whether you believe the bill introduced yesterday to which I have made reference, S. 1937, is adequate in this respect? Perhaps Mr. Tom Harris might address that question. Mr. MEANY. I am advised by Mr. Harris that it is, but I think he could maybe go into it a little more. Senator RANDOLPH. Would you talk to that point, Mr. Harris? Mr. HARRIS. Yes. I think that the bill introduced yesterday does confer on the administrator perhaps the broadest authority to make inspections and the broadest general authority for affirmative promotion of equal employment opportunity of any of the bills. I would think it is quite satisfactory in that respect. Mr. Meany, will you please turn again to your testimony. You referred to a statement you made in the House Judiciary Committee, "No program designed to open up jobs for Negroes at the ex pense of whites" should be adopted. You also speak here of special preference in hiring and seniority, and layoffs. I wonder if this is a pitfall in your opinion and if you see in any of these three bills such a pitfall? Mr. MEANY. No; not in the bills. Senator RANDOLPH. The bills, you think, provide adequate protection? Mr. MEANY. Yes. Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, Mr. Meany. Mr. Chairman, I want to again say it has been a privilege to preside in your absence. I am sure the other Senators present today have been helped very much by the attitude, the knowledge of the testimony given by Mr. Meany. Senator CLARK. Senator Pell? Senator PELL. Thank you, Senator Clark. I am sorry I was not here to hear your testimony, Mr. Meany. I have read it. I have one question this question of not opening up jobs for Negroes at the expense of whites if a program is in effect. What about those cases where there is a waiting list to join a union and in the past there have not been Negroes placed on that waiting list? Should not steps be taken now to try and insure that in some formula to be worked out by you or someone else, that applicants to join a union should be put on a waiting list in an appropriate position? Mr. MEANY. I would recommend that the special attention be given these problems by the organizations that have these waiting lists, and in the cases where the waiting lists have been operating with a proviso for a preference to be shown to certain people, I think the Negroes should be put in a preferential position. If, however, where the waiting list has been originally followed as to its subsequence, then I feel that the Negroes will have to go at the bottom of that list unless the local union is willing to make some arrangements to intersperse them into this. But where the list has given preference to employer's sons and to members sons, things like that, or relatives, then I think in those cases they should provide for a preference to integrating the Negroes into that list. But these things, Senator, will have to be governed by the actual local conditions. I mean, I do not think you can come up with a hard and fast rule to apply to all of these. Senator PELL. In that connection though, will your views in this matter be made known to the local unions? Mr. MEANY. Oh, yes. Senator PELL. They will feel the hot breath of your opinion from the top as well as public opinion around them? Mr. MEANY. Yes. Senator PELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Meany. Mr. MEANY. Thank you, Senator. Senator CLARK. At this point in the record I will have the prepared statement of Mr. Walter Reuther placed. I am informed that he planned to be present but is now unable to do so. (The prepared statement of Mr. Reuther is as follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF WALTER P. REUTHER, PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS AND INDUSTRIAL UNION DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO My name is Walter P. Reuther. I am president of the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and of the Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO. The proposal for fair employment practices now before the Congress will have far-reaching impact on the civil rights climate of America. Therefore, the action this subcommittee takes on the pending fair employment practices bill is most important and I welcome this opportunity to present our thinking on this matter. The entire Nation has been stirred as never before by the demonstrations of our fellow Negro citizens seeking their rightful place in our American society. It wasn't planned this way, but 1963-the centennial year of the Emancipation Proclamation-will go down in the history books as the year that the Negro in the United States took a giant step toward first-class citizenship. It is no secret to the members of this Senate subcommittee that the UAW, the Industrial Union Department, and the AFL-CIO are vitally interested in the passage of a fair employment practices bill this year as part of a civil rights legislative package. Fair employment practices is close to the core of the civil rights proposals now before Congress. It is but a halfway result for a Negro to have the right to stay overnight in a motel if he does not have the money to buy a car or take a vacation. The facts on economic discrimination cry out for some answers, and it would be far short of justice for Congress to legislate on public accommodations, the right to vote, school desegregation but then fail to grapple with the problem of job discrimination. The proposed Equal Employment Opportunity Administration which Senator Humphrey and others wish to place in the Department of Labor (S. 1937) may not capture the headlines, but it will do as much as any proposal now before Congress to eradicate racial injustice and build the foundations for racial harmony in America. The most useful innovation in the Humphrey bill approach is to get away from the slow, bit-by-bit, complaint-by-complaint steps which are far too generally the pattern of most State fair employment practices commissions, and would only compound our difficulties if extended to the Federal level. The genius of the Humphrey bill approach to fair employment practices is that for the first time an agency of the Federal Government would be able to take affirmative action to reach out into areas troubled with racial discrimination and suggest constructive guidelines for tackling specific problems. As I understand the language of the Humphrey bill, the Administrator would do more than wait until a complaint has been made before he would move into action. He would attempt to create the kind of job climate which would reduce and eliminate racial discrimination. Thus, if in a particular community the Fair Practices Administration found that job training for a particular type of skill in demand was not available to Negroes, or if Negro students in school were not properly counseled to know of such jobs, the Fair Employment Practices Administration would take appropriate steps to deal with that problem. The wartime experience of the Fair Employment Practices Commission illustrates how job discrimination can be reduced. As the FEPC Director, Malcolm Ross, noted in a recent Washington Post article, 95 percent of its complaints were conciliated informally. To some extent this is true of the various State commissions. Many complaints are successfully wiped out before they are formally entered in the State commission dockets. However, the wartime Commission was operating under the pressures of war when there was an acute manpower shortage. The emergency atmosphere of war also made many employers and unions quickly comply with measures to bar discrimination. And in the States, Senator Prouty has quite rightly noted that State commissions have had limited success in enlarging job opportunities for Negroes. I think it is clear that without the State commissions the situation might be worse. And certainly if we use the State complaint-by-complaint pattern at the Federal level, we might make some dent on the problem of racial discrimination, but we are likely to fall far short of our goal of economic justice for all races. It is our belief that the American people are basically fairminded. Americans want to do the right thing. But it is always easier to do the right thing when the right thing is written into the law. Therefore, the steps which Congress takes this year to work out machinery to guarantee fair employment practices, will not only accomplish what most of the Nation wants and desires, but it will make it easier for the public-spirited employer and union to continue to do the right thing. Most The Fair Labor Standards Act is a case in point. Before its passage socially minded employers found it difficult to stand up against the collective strength and pressure of sweatshop employers. They found it extraordinarily difficult to "go it alone." They needed the power of government to place the mandate of the law behind moral precepts. With the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, sweatshop employers have been gradually eliminated, although the failure to cover all employees still leaves some areas untouched by the impact of Fair Labor Standards Act. And so it is with unfair employment practices. The conscientious employer; the employer who wants to exhibit decency and good conscience finds himself stigmatized in many places by those employers who still want to indulge their prejudices. Here, too, the wholesome employer needs the dignity and power of the Federal Government to enforce a uniform code applicable to all. There is every reason to believe, just as in the case of Fair Labor Standards Act, that a Federal fair labor practices law will have the same broad impact on job discrimination that Fair Labor Standards Act had on wages. In short, the fair minded employer needs to be buttressed by a sound law. The Humphrey bill would not only prod a community or an industry to take deliberate steps to eliminate racial discrimination when such a pattern exists, but it would also use all of the manpower studies of the Department of Labor to establish goals for training and job counseling so that gaps in the labor market could be filled, so that the vast, untapped manpower resources of our nonwhite citizens could be used to raise their own standard of living, and also expand the gross national product for the entire economy. It is unnecessary to recite here all of the shocking facts about job discrimination which other witnesses have already presented to you and which have been carefully compiled by many competent public and private agencies over the years. Every member of this subcommittee knows that Negro income is 30 percent lower than white income for the same educational level. We know that unemployment, heavy as it is for whites, is even heavier among nonwhites. And we know that as our economy rapidly moves into a new era of production by computers, the unskilled Negro worker will be pushed further down the economic totem pole. What Congress must do, and what this subcommittee is doing perhaps better than any other group on Capitol Hill, is explore ways of getting at the root of the problem of chronic unemployment and job discrimination. There is no sure-fire way to eliminate job discrimination. Even the States which have adopted fair employment practice commissions realize they have only scratched the surface. I think it is highly significant, however, that in every meeting of State Governors where the civil rights problems have been explored in detail, the State Governors have recommended adoption of a Federal fair employment practices commission. Therefore, I wish to include as part of my testimony the three most recent reports by the Governors which review the civil rights problem from their perspective and in each instance point up the need for Federal action, specifically asking for adoption of a fair employment practices commission. I wish to underscore the proposal to place the Fair Employment Practices Administration in the Department of Labor, as proposed in the Humphrey bill. The Department of Labor is uniquely equipped to compile information on job discrimination, manpower needs and training facilities, and to use this information in a way which can creatively tackle the problem. What we are talking about is "preventative" civil rights legislation, as well as "clinical" legislation. We need both. We need legislation which will take up complaints as they come along and try to adjudicate them fairly. And we need more far-ranging legislation to go to the root of the problem as the Humphrey bill does. The problem is so immense and so important, that we need to do more than merely treat the specific grievances of those few brave souls who will file a complaint. Indeed, what we need-and this echoes the sentiment of otherwitnesses-is a greatly improved economic climate, a climate of full employment. Much of the racial discrimination prevalent today is a result of shrinking job opportunities. If our economy were in full swing, even many of the untrained, unskilled Negroes would find job opportunities. So all of the proposals to stimulate the economy-tax cuts, area redevelopment, accelerated public works, youth employment opportunities, manpower retraining and development, vocational training, adult literacy-are each a vital part of the civil rights struggle in America this year. But job discrimination is a unique problem, and while faster economic growth and a climate of full employment will help to reduce the pressures for jobs and job opportunity among Negroes, we need new tools to deal with this problem. While I have devoted most of my comments to the Humphrey bill, I wish to also commend the objectives of other fair employment practice bills before this committee. As Senator Prouty indicated in his opening remarks, the fair employment practice bill which finally emerges from this subcommittee must be a blend of the new and the traditional, and I am hopeful that a genuinely creative compromise of all the pending bills may result. As I see it, the Humphrey bill proposes to give the Department of Labor some tools to work with. And in any final bill which the subcommittee may draft as the consensus of the proponents for fair practice legislation, I would hope that you would include the following: 1. The right of the fair employment practice commission or administration to take affirmative broad action and not to just wait for a knock on the door from a citizen with a complaint. 2. Better use of the professional and technical know-how of the Department of Labor in mobilizing the manpower information we presently have tucked away in books and studies which needs to be uncovered and put to work in dealing with job discrimination. Finally, let me say that racial discrimination is enormously expensive and constitutes a terrible waste of human resources which we can ill afford to lose. Aside from the immorality of discrimination, bad as that is, we are, as the Council of Economic Advisers pointed out, losing $13 billion in goods and services because nonwhites are not paid on a par with whites, and $17 billion because nonwhites are denied the same training and skills as whites. The end of discrimination on the job would make a major contribution to resolving many of our economic ills. Justice for all workers is not only good for the soul-it pays practical economic dividends. Senator CLARK. Our next witness is A. Philip Randolph, president of the Negro American Labor Council, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and vice president of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Randolph, would you please come forward? Mr. RANDOLPH. Thank you. Senator CLARK. Let me say to you, sir, that I have read your testimony with keen interest, that I think it is most helpful to the subcommittee. I want to congratulate you for the lifetime of useful work that you have done in promoting racial equality, not only in the labor movement but outside of it in the job employment field, and to tell you how very happy we are to have you as a witness before us today. Now, this subcommittee is faced with an increasingly difficult problem which is that colleagues of ours, sincere and well-meaning colleagues, I am sure, are nevertheless determined to prevent this subcommittee from sitting whenever the Senate is in session which unfortunately curtails the time available for us to get this bill in shape so that we can do something about it and report it out. Therefore, we have to do what we can to expedite matters. I am not going to do this unless it is entirely agreeable to you, but I would ask you whether under those circumstances you would be willing to have your statement printed in full in the record where I can assure you all members of the committee and the staff will read it, and then to talk from a summary of your testimony which appears on the last page thereof with the thought that you could then emphasize those parts of your testimony which you think have particular pertinence. Mr. RANDOLPH. I would be glad to accommodate you, Senator, if that is your wish. Senator CLARK. I would appreciate it if you would do that. If you feel, on the other hand it would be more helpful to read your testimony it would be quite agreeable for you to do so. Mr. RANDOLPH. Probably from the point of view of coordination. of ideas it might be well to read it. Senator CLARK. All right, sir, go right ahead. STATEMENT OF A. PHILIP RANDOLPH, PRESIDENT, NEGRO AMERICAN LABOR COUNCIL, PRESIDENT, BROTHERHOOD OF SLEEPING CAR PORTERS, AND VICE PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO Mr. RANDOLPH. My name is A. Philip Randolph. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before your subcommittee on behalf of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, AFL-CIO, and the Negro American Labor Council to testify in favor of the enactment of fair employment practices legislation. If legislation for a permanent, Federal FEPC had not been killed by filibuster in 1946 and again in 1950, our economy, our democracy and our internal peace would not be in the same crisis that confronts them today. If this renewed attempt should suffer a similar fate, no responsible Negro leader can safely predict or control the ultimate consequences. Fair employment practices legislation would not, of course, have solved all of our crucial problems of employment and civil rights. But, it might have established a sound basis on which steady progress toward equality could have been made. The urgency of the accelerating pressures across the country for equality now can best be understood against the background of such past defeats. There is usually a time when gradual, if sustained, change is desirable and possible. But there is also another time in which a vaccum created by the lack of action explodes when needs which will no longer wait press into it. This summer we have reached that hour. |