working. They then become more interested in getting training for better jobs.

I think one example of it is "Pride" right here in Washington, where there seems to be some real progress being made.

We have many projects underway.

For example, in our apprentice trades we are reaching out finding people, helping them, training them, giving them special schooling so that they can qualify.

Only last week I heard the president of the United Association of Journeyman Plumbers & Steamfitters, talking with his people, saying, "You are going out and find these people, you are going to help train them."

Now we have to search because when you get into the apprentice trades, particularly, there is a background of education that is needed and it is a rather intensive background of education.

We have been doing this. We have reached out and found these lads and are bringing them in.

I think that if you first help these people acquire a work habit and get interested in working, just that simple thing, that working is important in life, you can then pick out of that group the group that you can go on and train into the more skilled trades.

This is the way we think the thing will work.

Senator PROUTY. I think that is true. I think the reason Senator Clark and I raise these questions is that some people take it for granted that the easy solution is to put these people to work on some public kind of project.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Not at all. We do not think it is that simple. As I said we in the labor movement have run into this problem time after time.

As you may know, many of our unions, especially in the apprenticed trades, have gone to great lengths to facilitate entry to their trades on the part of youngsters from minority groups. They have established and cooperated with out-reach programs which provide special training and preparation to enable persons from underprivileged backgrounds to qualify for employment.

Yet they have often had to search for takers. The reason may lie in lack of confidence, lack of faith, and therefore lack of motivation. Those who have known nothing but deprivation, denial, and discrimination, who have been rejected so often by society in the past are skeptical of new offers of opportunity.

We in the AFL-CIO are pleased to see that others now recognize that we are dealing with a many-faced problem. From the earliest days of the Manpower Development and Training Act, the AFL-CIO has persistently argued for a vastly increased effort to provide the necessary remedial and supportive services in all of our manpower pro

grams.

S. 3063 proposes to deal effectively with both parts of the problem. This bill spells out the need to provide more jobs through a program of public service employment as well as the importance of providing the strong program of remedial and supportive services required to aid disadvantaged workers find their way into existing public and private sector jobs.

We support this legislation enthusiastically. We would, however, propose some modifications.

One aspect of S. 3063 which we would like to see modified involves the role assigned to public service employment. The bill suggests that the public employment program will serve as a temporary stopover on the road to employment in the private sector, and that the proposed public service jobs would represent something other than "regular competitive employment."

This latter distinction is not made with respect to the jobs covered by the bill's provisions concerning the private sector.

Apparently, it is presumed that the workers who are placed in jobs in the private sector under the program of S. 3063-even though they will be receiving a variety of remedial and supportive services-will be the only ones regarded as regular employees.

We think that those who are placed in jobs in public service employment should be regarded in the same manner.

In view of the gap that now exists in the Nation's ever-growing need for public services, and in view of the opportunities for permanent employment in which this sector affords, we believe that it is very important-both terms of the need to provide services and the need to provide meaningful jobs-that the major thrust of S. 3063 should be in the direction of creating not only job slots, but regular employment as well.

There is no reason why public service employment should be viewed as less desirable than private sector employment, and there is no reason why jobs in public service employment need be dead end, as some critics assets.

There can be in fact, there is-about as much opportunity to move up the career or skill ladder in public employment as in private employment.

Moreover, the additional services provided in S. 3063 will encourage and help bring about this mobility of workers in public service employment.

We believe that the present language of S. 3063 contains a serious— though unintentional-flaw. The present language seems to create a body of workers in public service jobs who will never be integrated into the regular work force.

This can, however, be avoided with the right kind of program design and the proper utilization of the tools which this legislation makes available.

The purpose of the counseling efforts and the supportive services provided for in the bill, whether in connection with the public employment program or the program involving the private sector, ought to be improvement in the employability of the workers-to make them more mobile occupationally.

Workers should be equipped to move up the ladder where they are employed or to seek better jobs elsewhere, either in the public or private sectors.

For this reason, we see the need to eliminate any suggestion that the proposed jobs in public service employment be distinguished from jobs in the private sector by characterizing the latter as "regular competitive employment."

Accordingly, we would suggest changing the language of the second sentence in section 2(a) (1) in findings and declaration of purpose to read as follows:

Many such areas contain large concentrations or proportions of persons who are unable to obtain satisfactory jobs because of . .

The necessary modifications to bring the rest of the bill into accord with this concept should be made in section 101(a) (3) and section 102(5) of title Ì, and wherever else appropriate.

So far as the aforementioned section 102(5) is concerned, we would propose the following language:

5. the education, training, and supportive services which complement the work performed and which will make the participants more mobile occupationally and improve their ability to compete in the job market in the future;

A second aspect of S. 3063 which, we believe, requires modification, deals with the lack of reference, in several sections, to the "underemployed." There is no reason why underemployed persons should not be given a chance for improved job opportunities which may be developed in either the public or private sectors as a result of the enactment of S. 3063.

These programs can and should-help the employed poor. In many, many instances the barriers that stand between the underemployed and the chance to move up the ladder can be eliminated by the kinds of remedial and supportive services which S. 3063 would make available.

While this omission may simply be an oversight, we think it is sufficiently critical to call it to the attention of the subcommittee. In section 101 (a) (1) of title I, for example, it appears to us quite logical, and in fact desirable, to incorporate the underemployed as a target group.

We would urge, therefore, that on this issue the language of the bill be made unmistakably clear-in this section as well as wherever else it might be applicable because we simply should not ignore the plight of the employed poor. They number in the millions.

With respect to title II, in order to try to assure that the program reaches those disadvantaged workers most in need, we would suggest the following:

1. In section 202 (1), the words "might not be full productive" should be clarified to better indicate what is meant. We assume it refers to a worker who is not as fully productive as the workers the employer normally would hire for the same job.

2. In section 204 (4), the reference to "costs of spoilage of work" should be preceded by the word "excessive" or something similar to indicate that reimbursement is for unusual costs.

3. In section 203 (2), there should be reference to the method of certification of eligible employees, which should be the responsibility of the employment service or the concentrated employment program in the community.

4. In section 204, the safeguard against the use of funds provided by the program "to transfer any enterprise from one area to another" should be in terms of employment as well as the enterprise.

Senator PROUTY. Mr. Biemiller, I have just been advised that there are some 4-H ladies in my office at the present time who wish to see

me. Before I leave, I would like to ask one or two questions which you may cover in your statement.

What is being done to open up apprenticeship programs and exclusive hiring halls in and by local unions which have refused to go along with the policies of the Building and Construction Trades Union Department and the National AFL-CIO in opening up training and employment opportunities for disadvantaged persons?

Mr. BIEMILLER. As I was saying earlier, all of the international unions affiliated with the Building and Construction Trades Department are now actively engaged in a very fundamental and far-reaching campaign to sent international representatives into such locals and see to it that their lists are opened up.

This is going on. I am sure it is going to get results. I have seen it happen. I have seen in many places where the program has gone to great extremes to try to get people in.

For example, in Milwaukee an apprenticeship fair recently was held where each of the 19 affiliated unions in the Construction and Building Trades Department took space in the Milwaukee auditorium, had their business agents and other qualified officers there to interview anyone who wanted to come along and discuss the apprenticeship program with them.

So that reaching out is going on and will be continued throughout the Nation.

Senator PROUTY. I think you will agree with me this has been a very major problem in the past.

Mr. BIEMILLER. There is no denying it. I think today you will find it is pretty well under control.

Senator PROUTY. For example, do you know the percentage of Negroes who are members of craft unions such as plumbers, painters, carpenters, and so forth, in the District of Columbia?

I know you don't have those figures in mind, but will you furnish them for the record?

Mr. BIEMILLER. I can furnish them.

I can also say, there has been an awful lot of misinformation around. I remember, just a few years ago, reading Negroes were exeluded from the Bricklayers Union in the District of Columbia when there was a Negro who won a contest for the bricklayers.

There has been an awful lot of misinformation. I will be glad to get you the figures.

Senator PROUTY. As you know, Mr. Abel, of the steelworkers, was a member of the President's Riot Commission and endorsed the recommendation for tax credits made by the Commission.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Just a moment.

Senator PROUTY. The Commission certainly endorsed it.

Mr. BIEMILLER. The Commission did; but you will remember that there was a definite statement made that not all members of the Commission agreed to every statement made by the Commission. It was a consensus opinion.

Senator PROUTY. Has Mr. Abel stated publicly that he disagrees with that provision?

Mr. BIEMILLER. No, but Mr. Abel is chairman of the Economic Policy Committee of the AFL-CIO. He was also secretary of the resolutions committee at the AFL-CIO convention and in both capac

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ities has presented statements to the convention of the AFL-CIO, to the executive council of the AFL-CIO, which categorically state that we are opposed to the use of tax credits.

Senator PROUTY. I have one other question, and then I will have to leave. We refer to the difficulty in the building and construction trade unions with respect to disadvantaged persons.

Now I know of one example, without any racial overtones, whatsoever, relating to an MDTA on-the-job training program being conducted by one organization in my own State.

While this program is proceeding, union opposition last winter forced this organization to eliminate the second group of a two-group project from its application. I might add that the union agreed to the second group later this spring, and it was approved after I intervened, but the funds would have been lost which would have resulted in taking only about 50 percent of the trainees which the employers were willing to train and hire under this program.

It seems to me that is a problem you have to face all over the country.

Mr. BIEMILLER. If you will give me the details on that program, I don't mean at the moment, but if you will furnish them to me, I will be glad to check into it because we want to know about all these

cases.

Senator PROUTY. I am afraid it would not make me very popular with some of my union friends in that particular area. That is another problem that we have to face. I am always glad to see you and hear

you.

Mr. BIEMILLER. I am glad to see you, Mr. Prouty.

Senator CLARK. I was called out of the room while you were giving part of your testimony, Mr. Biemiller, but I am looking at it now.

I note the number of suggestions you have made for amendments to the bill. I assure you that we will consider them very carefully. From the top of my head they make pretty good sense to me.

You have not finished, have you?

Mr. BIEMILLER. I was just starting on the paragraph which starts, "So far as title III is concerned, we would point out that the protection offered by the Fair Labor Standards Act in the area of public service employment is minimal."

As a standard for seeking to accomplish the purposes of this bill, it leaves much to be desired. We recognize that the inclusion of this provision is designed to provide a protective floor. Just as we recognize that in many areas, the prevailing wage rate will provide a more beneficial minimum.

Nevertheless, we are convinced that the real goals of this legislation will not be accomplished if the main targets of the public sector programs are jobs paying the $1.15 hourly rate that now applies to schools and hospitals.

Accordingly, we would suggest that the subcommittee indicate in the bill that its intention in this respect is to establish a priority for jobs in which wages are above the FLSA floor.

Senator CLARK. That means the minimum wage?

Mr. BIEMILLER. Right.

We believe that to do otherwise would help to defeat that intent, and purpose of the forward-looking effort which is embodied in this bill.