) Letter from Postmaster Olesen in answer to my letter requesting specific reasons in detail as to why I was passed over for promotion, inasmuch as the first letter was vague and not to the point. This letter is still not specific, the main point was that they felt that my voice is to low. The assistant general superintendent of mails stated that I did a disservice to the post office by testifying before the committee, that I should have squashed such beliefs rather than expose them. He further stated that he knew discrimination existed some years back, but there was none now. I have been interviewed twice for promotion, once before the hearing and once after. In the first instance I was interviewed for about 5 minutes, and in the second, for 1 hour. We feel that a look at the records of the promotion Advisory Board will produce some revealing facts. This letter indicates that no consideration was given to the evaluation by my immediate supervisor, my rating on the examination and 24 years of seniority. It is hoped that this information will be of some help and if there is any thing I can do just let me know. Sincerely yours, PERRY C. PARKS, Jr., AGENDA: MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION AND REPRESENTATIVES OF NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES The purpose of this meeting is to bring into focus some of the areas in which personnel management as practiced in the Los Angeles Post Office may be improved, so that the operation of the office may be carried on under conditions satisfactory to management and employees. I. Selection process of new employees. A. Lack of training of interviewers. B. Interviewers not representative. C. Rule of one in three. II. Employee development. A. Maintenance Department. 1. Failure to train old employees. 2. Favoritism in promotions. 3. Lack of a comprehensive training program. B. Clerical. 1. Preferred assignments issued without uniformity. 2. Clerk-stenographer positions should be bid within the office before outsiders are brought in off the list. 3. Lack of knowledge of personnel with special talents. 4. Special talents in office not utilized. C. Supervisors. 1. Talents and skills of supervisors are not utilized to the best interest of the service. 2. Establish relations with universities so as to develop a formal training program. 3. Encourage participation in professional societies. III. Promotion plan. A. Elimination of the review board. 1. Too subjective. 2. Negates the validity of the written examination and the performance evaluation as well as seniority. B. Assign weights to the decision of the board. IV. Staffing the personnel section. A. Personnel office understaffed. B. Lack of professional training by members of staff. C. Lack of coordination between personnel office and operational personnel practices at terminal annex. NOVEMBER 3, 1961. STATEMENT OF LOS ANGELES BRANCH, NATIONAL ALLIANCE POSTAL EMPLOYEES, REGARDING DISCRIMINATION IN LOS ANGELES POST OFFICE It is the belief of this organization that there is discrimination in the allotment of preferred assignments and in the promotion to supervisor as well as the upgrading of supervisors. The offense is one of omission rather than commission. A survey of the various stations in the city will reveal that Negro supervisors are assigned to stations in predominantly Negro communities. In bidding on these assignments, a pattern has developed which shows that when |