practice in this area and even with the existence of municipal and State fair employment practices legislation, it wasn't until we voluntarily joined the President's Plan for Progress that we were challenged by the scope of the minority group employment situation and decided to take positive steps toward expanding equal employment opportunity. Once we signed the plan in February of 1962, these are the steps we took: 1. Through a complete communication from top management to all our managers and supervisors, we reaffirmed our company policy of equal employment opportunity and announced that the company had signed the Plan for Progress. 2. We sent a letter across the Nation to all private employment agencies with whom the Aeronautical Division in Minneapolis does business, restating our company policy of nondiscrimination in employment and announcing our joining the Plan for Progress. Further, through normal contact wth employment agency personnel, we firmly stated and clearly outlined the company's intent in this area. 3. With the approval of my division management, I attended the National Urban League Conference in Grand Rapids, Mich., in July of 1962, to learn more about the scope of the nonwhite minority group employment situation, and to share with them the content and scope of employment opportunities at the Aeronautical Division in Minneapolis. 4. In conjunction with the Minneapolis Urban League, we developed a brochure to persuade young Negroes to stay in school and get more education. I have attached a copy for your information. 5. While we felt that our company policy regarding equal opportunity employment had been thoroughly demonstrated to the local community by our practice, we voluntarily participated in activities and programs of organizations and groups who have a legitimate interest in minority group employment in an attempt to learn more about what we could do to help overcome some of the problems in this area. The net effect of this program in terms of employment is encouraging, because since signing the Plan for Progress, we have hired 85 nonwhite minority group members in Minneapolis. As a competitive business enterprise constantly seeking the best minds and skilled hands to be found, we would have readily hired more if we could have found additional people with the education or training that it takes to hold down a job in an industry as complex and technical as ours. In conclusion, let me emphasize that I do not come before you today to speak for or against national fair employment practices legislation, nor do I pretend to be an expert in the field of civil rights. I come only to share with you one company's experience under existing municipal and State laws, together with recent activities we have voluntarily undertaken under the President's Plan for Progress, with the hope that our experiences in both these areas can guide you in some small way in your legislative deliberations. Senator CLARK. You may proceed, Mr. Richardson. STATEMENT OF ROY RICHARDSON, PERSONNEL MANAGER, HONEYWELL-AERONAUTICAL DIVISION, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. Mr. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to apbefore you. pear As I mentioned in my statement, Honeywell is a large company. We have over 50,000 people, 17,000 of them work in Minneapolis, and that is the portion of the company that I am here to tell you about today. What I tried to do in my statement and what I think might be of value to the subcommittee now to present our operations in Minneapolis as a case history. We have fair employment practices legislation in both the city and the State. We are a member of the President's Plan for Progress. Senator CLARK. Let me interrupt to say that we had the Minnesota State Human Relations Commission director here a couple of days ago, and he filled us in pretty well on the Minnesota situation. I think this brochure, "Plan, Prepare, the Opportunity is Yours," which was published by the Urban League and obviously prepared by your company, is a most effective document. I ask to have it filed with the record and I certainly congratulate you on what your company is trying to do. Mr. RICHARDSON. Thank you, sir. (The brochure, "Plan and Prepare, the Opportunity is Yours," is in the subcommittee files.) Mr. RICHARDSON. As I mentioned in my statement, in 16 years of fair employment practices legislation, we have had eight charges of discrimination lodged against the company, five of these involving employment, three of the five employment cases were brought by Negroes. Senator CLARK. Excuse me, off the record a minute. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. RICHARDSON. I thought it might be of interest to mention in some detail about what we did after we signed the Plan for Progress. Senator CLARK. I interrupt again only briefly to say that I was very much interested in the comment in your statement that you felt that the existence of State legislation had had very little effect on your own company's policy. It neither helped it much, nor did it impede it. Did I correctly understand you? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes; I think that is true. Because our policy was already in existence when the law was passed, it did not have any great effect on us one way or the other. Senator CLARK. You say as a result of your voluntarily joining the President's plan that you felt you were able to make some further progress? Mr. RICHARDSON. Maybe I could explain it this way. When, prior to the Plan for Progress, we were operating within the confines of our employment door. In other words, when people came to us, we did not discriminate, but the Plan for Progress as we read it has in it provisions for outreach, to leave your premises if you will, and go out into the community, using whatever vehicles you can to try to do more to expand employment opportunities. And it was this new sensation or approval under that plan, that got us outside of our plant in and working in the community. Senator CLARK. I think it is probably a good illustration, would you not agree, of what Senator Javits and Secretary Wirtz were referring to a few minutes ago, as the positive approach, the “go” approach, as opposed to the "stop" approach? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, of course, it was under the President's plan. A voluntary approach. I think this is important. Once we signed the Plan for Progress we had, of course, extensive internal communication of that fact in the company. There has been followup since. Memorandums are written periodically to remind managers and supervisors that we are a member of the plan. Externally there were announcements in the press. We notified local groups, the Urban League, for example, that we had signed the Plan for Progress. We sent a letter to all national private employment agencies informing them of the fact we had joined the plan and restated our former policy. We notified all of the subcontractors on our Government contracts. Then, of course, in our employment advertising we indicated that we were an equal-opportunity employer. We moved beyond our plant in some of these ways. For example, a Honeywell executive that the company has is president of the Minneapolis Urban League. We developed the brochure that you already mentioned. I serve as a member of the Urban League Job Development Council in our community. I have participated in a public forum sponsored by a predominantly Negro national fraternity to discuss the Negro employment situation in our city. Then, as a result of that brochure, again, I was interviewed on TV and questioned about our experience relative to employing Negroes and some of our experiences after they were employed. Then I think there are other elements here that continued once we signed the plan, internally. For example, we have a tuition aid program for employees where they can take any course that contributes to their job in some way, either at a university or trade or vocational school and the company pays tuition for this." We have an evening education program which the company sponsors and conducts on the premises, with our own instructors. Some of these are Negroes. The program covers a wide range of subjects all the way from technical German to astrodynamics. Our personnel department serves on promotion review boards internally in the company. This helps insure promotion on performance and merit. In addition we have a union agreement with the Teamsters, which contractually binds the company again to nondiscrimination. Any violation there would be subject to arbitration, not to mention the provisions of national labor laws. The Teamsters union position, I might add, is very strong. They have Negro stewards, for example, and they certainly agree with the company's policy and what not. Senator CLARK. Do you have any other unions in your plant except the Teamsters? Mr. RICHARDSON. We have two small bargaining units, the IAM, the Machinists Union has a group at the airport, made up of aircraft mechanics. We have a guards union which is also very small. The Teamsters local in Honeywell, though, has roughly I would say 8,000 to 10,000 members in Minneapolis. Senator CLARK. What is your total personnel force? Mr. RICHARDSON. In Minneapolis, 17,000. Senator CLARK. So, by and large, the other 7,000 are not unionized! Mr. RICHARDSON. That is right. Senator CLARK. But I suppose there is a pretty high level of technical skill and educational background, is there not, in which you are doing pretty technical and high-grade work? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, I would say that somewhere between 60 and 75 percent of our work force is either highly skilled or certainly semiskilled. We have no laborers, for example, and we have very few purely unskilled jobs. Senator CLARK. Would you hazard a guess as to how many of your employees are (a) high school graduates and (b) college graduates? Mr. RICHARDSON. I would say almost all are high school graduates and of the professional and administrative people that we hire, I would say 95 percent have at least a bachelor's degree. Senator CLARK. Would that apply also to the members of your Teamsters Union? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, almost all Senator CLARK. What kind of work do they do, drive trucks? Mr. RICHARDSON. No, this is perhaps unusual, but it is an industrial local. We have technical people who build complex electronic gear. We make avionic subsystems, highly precise and complex devices. Senator CLARK. That is all you need to say. I just wanted to indicate for the record that your Teamster group-there is not a truckdriving or sort of manual labor group. They are fairly skilled technicians? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, very highly skilled, as a matter of fact. I thought you might be interested in some statistics on what our employment level was at the start of the plan for progress, what it is today, and what our nonwhite population was then and what it is today. When we started the plan, which was in February of 1962, we had 15,400 employees in Minneapolis. Today we have 17,100 or an 11 percent. The nonwhite population was 278 at the start of the plan, it is now 363, that is up 85, or 31 percent. It is interesting, I think, to note that in Minneapolis, using the figure I have heard quoted by the Urban League, the nonwhite population is 2.4 percent, whereas, in our having a total of 1,700 employees, since joining the plan we added 85 nonwhites, which is 5 percent of that total. Senator CLARK. Actually, racial discrimination in employment is not a real serious problem in Minneapolis, is it? Mr. RICHARDSON. I do not believe it is, no. Not in my company. I can only testify to that. Senator CLARK. As you get around on the board of the Urban League and elsewhere, do you get the general impression that most employers of any size are following the same policies you are? In Minneapolis, I mean? Mr. RICHARDSON. In Minneapolis? Senator CLARK. Yes, in the metropolitan area around there? Mr. RICHARDSON. I know some that do, and I think I know some that do not. It is hard for me to really say, Senator. Senator CLARK. Now, believe me these questions are friendly and I have no intention of putting you on the spot. How many plants around the country does Minnapolis-Honeywell have, do you know? Mr. RICHARDSON. I do not know, actually- Mr. RICHARDSON. A good many. Senator CLARK. Some in the South? Mr. RICHARDSON. One in the South, I believe. Senator CLARK. Do you know where it is? Mr. RICHARDSON. St. Petersburg, Fla. Senator CLARK. Do you have occasion to get together from time to time with the personnel directors of the other plants of the company? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, I do. Senator CLARK. Do you ever discuss this employment practice problem? Mr. RICHARDSON. I never discussed it with them, no. Senator CLARK. Have never brought it up with you? Mr. RICHARDSON. Well, our St. Petersburg plant asked, for example, when the brochure was to be published. They were most interested in this. I talked with the executive secretary, I believe he is called, of the Tampa Urban League, which is adjacent to St. Petersburg, last year at the National Urban League Conference, and he told me that he was working with the St. Petersburg facility of Honeywell on the problem. I cannot testify as to the nature of their discussions. Senator CLARK. Did they show enough interest in this brochure to get some copies and disseminate them? Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Senator CLARK. Do you happen to know whether the Minneapolis policy in your plant is the companywide policy for your company. Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes, it is. Senator CLARK. And do you have any information at all as to whether it is equally effective in other plants as it is in Minneapolis! Mr. RICHARDSON. No, I could not say, Senator. It would be very difficult for me to testify to that. I just do not know. Senator CLARK. I interrupted you, I don't want to cut you off. If you have anything else to say, we will be glad to hear it. Mr. RICHARDSON. I was going to give you some information on our work force and the kinds of jobs that nonwhite minority group members held. Just to rattle off a few. We have chemists, engineers, scientists, administrators, managers, technicians, maintenance electricians, inspectors, tool and diemakers, personnel representatives, receptionists, accounting clerks, stenographers, electronic assemblers, machine repairmen, stockmen, janitors, and so on. So that there is quite a dispersion in our work force of nonwhite minority group members. We have nonwhites in high levels of management in my own division. I give this as another example of the degree that they are spread through the work force. There were some other things that I don't know if you are interested in exploring or not, and this is some comments that I might have on my own experience in the employment setting relative to Negroes, such things as characteristics of applicants that I have interviewed Senator CLARK. I would like very much to hear them. We are a little pressed for time, but I would like very much to have you deal with it. Mr. RICHARDSON. Well, I do not pretend to speak for Negroes, of course, but in my own personal experience I have found that in an employment setting, Negroes tend to be a bit self-conscious, a bit |