or three kids, there is nobody who can take those kids because child care centers don't even exist in Watts. Day care centers and their laws are regulated. You've got to have the kids out of there at a certain hour. There has to be different provisions for kids where in emergency cases you have to put him up over night and these day care centers don't provide it.

We felt that in order to encourage people for jobs and for training and new creative things, that there had to be adequate care for the kids.

In these centers we also hope to be able to have a job development setup where mothers could go and seek employment and work and use the transportation system that we have to carry them back and forth to these jobs.

At Saugus, we hope to have a day-care center and a child-care center up at Saugus where mothers could go up there and stay 4 and 5 days a week, and have those kids taken care of right there at the training site.

This is in general what we are talking about in child-care centers. One of the problems we have had is the local CAP agency, the EYOA, unanimously passed to give us startup money on the centers and then the regional office of OEO knocked it down."

Senator MONDALE. We had testimony earlier that in Watts the unemployment levels are back up to where they were 5 years ago. Do you think that is correct?

Mr. WATKINS. I think it is even more than correct, because in the first place, let me say that the unemployment figures do not reflect the part of the community that is on welfare.

It does not reflect the part of the community who is in training programs. Those figures, for instance, if the Federal Government pulled out of Watts, and the people in Watts were not on welfare, I would say 60 to 70 percent of the people in that community would be unemployed.

Senator CRANSTON. How many people live within the boundaries of what you call Watts now?

Mr. WATKINS. Approximately 60,000.

Senator CRANSTON. And one-third of those are in public housing? Mr. WATKINS. Right. The other thing is that the median age in Watts is 14 years age. We are not talking about southeast Los Angeles. Senator CRANSTON. How many people do you feel you are reaching directly now with the programs you are involved in?

Mr. WATKINS. At the present time we have in our organization 600 senior citizens who are members of the organization. We have approximately 2,200 people who are members of our credit union; we are the only community-based group who sells food stamps that I know of in the country. We operate that program 6 days a week. We have approximately 3,000 kids in our various programs and we have an open membership to residents of Watts, who live within the boundaries of Watts. So all together I guess we are talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 to 10,000 people.

Senator MONDALE. What is your-if you can say what is your annual budget?

Mr. WATKINS. At the present time our annual budget is approximately $5 million.

Senator MONDALE. How many different sources do you rely on for that?

40-963-70-pt. 1- -24

Mr. WATKINS. We have moneys coming from the city of Los Angeles; we have moneys coming from the county-now money or support? Because there are two areas here. We have the Los Angeles City schools involved, we have the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Alliance for Labor Action, the Center for Community Change, the Labor Department, we have the Transportation Department, we have OEO, and EYOA involved in our programs plus we have the United Automobile Workers Union and the Teamsters Union and 16 others-unions-that donate to our operation. Senator CRANSTON. It greatly expands your flexibility, doesn't it, by not having to be dependent on any one source to control your direction?

Mr. WATKINS. It gives us flexibility and some form of independence too, but at the same time it makes us have to answer to more people. Senator CRANSTON. You must feel like a college president having to spend all your time raising money.

Mr. WATKINS. Something like that. You know about that.

Senator MONDALE. What proportion of your effort is manpower training as distinct from other sources, say the hospital, the senior citizens work and so on?

Mr. WATKINS. At the present time our main efforts are all towards economic development and manpower training. All of our major efforts in that direction.

Senator MONDALE. What do you think would be needed to effectively make inroads into those unemployment figures?

Mr. WATKINS. Let me say, my feeling is that a national commitment for a massive public works program. The needs are there. The needs are there to clean our streets and the needs are there to reinforce the slide areas, the needs are there for roads, the alleys, parks—all kinds of public services are needed. My feeling is that they have to get national commitments. I don't have a feeling that the Federal Government can do it, when I hear of 100 billion a day going to Vietnam or whatever it is-it doesn't make much difference-I also feel that that same kind of commitment could be made to alleviate the problems of the poor in this country. I think it is an essential thing. I have seen it in other countries, the kind of national commitment of towns and the development of the small countries like Sweden and Finland and in England and France. These countries were attacked and over great stress and strain over the past few years but they have developed their country to the point where they have new towns and new cities where people are not out of work. The people have recreational activities and have jobs.

We can talk about jobs over here today and tomorrow you are automated completely out of it. I have watched the Ford Motor Co. I worked there for 18 years. At one time we had 1,600 workers in there making 18 cars an hour. Today they have 2,000 workers making 70 cars an hour, so without even keeping up, you know, with the pace of the industry and the pace of automation end of course when we get into other things, we are talking completely out of context of what we are going to do about unemployment out here.

Senator MONDALE. Let me ask you another question which is both directly and indirectly related to manpower policies. That is there seems to be a national policy which assumes that most people in welfare are lazy and are employable, but would rather not work. The

brunt of that policy, if it is pursued, seems, in my opinion, finally to be directed at the mother who has children in the home. Because, no matter what they try, they can't employ children-at least minor children-they are not going to be able to employ many of the senior citizens; they are not going to be able to employ the totally disabled; they must be talking about those mothers with their children. Would you comment on what you regard to be the extent of their employability and the wisdom of a national policy to try to take mothers away from their children in order to reduce the welfare load?

Mr. WATKINS. My comment on that would be I guess from my experience in being in that community.

These mothers that you are talking about, the policy that got us into the shape that we are in today in Watts was the policy that men could not remain in that house and let the mother receive that welfare check. That policy drove men out of the houses because they were unable to make 3 or 4 dollars an hour in order to care for the family of five or six. If the man is in the house today and is earning $1.50 an hour, he is unable to take care of a family of six; he is unable to take care of himself really because of the rising economy. So rather than the State supplementing his wages, supplementing the income that he has, the State has a policy of driving that man out of the house and taking care of the whole family and making the woman the head of the house. I think basically this is where our problem lies as far as mothers and their kids are concerned. Because of this kind of a policy, young girls in the home are oriented toward not marrying a young man but more to take care of a baby, you know, welfare and that will be the survival of you and that kid.

About these people being lazy and all this stuff, everything that we have done in Watts in the past 3 years since 1966 that has been done, was with the kids of the welfare receipients.

You say about the law, we didn't know too much about the lawchild-you know the Child Labor Act, but we were able to do things in that community with kids 7 years old planting trees and planting flowers and cleaning up our streets and our alleys. Kids 14 and 15, I understood was against the law at that time to do what we did, and I noticed that after our summer of 1966 project the Labor Department itself changed their program to reach down and get kids 14 and 15 years old in the Neighborhood Youth Corps projects.

Let me say one other thing. You asked a question here today about new jobs in Watts. There have been no new factories in Watts. The Watts Manufacturing Co. does not exist in Watts. The Watts Manufacturing Co. is on El Segundo, 120th and Central. That is not in Watts, that is in this new town of Willow Brook which is part of a new incorporated area of the County of Los Angeles. The big project that Lockheed is presently engaged in, the impact money-when you are talking about impact money-that $3.5 million came from OEO and that $4 million came from the Commerce Department and that money, the base, the economic base and the tax base and everything else, is not in Watts or Willow Brook, it's in the town of Lynwood and it has more industry than any other community in the southeast area of Los Angeles. All this is done-has done-is add to the industrial might of the town of Lynwood. I must say that has been a thorn in our side ever since it happened because impact money was supposed to be in poverty communities and not in well doing communities like the town of Lynwood.

Senator MONDALE. Let me return 1 minute to that one question. Suppose we pursued a policy in Watts of telling the mothers you are not going to get AFDC. We may provide it to your children, someway -I don't know how you are going to do it--but we are going to do that unless you get out and work and we succeed in getting them all out working those who can. Do you see a long-term damage to those children from having their mothers gone or do you think on balance it might be a good policy? How do you look at that issue?

Mr. WATKINS. Let me say this. You are telling the mothers with kids they have to go out and earn a living for those kids. I have to take the same position as John L. Lewis took back when he was leading the miners back at the coal mines, that I would lead them. I would be in front of those mothers and protest against that kind of position. I am not against mothers working. I have six kids myself and one of the things I demanded of my wife was she stay at home and raise those kids. My wife has never worked, regardless of how poor we were, or what we had to eat. I thought the important part of a mother was to be with those kids.

This is not saying mothers shouldn't work. I think again there has to be a national commitment. There is no reason why-for instance, I know parts in Israel where they have created communities where mothers, kids and everything else could be properly cared for. To pull a mother away from a group of kids who can't leave these kids with the proper care, doesn't do anything but create other problems. With our problems today, I don't think they are anything like what they are going to be in 10 years when those kids that are there now begin to cause an explosion, begin to innovate and find out there is nothing in the future for them because I am not just looking at kids that are out of jobs. We have seen kids that are completely out of society and I don't think that the care they are getting right now as far as the welfare funds are concerned, are doing the most good for them because there isn't enough of those funds to properly care for them or their family.

Senator CRANSTON. I gather that you work totally in the Watts community. Is there any comparable work being carried on by others in Willow Brook and Compton or other communities?

Mr. WATKINS. Our work in the main has been what we call community improvement. This is the area we work in. There are many programs, many vitally needed programs that do all kinds of other things. Basically I don't know of any other organization in the United States that does the same thing that we do. There are many programs that do different things and all of them are important to making this whole community.

Senator CRANSTON. Speaking as an individual and not as a representative of your organization, have you studied S. 2838 carefully enough to have some views on it?

Mr. WATKINS. Yes, let me say that I have-as an individual? Senator CRANSTON. Yes.

Mr. WATKINS. Freely.

Senator CRANSTON. Right.

Mr. WATKINS. The only thing about it is I am still on the payroll, you know, and I've seen this done before, I have appeared before many of these committees and I watched the destruction of one of our leaders in Watts because he appeared in Washington, D.C. before one of these

committees and when they got to checking the record they found out that he was still on the payroll and therefore he was testifying while he was on the Federal payroll and they wiped him out.

Let me say again I do not wish to testify on that bill.

Senator MONDALE. Well, you think it would be good public policy for Governor Reagan and the manpower program, don't you? Mr. WATKINS. You are just playing games.

Senator MONDALE. As your lawyer I advise you not to answer. Thank you very much, Mr. Watkins for your very impressive testimony.

Senator CRANSTON. I would like to thank you for not seeking to influence us in any way and I am sure you didn't.

Senator MONDALE. Let the record show he is one of the most uninfluential men we have ever heard testify.

Our next witness is Mr. Lawrence T. Cooper, president, the Management Council for Merit Employment, and the metro director of the National Alliance of Businessmen (NAB).

Mr. Cooper, we are glad to have you here today and express our appreciation to you for your patience in waiting.

STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE T. COOPER, PRESIDENT, THE MANAGEMENT COUNCIL FOR MERIT EMPLOYMENT METRO DIRECTOR, THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF BUSINESSMEN (NAB)

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Senator Mondale and Senator Cranston I wasn't bright enough to consult an attorney before I came here to see if I could testify with respect to legislation, but I would have to confess that the Management Council is substantially supported by funds from private foundations, so if you will give me the same status you did my good friend Ted Watkins, I would like to tell you a story. Senator MONDALE. We would be delighted to.

Mr. COOPER. I would like to tell you a story, and I may have one opinion that I would like to express.

I wear two hats here because as a matter of the historical development in our community, Management Council came first and it is a nonprofit corporation, it is small. It acts as a catalyst and tries to bring various forces together in order to solve the problems of unemployment among disadvantaged minority people. It was formed by "Chad" McClellan with some assistance by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in the fall of 1965.

I have been president of this organization now for about 6 months and I have been associated with it ever since September of 1966. My relationship to NAB was a little more general at first after NAB came into Los Angeles approximately 17 months ago.

The NAB needed assistance in getting started here, and informally we were very close to it. My term of office as metropolitan director of NAB in the Los Angeles area dates back to about last April.

May I just say this by way of orientation. I spent 42 years as part of the management in the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. prior to my retirement, and I only mention that because practically all that time was spent here in the Los Angeles area.

Informally I would seek to represent to you some of the feelings, some of the activities in the private sector. That would reach both management council and NAB who are involved as you would know.