UNCLE SAM'S BETRAYAL
Ryan, Representative William F.
Race and Jobs Uncle Sams Betrayal by Representative WILLIAM F. RYAN Representative Ryan's documented exposure of the Federal Government's failure to redeem its pledge to provide equality of job...
...companies...
...Throughout America today public officials are sounding the call for law and order...
...Voluntary compliance is no substitute for enforcement...
...It is a well-known bureaucratic fact of life that contracts, once placed, are seldom withdrawn...
...In the Selective Service System, of fifty-one employes above grade eleven, none is Negro...
...The Social Security Administration is another agency which has failed to enforce its compliance program and to open up the vast job potential for Negroes in the insurance industry...
...The insurance industry has a notoriously poor record on equal opportunity in employment, but some companies are sincerely making efforts...
...Many which continue to get Government contracts are in clear violation of the order...
...The most spectacular and effective confrontation involved the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company...
...Another Northern company in a city with a Negro population of eleven per cent had more than 2,200 employes above clerical levels, of whom only twenty-eight were Negroes...
...It was designed to enlist voluntary support of major companies which would declare themselves "equal opportunity employers" and pledge to recruit minority workers...
...Government from discriminating...
...Although upgrading educational systems is important, millions of Americans continue to be denied entry into jobs and apprenticeship training programs for which they have the skills—simply because of discrimination...
...If the Federal Government does no more internally, can it expect private enterprise to do better...
...Without a pre-award review, a construction company can sign a contract whether or not it is in compliance, and it is expected to take the necessary steps after the Government's strongest sanction power—to withhold contracts—has been removed...
...Nevertheless, the Federal Highway Administration has flatly refused to follow the recommended pre-award procedure...
...The order is estimated to cover as many as one job in three in the national economy, or between twenty and twenty-five million jobs out of 74.1 million jobs...
...Despite broad legal prohibitions against racial discrimination, discrimination persists without effective legal redress...
...If Executive Order 11246 were implemented, unions that discriminate would have to choose between admitting minorities as members and apprentices or losing work on Government contracts...
...In fact, Plans for Progress was sold to many contractors on precisely these grounds...
...According to Alfred Blumrosen, then chief of the Department of Labor Conciliation Service, the Newport News case was "the only time during my stay in Government when Justice, Defense, OFCC, and EEOC worked together...
...By August, 1966, when the Newport News conciliation agreement was signed, the Department of Defense compliance program was already on the way out...
...And in no area is the law less enforced...
...In Philadelphia, building trades locals have been held to be discriminatory by the Philadelphia Human Rights Commission...
...However, instead of using the Cleveland experience to break down other barriers, the Department of Labor has retreated...
...But for all the talk about riots in the cities and crime in the streets, seldom is there mention of a fundamental hypocrisy in law enforcement...
...About twenty million jobs are with companies which in one form or another do business with the Department of Defense...
...Where there seemed to be a pattern of job bias, employment patterns of the entire company were reviewed in depth...
...Steel for overt discrimination at the Fairfield works at Birmingham, Alabama...
...In Cleveland, in 1966, after a decade of complaints, demonstrations, and negotiations with unions, the five major craft locals in the building trades had exactly four Negro apprentices...
...Government contracts valued in excess of $10,000...
...and the events that followed...
...In the Government Printing Office, with ninety-two employes above grade eleven, none is Negro...
...But most are badly understaffed, and all but New York's state commission against discrimination lack the power to initiate proceedings...
...No discussion of the Federal Government's abdication of equal opportunity enforcement would be complete without considering the building trades...
...one is a Negro...
...Corporations in a particular industry were reviewed at random...
...All of these jobs could be available on an equal opportunity basis...
...but few have effective enforcement mechanisms...
...The pre-award process must be strengthened to meet this need...
...This protection is the most far-reaching, and the least utilized...
...Instead, compliance reviews are conducted on a pre-construc-tion basis...
...Steel the sole source of supply, top officials in the Department overruled the director of the compliance program and declined to take action...
...But enforcement of Title VII is hampered by the cumbersome conciliation mechanism established by the act and the lack of statutory power to issue cease-and-desist orders...
...Actual compliance enforcement is delegated to an equal opportunity program in each major Federal agency which contracts with the private sector...
...Since July, 1965, out of more than 8,000 complaints, only fourteen have resulted in litigation by the Department of Justice...
...Most major insurance companies are covered by Executive Order 11246 because they are Medicare intermediaries, or participate in other Government insurance programs...
...But enforcement has been reduced to voluntary compliance, and even here, the building trades have handed down responsibility to local affiliates, rendering the non-discrimination program virtually ineffective...
...At the building trades convention on November 29, 1967, the Secretary of Labor in a speech promised that the Department would not hold up contracts again to open employment to minority groups...
...Martin Luther King, Jr...
...It was only after the Department of Defense and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance threatened to refuse the Newport News Company bids on four submarines that the company agreed to integrate its facilities and open job opportunities to Negroes on a basis equal with whites...
...In Atlanta, in 1966, five building trades locals had no Negroes...
...The Social Security Administration has never imposed sanctions upon an insurance company...
...For more than a decade, a variety of Federal and state agencies have documented a general pattern of exclusion of Negroes from the building trades, with the exception of the so-called trowel trades, which traditionally have been open...
...In no area is this hypocrisy more apparent than in job discrimination...
...In San Antonio, Spanish Americans comprised 34.5 per cent of postal field employes, and there were no Spanish Americans above grade twelve...
...Because of entrenched discrimination in the Cleveland building trades locals, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance selected Cleveland as a target area for concentrated enforcement in early 1967...
...the Government has the power to open up jobs to Negroes, if it only has the will to use it...
...All but seven agreed to make the necessary changes in opening employment opportunities to Negroes...
...Six—Finally, Executive Order 11246, issued in 1965, prohibits most companies which hold contracts with the U.S...
...Here is one of the clearest instances of denied job opportunities for Negroes, which the Federal Government has the power to prevent...
...The record for other minorities is nearly as bleak...
...In 1968 the total national construction expenditure will exceed $80 billion, of which approximately fifty per cent will be for wages...
...Approximately eighty per cent of the dollar volume of Government contracts comes through the Department of Defense...
...In 1965, the NAACP filed complaints with EEOC charging that Negro workers were barred from good jobs, paid lower wages for performing the same work, impeded from entering the company apprentice program, and made to use segregated toilet and locker facilities...
...The company initially refused conciliation...
...If a company can demonstrate anything remotely resembling "progress," it is usually "let off the hook...
...Today a Negro worker seeking employment may be protected by as many as six Executive orders and other laws, none of which is effectively enforced: One—Many cities have ordinances prohibiting discrimination...
...Beginning in October, 1965, following the issuance of the order, separate Army, Navy, and Air Force compliance programs were centralized under the direction of a dedicated official, Girard Clark, with ninety-four men under him...
...A few companies refused to open employment opportunities to Negroes, and they were barred from receiving further contracts...
...In February, 1967, the Defense compliance program was reorganized out of existence...
...The Department of Defense compliance program began reviews of all Defense contractors, industry by industry...
...The compliance program of the Federal Highway Administration is another which has consistently failed to carry out the intent of Executive Order 11246...
...More than one equal opportunity official has said that it is common knowledge that joining Plans for Progress enables a contractor to avoid close supervision under Executive Order 11246...
...Let me describe the undermining and eventual dismemberment of what was once the most effective Federal compliance program—that of the Department of Defense...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has 880 employes above grade eleven...
...Where individual compliance officers here and there do make vigorous efforts to monitor contractors, they often do so at the peril of their own careers...
...Actual contract supervision is now accomplished through regional procurement offices...
...One major Northern company in a city with a Negro population of nineteen per cent has 1,800 employes above clerical levels in its home office, and precisely thirteen are Negroes...
...Under a system established in 1965, the principal enforcement body is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance—OFCC—in the Department of Labor...
...A random examination of OFCC employment data on defense contractors reveals hundreds of companies with large payrolls located in areas of Negro population concentrations, but which employ no Negroes whatever...
...One notable failure of the highway program is its refusal to utilize "pre-award" compliance reviews...
...Compliance officers are now subordinate to procurement officers, who are much more inclined to put a premium on the maintenance of cordial relations with contractors...
...In case after case, when corporations were confronted with a credible risk of loss of contract, they proved cooperative...
...Gone was the centralized compliance office...
...This resulted in 112 jobs for Negro and Puerto Rican workmen by the end of 1967...
...The Secretary wrote: "This is an appropriate occasion to urge that the contracting agencies reexamine their contract award procedures to ensure that contracts are not awarded to those who have not met past obligations or are not in compliance...
...I have pointed out how the failure of Government to enforce existing laws and Executive orders impedes progress in the private sector...
...Representative Ryan, New York Democrat and a leading liberal in the House, recently completed a special study of the barriers to employment for minority Americans...
...Recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearings in New York City established that out of 100 major companies voluntarily submitting information, the forty-six which were signatories of Plans for Progress had minority employment records much worse than the fifty-four which were not...
...But enforcement by the NLRB depends on the case method, and out of the thousands of NLRB decisions, only about ten have involved unfair labor practices based on racial discrimination...
...compliance was put under the Defense Contract Administration Service, where it could no longer be an embarrassment...
...Nor was a contract ever canceled under any of the earlier orders, dating back to 1941...
...In addition to Executive Order 11246, the Government has the power to open up jobs in the building trades under the law that provides for the de-certification of apprenticeship programs in which there is discrimination...
...The Newport News success clearly proves that the Government has the power to open up jobs to Negroes—if it only has the will to use it...
...Unlike previous orders, Order 11246 covers not only employment directly related to the particular contract involved, but all employment in companies that hold U.S...
...Is it surprising that the Government is failing to enforce equal employment opportunity in industry when many Government agencies have records comparable to the contractors they ought to be sanctioning...
...Since the undermining of the Department of Defense program more than a year ago, a Government mandate to open up millions of jobs has gone unused...
...In the five years since that order was issued, no apprenticeship program has ever been decertified for discrimination...
...There no longer exists an independent office within Defense which sees its task as the promotion of job equality...
...And the fact that no contract has ever been cancelled for non-compliance with Executive Order 11246 is the proof...
...Despite statutes and Executive orders, which purport to guarantee equal opportunity in employment, we are witnessing the administrative nullification of civil rights laws through the failure of the Government to enforce them...
...Three Southern insurance companies have no Negroes above the clerical levels in their company headquarters, despite the fact that the cities in which they are located have large Negro populations...
...Three—Discrimination by a trade union is an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act...
...This procedure takes all the teeth out of enforcement...
...The time is long overdue to fulfill the pledge to black Americans and other minority groups that their Government will uphold not only the laws that protect middle class white Americans, but also the laws designed to protect those disadvantaged and discriminated against because of color...
...This is a deplorable abdication of Federal agency responsibility...
...By the summer of 1967, few Negroes had been hired, and in a rare display of determination the OFCC held up a total of $80 million dollars of Federal funds for construction contracts...
...The Editors...
...The greatest single power to end job discrimination lies in the hands of the Federal Government...
...Four—A Department of Labor regulation issued in June, 1963, provides that trade union apprenticeship programs in which there is discrimination are to be decertified by the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training of the Department of Labor...
...Billions of dollars of highway trust fund contracts are supervised by this agency, which is supposed to insure job equality on Federally financed highway projects...
...It is an easy way out, which tells minority job seekers and employers alike that the Government is not serious about enforcing non-discrimination in employment...
...America remains a white man's society, where Negroes, Indians, and Spanish-speaking Americans in particular are short-changed...
...The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission report dated January 18, 1968, declared: "While non-members had 1.2 per cent Negroes in positions as officials and managers, Plans for Progress members had only .3 per cent in these jobs...
...The program had incurred the wrath of both industry and many senior procurement officials...
...For a little more than a year the Department of Defense had a contract compliance program which took seriously Executive Order 11246...
...Two—Thirty-eight States have fair employment practice commissions— FEPC's...
...The OFCC insisted upon proof—not pledges—of non-discrimination in the form of Negro apprentices and journeymen on the job...
...Five—Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in most employment...
...In the Federal civil service Negroes comprise 9.7 per cent of employes, but only 1.6 per cent of these hold supervisory or management posts, which are rated grade eleven or higher...
...As long ago as January 10, 1966, Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz sent a memorandum to the heads of all Government contracting agencies urging the use of pre-award reviews...
...The article, however, is now even more timely—and its message more urgent—as a result of the explosive developments of recent weeks...
...Since that order was issued in September, 1965, not one contract has been canceled for non-compliance...
...However, in practice, OFCC is merely a loose supervisory body, with a staff of only twelve...
...Although the compliance program director found that the charges were accurate, and that in no case was U.S...
...For instance, in New York City, Puerto Ricans comprised 5.2 per cent of postal field employes, but only 0.9 per cent of those above level eleven...
...It isn't right as a general policy," said Secretary Wirtz, "and it won't work...
...It should be stressed that a great many of these jobs involve skills which can be learned in apprenticeship training or on the job...
...Yet, the history of Executive Order 11246 is an inexcusable story of bureaucratic betrayal...
...In no area is the right to equal treatment more clearly written into law and public policy...
...During the year in which the program was operating effectively, there were forty top-level confrontations involving thirty-five...
...For example, a panic was created at the Department of Defense when sanctions were recommended against U.S...
...This system subordinates an agency's compliance staff to officials who place the smooth flow of contracts above the promotion of job equality...
...In Cincinnati, in 1966, the scene of civil disorder last summer, nine building trades locals had no Negro apprentices...
...What has emerged instead of effective enforcement is a totally ineffective pattern of tokenism and voluntary compliance...
...In Houston, Negroes are able to get construction jobs only as cement masons...
...The so-called Plans for Progress program emerged in 1961...
...Arthur M. Ross, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a study of Negro underemployment, concluded that, if the percentage of the Negro work force in the building trades were proportional to white employment, Negroes would hold,, nation-wide, 37,000 more jobs as carpenters, 45,000 more as construction workers, 97,000 more as mechanics, and 112,000 more as construction foremen...
...The company's senior officials were then told what steps were necessary if the company were to continue receiving defense contracts...
...In this way, unprecedented strides were made and employment barriers broken...
...The Newport News Company, although a private firm, depends almost exclusively on Government contracts...
...The eighteen building trades internationals have more than 3.5 million members...
...There is also a failure to promote equal employment opportunity within the Federal Government itself...
...A Department of Labor report of August, 1967, contains the significant sentence: "The 1960 census showed only 2,196 Negroes in all the trades throughout the country...
...Race and Jobs Uncle Sams Betrayal by Representative WILLIAM F. RYAN Representative Ryan's documented exposure of the Federal Government's failure to redeem its pledge to provide equality of job opportunity for all Americans was written before the assassination of Dr...
...That figure was one more than had been recorded in the 1950 census ten years before...
...Another Northern company had nearly 1,000 employes—one was a Negro...
...The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has 726 employes above grade eight, none of whom is a Negro...
...Until civil rights laws are vigorously enforced, American minorities can hardly be expected to have faith in white America...
...If the Administration took this order seriously, it could open new, formerly denied job opportunities to millions of minority Americans...
...In the absence of firm support from higher officials, compliance officers are discouraged from energetic action, for their efforts will only be undermined...
Vol. 32 • May 1968 • No. 5
