To: E. M. Marselli, E. E. Smith, Pat Patrick, George Rice, Larry Stanton. The company from the very beginning has taken steps to see that we have complied with section 7.13, “Antidiscrimination," of Contract No. AT-(40-1)-1312 between Electric Energy, Inc., and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Our employment practices have been reviewed from time to time in order to ascertain if we were complying with various Presidential orders governing nondiscrimination on Government contracts. Since that time, we have kept you informed of President Kennedy's Executive order as well as the recent FEPC statute passed by the Illinois Legislature and enacted into law by signature of the Governor. We must continue reviewing our employment practices in order to be certain we have not become careless or permitted any oversight that will place us in jeopardy of violating our contract with the Atomic Energy Commission, the recent Executive order signed by President Kennedy or violating the State FEPC law. Each of you are requested to make a personal review of our employment practices and, in the very near future, a staff meeting will be held to discuss any recommendation as to changes that should be made in order to assure ourselves that we are complying fully with all regulations pertaining to nondiscrimination. Although we have taken every means to assure ourselves applications for employment in no way indicates race, creed, or color, we must be certain our security officers and other employees do not notify us, in advance, of the color or race of an applicant being admitted to the premises for a personal interview. All applicants must be considered on their qualifications for the particular job or position for which they are applying. Hon. JAMES ROOSEVELT, J.G.K. UNION BAG-CAMP PAPER CORP., Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Labor, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN ROOSEVELT: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter and attached copy of testimony which was given recently by Mr. Herbert Hill to the Special Subcommittee on Labor. Our company completed its 100th year as a business enterprise in 1961, and it has always been the company's policy that the consideration governing the progress of an individual's career is his individual worth to the organization. In terms of employment practices in our southern operations, the ability of the company's management to move ahead in fostering complete equality of opportunity is somewhat fettered by areas of employee relationship over which the company has no direct control. For example, the composition of local bargaining units, cited by Mr. Hill as being on a segregated basis, is within the exclusive domain of the bargaining agent under the National Labor Relations Act. By guidance and counseling, and to the fullest extent permitted by law without fomenting strife and disruption of operations, the management of this corporation intends to continue to press in every community in which we operate for the development of understanding of the need to recognize and reward employees solely on the basis of individual ability. We thank you for the opportunity to state our corporate position in this matter. Yours sincerely, GERALD W. VAUGHAN, Director, Industrial Relations. APPENDIX G STUDY, "CLERICAL HIRING," ILLINOIS CONFERENCE OF BRANCHES, NAACP CLERICAL HIRING BY THE ILLINOIS BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY A breakdown of white and Negro hiring patterns prepared by the Federation of Telephone Clerks of Illinois The Federation of Telephone Clerks of Illinois is an independent telephone union representing the accounting department and the secretary's department of the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. The employees represented by the federation are typical clerical white-collar workers and prepare and maintain all the financial records of the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. The employees in the revenue accounting divisions prepare all customer bills for local service, toll, and directory advertising. The disbursements accounting divisions maintain extensive property and cost records of equipment and plant necessary in a large public utility together with the preparation of payrolls and the payment of company expenses. The secretary's department maintains all important documents of the company including the permanent archives. Approximately 2,200 employees are required to do this work today. Large offices are located in Chicago and in the towns of Arlington Heights, Harvey, Joliet, and Springfield together with a small office at West Chicago, all in the State of Illinois. This contrasts with the 1952 employee force of about 3,000 of which all but 200 employed in Springfield were generally located in the Chicago Loop. ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS During this entire period, 1952-61, 98 percent of the hiring has been into entrance jobs such as messenger work, filing and sorting work, routinized clerical work and jobs requiring elementary typing skills. Employees assigned to jobs requiring specialized skills such as comptometry (adding and subtracting only), key punching, billing machine work and since 1959, entrance tabulating machine work, were trained on the job. The latest contract signed in March 1961, calls for a starting rate of pay of $57 a week in Chicago down to $53 a week in Springfield. The remaining 2 percent of the employees hired had certain specialized skills such as advanced comptometry or previous tabulating machine training. All other nonentrance jobs were filled by promotions from the ranks including stenographic jobs. An overwhelming percentage of those hired were high school graduates. A few of those hired had a year or so of college. Negro employees appear to have a higher level of education than white employees doing similar work but no definite racial pattern can be ascertained. Ninety-five percent of those hired are female. THE CHICAGO LOOP ERA TO 1952 For many years the entire accounting department was located in the Chicago Loop with the exception of the Springfield office. The hiring of Negroes is believed to have been started in the late 1940's and early 1950's in the office located at 309 West Washington Street in the Chicago Loop. The union during this initial hiring of Negro employees found it necessary to take positive steps in the field of worker education to smooth over the change. It can be stated, however, with a great deal of pride that during this entire period the relations between the two races were of the best. The Illinois Bell Telephone Co. deserves sincere praise in its planning in race relations during this period. By the year 1951. Negro employees were working in most of the downtown Chicago offices. These offices were then called north revenue division, central revenue division, south revenue division, suburban revenue division, headquarters and disbursements accounting. Total employment was about 3,000. The number of Negro employees working in this force located in the Loop is not known. There were no Negro employees at the Springfield office. DECENTRALIZATION 1952-61 In 1952, the offices located in the Chicago Loop began to move to outlying Chicago and to suburban locations. It is not necessary to give a detailed analysis of these moves; suffice to say that by 1961 only 500 employees remain in the Chicago Loop. The remaining 1,600 employees work at the following locations: Portage Park: 4355 North Linder Avenue, Chicago, Ill. Joliet, Ill. Harvey, Ill. Arlington Heights, Ill. West Chicago, Ill. Springfield, Ill. West Chicago is a very small office totaling only 15 employees. The other 8 offices range from 160 to 225 employees each. THE CHANGING EMPLOYMENT PATTERN As stated before by 1952 most Chicago Loop offices had Negro employees. This changed drastically as a result of decentralization. Part of the change was unavoidable, part of the change the evidence indicates was done deliberately. A brief summary of the change: Portage Park moved in 1952. This represented about 50 percent of north revenue division located in the Loop. Negroes working on northwest side accounts were transferred to remaining Loop locations. This move appeared logical in 1952 because of the distance of office from Negro areas. Joliet revenue also moved in 1952. This represented about 30 percent of the suburban revenue force located in the Chicago Loop. Only one Chicago employee transferred to Joliet to work at the time of the initial move. All white and Negro employees were transferred to the remaining Loop offices. In October and November 1955, Harvey and the Marquette Chicago offices were transferred. A large number of Loop employees hired in the preceeding few years along the Illinois Central Railroad from the far south side moved to the Harvey office. Several Negro employees living in the general vicinity of the Harvey office were transferred to Harvey at this time. The work was transferred from the old midstate revenue office. The Marquette office move was a different story. the following general area was transferred to the 61st and Kedzie Avenues. North Roosevelt Road South: 10700 South East: 1000 East West: 7200 West White employees living in Marquette office located at No Negro employees were transferred to the Marquette office. Any Negro employee living in the general area shown above was transferred to the remaining Loop offices. The Arlington Heights office performing the last of the work originally done by the midstate revenue office located in the Chicago Loop moved over the period 1956-58. Joilet and Harvey had previously moved in the years 1952-55 and, as mentioned, the remaining employees stayed in the Loop. As a result, the remaining midstate force (about 30 percent) had a large concentration of Negro workers. Obviously none of the Negro workers were transferred to the last suburban office opened at Arlington Heights. The midstate Negro workers in 1956-58 were again transferred to the remaining Loop locations. The last of the south revenue employees moved to Brainerd located at 88th and Ashland in December 1956. White employees working in the Loop and living in the following general area were transferred to this office: North Cermak Road South: 11700 South East: 3700 East West: 3400 West No Negro workers, even those living in this area, were transferred to the Brainerd office. The Negro workers were again transferred and concentrated in the fast decreasing Loop offices. In April 1958, the last of north revenue division work was transferred to Northcenter, located at 3800 North Western Avenue. White employees living in this general area were transferred to this new office: North Evanston South: Cermak Road East Lake Michigan West: 7500 West No Negro workers were transferred to Northcenter, even those living in the above area. The Negro workers were transferred to the two remaining large offices in the Loop. These were central revenue accounting and disbursements accounting, each with about 400 employees. Early in 1959, with the gradual reduction of the work force due to mechanization, central revenue was dispersed to the four outlying Chicago revenue offices; i.e., Portage Park, Northcenter, Brainerd, and Marquette. Again the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. planned to move all the remaining Negro workers to the one remaining Loop office-disbursements. At this point the union protested about this continued pattern of discrimination to the management of Illinois Bell Telephone Co. The protest was based on the belief that all workers regardless of race should be transferred to the new offices if they lived in the same general area governed by the general transfer rules. President Long informally informed the human relations committee of the company's discriminatory pattern and of the union protest to the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. The company then capitulated and Negro employees working in central revenue were transferred to Northcenter in the north and to Marquette and Brainerd in the south on the same basis as their sister white workers. HIRING PATTERNS A recent study completed by the union as a result of grievances filed by Negro members reveals that the pattern of discrimination detected from 1952 until the central revenue dispute settlement still continues. The fine work commenced in the late 1940's in regards to minority employment by the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. in its accounting department has not only come to a halt but has steadily gone backward. This statement is based on cold hard facts and is not a conclusion or an opinion. This study not only covers the Chicago offices but Springfield, Joliet, and Harvey where Negro employees can logically be hired and in the Marquette, Brainerd, and Northcenter offices in Chicago where Negro employees were first transferred in 1959 although the offices actually opened up years earlier. EMPLOYEES HIRED Hiring in the accounting department of the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. is a big and responsible job. In past years in Chicago the accounting department hired the equivalent of all the graduates of four Chicago high schools. With hiring confined to simple entrance jobs normally requiring only a high school certificate, a change in hiring practice could drastically effect the number of whites, Negroes, and other races hired from Chicago high schools. Following are the employees hired in the following years for employment in jobs controlled by this union : 1 Of this number, 1,742 were hired for work in the Chicago Loop and 53 were hired in Springfield. NEGRO HIRING CHICAGO The union has completed a survey of the hiring dates of all Negro employees in three outlying Chicago offices to which Negro workers were finally transferred in 1959 as a result of a union complaint. The fourth office, Portage Park located 5400 West and 4400 North, never had Negro employees and a survey of the home location of the force was not made. MARQUETTE Marquette was opened in November 1955. In spite of the general area from which these employees reside, no Negroes were moved into Marquette until 1959. The number moved is not known. The last Negro, a union steward, was transferred out of Marquette a few months ago. The office is now completely white. The union is convinced that the transfer out of Marquette of all Negro workers was a planned move by the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. In spite of the fact that the general area in which the present white force lives included large Negro areas, it is believed no Negroes were employed in the Marquette office between 1955 and 1959. In 1959, due to union pressure, Negro members were moved into Marquette but by late 1960 the last Negro was gone. The union, late in 1960, acted to have the last Negro, a union steward, transferred as pressure was getting too great to have one Negro remain in an office housing nearly 200 clerks. The Marquette building is four stories high. The accounting clerks occupy two floors. The other two floors are occupied by other departments represented by other unions. All jobs at Marquette regardless of department can be considered to be of a clerical type. There are no Negro women to our knowledge working in the remaining half of the building. Following are the number of accounting clerks hired at Marquette since the office opened in 1955. All hired are believed to have been white. The story at Brainerd follows the same general pattern as that of arquette. Occupied in December 1956, Negroes were first located at Brainerd in 1959. Fortunately 10 Negroes still remain at Brainerd A study of their hiring dates reveal the changing employment patterns of the telephone company. Of these 10 employees, regardless of date of employment, none came to Brainerd before 1959. Only the first five hired represent Negroes hired in the accounting department and still remaining today in the accounting department; 1953 appears to be the date the Accounting Department of the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. stopped hiring Negro employees for offices scheduled to move in later years out of the Loop. Of the last five Negroes on the list strangely enough two appear from union records to have been transferred from the New York Bell Telephone Co. The remaining three Negroes were transferred to Brainerd in 1960 from the traffic department as a result of a dial cutover. Brainerd is also a four-story building of which two are occupied by the accounting department. Like the Marquette story the remaining two floors appear to be devoid of Negro clerical employees. Brainerd, of all the four offices, is closest to the Negro districts. It is estimated that possibly 50 percent of all Chicago telephones with Negro subscribers are billed out of this office. The number of employees in this office has dropped drastically in the last year due to mechanization. What effect this has had on the percent of Negro employees to the total force is not known but it is true to the best of our knowledge, that all the following employees hired since 1956 for employment in this office were white. |