Party platform states, "We pledge continued support for legislation to establish a Commission on Equal Job Opportunity***. The Democratic Party platform specifically endorses fair employment practices legislation which is included as a major item in the party's platform on civil rights. The Democratic Party platform of 1960 expressly pledged: "The new Democratic administration will support Federal legislation, establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission, to secure effectively for everyone the right to equal opportunity for employment. It is evident that support or nonsupport from the White House can be the decisive factor in determining passage or defeat for fair employment practices legislation; however, there is also a direct party responsibility for both political groups. Negroes throughout the country will very carefully watch what Mr. McCormack, the new Speaker of the House, and his colleague, Mr. Albert, the majority leader, do on this issue. Similarly, the party responsibility of the Republicans will be indicated by Mr. Halleck and the other Republican leaders. The New York Times of September 2, 1960, carried a front-page story from Washington, D.C., stating that Senator John F. Kennedy pledged himself today to supporting a drive early in the next session of Congress for passage of the Democratic platform plank on civil rights. The New York Times also reported that Mr. Kennedy centered his news conference on the civil rights issue and promised to put the power of the White House, if he is elected, behind the fight to get the Democratic plank passed in the next Congress. In the volume entitled "The Speeches of Senator John F. Kennedy, Presidential Campaign of 1960," issued as part I of the Final Report of the Senate Commerce Committee on Freedom of Communications (Report 994, pt. I, 87th Cong., 1st sess.), there appears on page 77 the following statement of Senator John F. Kennedy: The Democratic platform calls for fair employment practices. I have supported it when I was in the House of Representatives when it came up. I would feel that we should take action in every available area to expand civil rights, jobs and all the rest of it. Today we can only hope that President Kennedy has not forgotten the promises of Senator Kennedy. For the Negro wage earners in America, and indeed for all who are advocates of civil rights, what the members of both political parties do on the issue of fair employment practices in this session of the Congress will be far more important than all the rhetoric of party conventions and campaign speeches. The dubious rationalization that support for this bill will endanger other desirable legislation is completely specious and must be clearly rejected as an exercise in political dishonesty. What the administration does on the issue of fair employment practices will be long remembered and will be the decisive issue in determining the civil rights record of this Congress and the Kennedy administration. Thank you very much. Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Hill, thank you very much for your statement. May I first just make a statement on my own, without relationship to, and in no way reflecting the views of, the committee as such? I am happy that you quoted from the platforms of both political parties. I believe very firmly that this legislation should be nonpartisan. I believe very firmly that it is the duty of all the Members of Congress, without regard to partisan politics, to see that a strong and practical bill is passed. And I can speak only for the House of Representatives. I agree with your thesis that it is a responsibility of the President to exert the power of the administration to see that equal consideration is given to it in the other body, where I am sure it will also have strong and liberal support. I am distressed, sometimes, to read that the measure has strong possibilities of passing in the House and little in the other body. I believe that this is not necessarily so, and that it depends largely upon the cooperation of all of us in bringing to the attention of the people of the country the tremendous stake which our country has in the passage of this bill, not only from the moral point of view, which you properly stress, but also from the equally important point of viewthe essential use of our manpower in every possible manner if we are to win the tremendous struggle in which our country is now engaged. And I congratulate you, therefore, on the broadness of your presentation. Mr. HILL. Thank you, sir. Mr. ROOSEVELT. May I just ask you whether it is true, as I have been told, that the NAACP has filed approximately a hundred complaints with the President's Commission? Mr. HILL. 344, sir. Since the establishment of the Commission in April of 1961, we filed 344 complaints. Mr. ROOSEVELT. And of those 344, how many have been successfully completed, and has any significant change taken place in these situations? Mr. HILL. Many of these complaints, we are told, are still in process of investigation and action. Mr. ROOSEVELT. How long is this process of investigation? Mr. HILL. As you know, the operation of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities is a very cumbersome process. It is an awkward and cumbersome operation. When the Committee receives a complaint, the complaint is referred to the Government agency that awarded the contract; and they must make the initial investigation; and then the Committee has the right of either accepting or rejecting that report and making its own investigation. Then it must come before the Committee for determination. And then there are various compliance procedures. It is a very awkward and time-consuming operation. Now, some significant breakthroughs have been made as a result of the filing of complaints on behalf of Negro workers. The most significant, in terms of public attention, was the complaints that I filed against the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in Marietta, Ga. Here and elsewhere, I would say that by and large the breakthroughs have been of a symbolic nature. They do not really fundamentally alter the pattern of Negro employment. They represent an initial breakthrough, and it is hoped that subsequently this will be consolidated and developed, so that other employment opportunities for Negro workers occur. But in the most difficult cases, where we have hostile employers, as in the southern textile industry and in some industries in the North, then the Committee, because it lacks a statutory base, because it has no real authority, finds itself completely blocked from securing new job openings for Negro workers. Where there is an employer who wishes to comply with the antidiscrimination provision in the Federal Government contract, the President's Commission undoubtedly will be very helpful. Where you have an intransigent employer, here the powers and authorities of the Committee are most limited. In addition, I should like to point out that the Committee has no jurisdiction over trade unions; which means that in the building trades and elsewhere the employer who has a Government contract has turned over his hiring function to a third party, who is not a signatory to the contract, and therefore has achieved an immunity from the antidiscrimination provision of the Federal Government contract. In addition, there is no coverage of State employment services. This is a very limited operation and certainly is no substitute for a Federal fair employment practices act. Mr. ROOSEVELT. However, there is no reason why the two agencies could not be supplementary? Mr. HILL. No, sir; absolutely not. Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Ayres? Mr. AYRES. There were 344 complaints you filed? Mr. HILL. 344. To be specific, these were individual complaints. Mr. AYRES. Were those broken down as to whether they were in the North or in the South? Mr. HILL. I would say that more than half were in the South. Mr. HILL. It is a problem all over the country, sir. It is most sharply expressed in the South. We have similar problems in the Midwest and in the West and in the East, but one finds the most extreme expression of employment discrimination in the South; that would be correct. Mr. AYRES. Was this employment discrimination, the cases you found, primarily dealing with the trades, rather than with industry? Mr. HILL. No, they are mixed. For instance, we have filed against the General Motors plants both in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Atlanta, Ga. We have filed complaints against the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., in Lake Charles, La., in the tobacco and chemical and oil refining industry. We have filed complaints against the major producers in the textile industry in the South-Deering-Millikin, Drayton Mills, Spartan Mills, Reeves Mills—many of the major producers. We have filed complaints against some railways in the South. The Illinois Central Railway's operation in Memphis; the Atlantic Coast Line in Jacksonville; and against public utilities. We have filed a great variety based on the complaints we have received from Negro workers. Mr. AYRES. When you mention the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., you are getting pretty close to home. Was this particular plant organized? Mr. HILL. Yes, sir. This particular plant was organized by the Metals Trades Council of the AFL-CIO in Lake Charles, La. And I would like to point out, if I may, sir, that the Metals Trades Council of the AFL is a department of the federation itself. It is not an affiliated international union. The "sacred cow" of local union autonomy cannot be invoked, and here then are separate racial seniority lines in the collective bargaining agreement, which limit Negro workers to menial and unskilled job classifications. Mr. AYRES. I have been advised by the rubber industry that they, as an industry, are not wanting to have any part of being accused of discriminating, because their percentage of employees who are Negroes is one of the highest of any major industry in the United States. And are you certain, Mr. Hill, that this case that you speak of was not one that the union proposed, and management was in no position to fight? Mr. HILL. I would say that specifically, sir, regarding this company's operation in Lake Charles, La., the collective bargaining agreement represents a codification of practices which have been traditional in that region. Now, it is a fact that a great many Negroes are employed as production workers in the rubber industry. And this is not due to any altruism on the part of those who operate the rubber manufacturing industry. For many long years these have been regarded as Negro jobs, because they are dirty, miserable, unhealthy jobs. And starting in the 1920's when we began to have a rubber industry in this country these jobs went to Negroes. Mr. AYRES. These are high-paying jobs? Mr. HILL. Now they are high-paying jobs. Once upon a time the white man didn't want those jobs. They were extremely unhealthy. And in the early part of the 1930's, this became regarded as a Negro occupation in the production industry of the rubber manufacturing companies. In Lake Charles, La., and elsewhere in the South, where Firestone and other rubber corporations have operations, they follow the local pattern on this, and they do discriminate, and usually in collusion with the trade union that holds the collective bargaining agreement. Mr. AYRES. I will get into that when my time comes. Mr. ROOSEVELT. The Chair would like to note at this time with appreciation the presence of the chairman of the full committee, the Honorable Adam Clayton Powell, and ask Mr. Powell whether he would not at this time wish to make any statement. Mr. POWELL. First I would like to thank Herb Hill for his presentation and for his foremost job over the years. He speaks as an authority. I also would like to thank this subcommittee for the hard work that they have been doing during the so-called holiday recess, crisscrossing the country, and the staff, under Don Lowe. This legislation was born in this room 18 years ago, when the little lady from New Jersey, Mrs. Norton, was the chairman. I was author of this legislation then. Under Mr. Lesinski, later chairman, we brought it to the House for a vote. We had to vote it on Calendar Wednesday-that was about 12 years ago-and about 3 o'clock in the morning the gentleman who succeeded Mr. Lesinski prevailed with a substitute on my bill and we passed an FEPC bill without enforcement power. For some unknown reason, for the past 10 years this has not been before this committee. But it is now before us again, and I echo the sentiments of Mr. Roosevelt that we can provide bipartisan cooperation-civil rights should never be partisan-and put this through the House. In regard to the Senate, I do not know. So, one way or the other, we are hopeful that we can solve this national disgrace and heal the sores in our international relationships. The passage of this bill or some bill of this type with power would be of great salutary benefit to the Nation and to our foreign affairs. I am confident that my colleagues in this body will see that such a movement is carried out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ROOSEVELT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hill, I have just one further question, and I am not sure it is very fair to you, because you have not been in on the subcommittee deliberations. However, there has been a proposal that in order to get away from the basic charge that many of the independent commissions become judge, prosecutor, and jury, all in one, we attempt to follow a slightly different pattern, which would include the entire process of investigation conciliation. Then, following any failure to reach agreement under those proceedings, the commission then would be charged with the responsibility of becoming the prosecutor and moving directly to a Federal court, empowered either to act itself or to act by appointment of a special referee. The process we believe might take away not only some of the rather onerous duties of trial on the part of the independent commission, bypassing some of the very legalized machinery which inevitably seems to crop up and then ends up in the court anyhow. This procedure would take us directly into the court and give us the opportunity thereby to escape the charge of trying to make a commission both a semijudicial body and a prosecutive body at the same time. I do not think it is fair to ask you to pass on that now. We expect to have within the next few days the outline of that specific proposal. We would appreciate it if you would give it some study and perhaps send us a little memorandum within the next few days as to your general opinion, No. 1, as to its constitutionality, about which I personally have not much question, and, No. 2, whether or not it does not have some advantages not existent in the present administrative procedures of independent commissions. Mr. HILL. We shall be very happy to draft a statement on this and related matters, which we will send on to the committee very soon. Mr. ROOSEVELT. Thank you, sir, At this time I want to express my regret to Mr. Powell and Mr. Hill at not being able to be present for the rest of today's proceedings. I am going to turn the gavel over to my colleague, Mr. Dent, and again express my appreciation to him for proceeding. Before I do so, may I ask Mr. Dent whether he would not at the conclusion of the hearing put this pamphlet, entitled "The Negro and Employment Opportunities in the South," into the committee records for our further consideration? Mr. DENT. First let me admit that Mr. Roosevelt has a much greater knowledge of this subject than I have, having acted as chairman and sponsor for quite a few years of this type of legislation. |