Affirmative Action
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs
Not long ago, perhaps a little more than a decade, perfectly "qualified" women and people of color couldn't get through the front door when it came to well-paying, prestigious occupations— or,...
...His answer: "Definitely not...
...Not long ago, perhaps a little more than a decade, perfectly "qualified" women and people of color couldn't get through the front door when it came to well-paying, prestigious occupations— or, indeed, many less attractive jobs...
...I asked my AT&T informant if all this would have happened without affirmative action...
...I had some direct experience with one such effort, an important building block for affirmative action in general...
...Although not all of the original goals and timetables were achieved, those aspects of affirmative action geared to achieve a more level playing field with regard to recruitment and promotion have been successful...
...One of the authors of that program was the AT&T staff person who had originally contacted me, and over the years I stayed in touch with him...
...It was intolerable to have men and women working together under such conditions...
...Black women suffered from double discrimination based on sex and race...
...Given changes in the labor force, AT&T can now draw on a much larger pool, ignoring previous classifications of who was and who was not appropriate for a given position...
...I declined...
...A number of highly specific programs have now created new opportunities for middle- and working-class women...
...It is almost impossible to compare the changes in representation of women and minorities in "nontraditional" jobs and managerial positions numerically because the company no longer exists in its previous form, and in the past ten years all the components (AT&T and the "Baby Bells") have undergone considerable downsizing...
...Women also supervise jobs that were once held entirely by men...
...What has the program cost the company...
...AT&T Network Systems, for example, hired minority applicants for eight of its eighteen MBA slots in 1993 and nine of twentyfour in 1994...
...it was somewhat sensitive to the market, but only selectively so...
...There were no women carpenters, police, or salespeople in big-ticket items...
...True, few women climb telephone poles, but fewer workers overall do that, and women are well represented in the crafts...
...The company is always sensitive to the politics from above:' Fear of penalties and publicity has its impact, even if there have also been normative and institutional changes...
...Real job training was done once hired...
...Many other companies concur, although they are usually loath to say so...
...Thus during World War II, women replaced men on most inside craft jobs, and during strikes or emergencies men staffed switchboards...
...As Andrew Hacker points out in his book Two Nations, in the past two decades the number of black police officers rose from 24,000 to 64,000, and black electricians from 14,000 to 43,000...
...In 1973, AT&T settled with the government and crafted an affirmative action program...
...He pointed out that not only did the "protected classes" benefit from this, so did white male workers who were not part of friendship circles or ethnic cliques...
...Clearly, AT&T was long committed to sex segregation...
...Most, if not all, non-managerial hires came with few if any job-related skills, although "Ma Bell" liked to take on recent military veterans, especially for managerial posts...
...Hiring is no longer facilitated through networks of family and friends...
...And in general, AT&T gave hiring preference to applicants with relatives already employed by the company...
...On occasion the grounds were self-evidently ludicrous: men, it was claimed, were unsuited to be operators because on the job their knees, elbows, hands, and arms would often brush against their neighbor's 464 • DISSENT Affirmative Action bodies...
...Even in these times of job restructuring, diversity is an element considered by the companies when decisions are made to lay off people, so increased participation of blacks and women has been preserved...
...Much has changed in the last thirty years...
...Would the changes continue without it...
...my informant told me that bonuses were given to encourage such family applications...
...Black men were janitors...
...Some things have changed a lot and some haven't...
...There were almost no black students and few white women in graduate and professional schools, not to mention in professorial ranks...
...With recent debates on affirmative action in mind, I reexamined the EEOC brief that, in 1971, chastised AT&T's practices, and then went to speak to him about the results of the program...
...There is no question that a considerable percentage of managerial jobs have opened to women and minorities...
...Men had indoor and outdoor craft jobs as installers, repairmen, frame attendants, in construction and, of course, in the various layers of management...
...Women were operators, clerical and stenographic workers, and service representatives...
...In the cases I have studied, ensuring diversity opens rather than restricts the market...
...Opponents of affirmative action are probably more angry about the elimination of their advantages than concerned about a truly competitive market...
...Before it was challenged by the EEOC, AT&T found all this perfectly defensible...
...Black workers are in crafts as well as at the switchboard, and they too have been able to move into managerial roles...
...When the EEOC brief was written, 92.4 percent of jobs were, effectively, classified by sex...
...In Bell documents, pictures, pronouns, or straightforward identifications showed that all jobs were classified as male or female...
...Moreover, the operators' chairs, switchboards, lounge and rest rooms were designed for women...
...When applying for employment, individuals had to take basic literacy and aptitude tests...
...Notably, when whites were found to be "better" than blacks for operator jobs but wouldn't take them because of relatively poor wages, "requirements" were abandoned to encourage blacks to take the jobs...
...They hoped I would show how culture and not any particular discriminatory practice led to sex segregation in employment...
...The following picture emerges...
...My informant told me that there is no question that affirmative action affected recruitment, training procedures, and promotion not only at AT&T but also at other companies with which he has been associated...
...Opposite sex" employment for a categorized job was impossible except when a member of the "normal" sex was unavailable...
...Blacks generally lag behind, but there have been some significant advances, due especially to affirmative action programs or at least to affirmative action consciousness...
...Managers may not exercise the personal preferences in promotion that led to virtually all-male tracks...
...He thinks that over all, benefits outweigh cost...
...Since the 1964 Civil Rights Act permitted certain exemptions on the basis of bone fide occupational qualifications, Bell managers managed to maintain that males should be excluded from various jobs and women from others...
...The Bell system, before its breakup, had a work force of roughly a half million women and a half million men—the largest single employer in the United States...
...They were, one imagines, considered especially qualified given the militarylike model that organized the company...
...As of 1970, 99 percent of telephone craft workers were male...
...Irrelevant criteria that only operated to exclude women and minorities have been eliminated...
...Although the situations of women and blacks differ, they both suffered discrimination that effectively limited access to training and job opportunities...
...In the early 1970s the Equal Economic Opportunities Commission (EEOC) filed an antidiscrimination suit against AT&T, and because of my past research on career obstacles to women, I was asked to testify on the company's behalf...
...And, of course, there were no male telephone operators...
...Affirmative action has functioned along with transformations in the economy, changing technologies, and the break-up of the company...
...Effectively, there was preferential hiring...
...In the legal profession, it was long difficult for women and blacks to obtain places in law schools, and later, in the best practices...
...In films and on television we see feFALL • 1995 • 463 Affirmative Action male and black detectives, doctors, explorers, and judges, but most women still work in occupations segregated effectively by sex and 97 percent of managerial posts are held by white men...
...Although the company claimed that 33.5 percent of managers were women, these were mostly supervisors of all female departments and almost none moved into general management...
...These were all considered dead-end positions and were the lowest paid...
...But these were exceptions, and when a crisis passed, things went back to "normal...
Vol. 42 • September 1995 • No. 4
