Hampton, Robert E., Chairman, U.S. Civil Service Commission: Eleven Federal professional occupations by race, sex, accessions "Federal personnel manual system, FPM letter 713-27,' Minority Group Employment in the Federal Government, Part 300 Employment (general) Representation of Minorities and Women in 10 Nonprofessional Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, Part 1, Kilberg, William, Solicitor of Labor, "Employment Cases Involving Martinez, Vilma S., president and general counsel, Mexican-American Mitchell, Thomas F., executive representative, Georgia-Pacific Corp., Oles, Carl, vice president, personnel, Rockwell International: Attachment 1. Attachment 2.. Attachment 3 and 4.. Schnapper, Eric, assistant counsel, NAACP legal defense and educa- Quie, Hon. Albert H., et al., letter to Hon. John T. Dunlop, Secretary, Page 206 197 207 237 195 218 196 176 127 286 158 65 55 56 56, 57 261 157 153 OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT OF EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY LAWS Part 1 THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1975 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Los Angeles, Calif. The subcommittee met at 9 a.m., pursuant to notice, in the George Kinsey Auditorium, California State Museum of Science and Industry, 700 State Drive, Los Angeles, Calif., Hon. Augustus F. Hawkins, chairman, presiding. Also present: Susan Grayson, staff director; Charles Knox, administrative assistant; Carole Schanzer, clerk; and Richard Mosse, assistant minority counsel. Mr. HAWKINS. The Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities of the House Committee on Education and Labor is called to order. The subcommittee is continuing its hearing on the subject matter that has been before the committee for several years now on Federal contracts compliance. For the record I would like to make this opening statement: Ten years ago, on September 24, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson issued Executive Order No. 11246 prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin by Federal contractors, and requiring Government contractors take affirmative action to insure equal opportunity for job applicants and employees. This order was amended in 1967 to include sex. If this Executive order had been implemented in the forceful manner it deserves, it could have been one of the most forceful tools in the civil rights arsenal. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Federal contractors with 50 or more employees or Government contracts of $50,000 or more are required to submit written affirmative action plans meeting standards set forth in the regulations by the Secretary of Labor who is responsible for the administration of the Executive order. The preliminary responsibility for enforcing the Executive order, however, rests with the Federal agencies contracting with by the industry; at the present time 11 Federal agencies are designated "compliance agencies." (1) This morning the Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities is in Los Angeles to examine how effectively that Executive order is being enforced with particular attention on the activities of the Defense Department's Defense Supply Agency in Los Angeles. The subcommittee plans to obtain testimony from the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance on Federal enforcement policies after we return to Washington. The subcommittee is very pleased to have as its first witnesses a panel of employees from the Defense Contract Administration Services Region, in Los Angeles, represented by Robert Cole, David Kalish, and Thomas Canfield and Barbara McIntosh. Will those witnesses please assemble at the witness table to our right? Mrs. McIntosh, I think that you have been designated as spokesperson. We are very pleased to have the panel here today and we know that you will have much to add to this subject. I think you are fully aware of the interest of the subcommittee. We do have a statement from you which you may proceed to handle as you so desire. Do you wish to introduce the other panel members? Mrs. MCINTOSH. To my right is Mr. Cole-I mean to my left is Mr. Cole, Mr. Canfield, and Mr. Kalish. Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you. Mrs. MCINTOSH. This statement is a view of the group, but the group is here to answer any questions the committee may ask. Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you. STATEMENT OF BARBARA MCINTOSH, EMPLOYEE, DEFENSE CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION SERVICES REGION, LOS ANGELES, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT COLE, DAVID KALISH, AND THOMAS CANFIELD Mrs. MCINTOSH. This statement is not to be viewed as representing the agency, but, rather, as a statement which summarizes the feelings of this group; but each member may not agree with every item. If the purpose of this hearing is to determine if Executive Order 11246 is being enforced to its fullest extent, we feel that in the past full enforcement of this order has been hampered by the following: One: Management emphasis has been placed on production-number of reviews completed-and on quality-meaning technical compliance to regulations and report writing-and not on whether minorities and females are getting hired and promoted as a result of the review. We do not mean that a number of reviews and how well the affirmative action program is written are not of importance, but they should be 2 and 3 on the list of priorities, not 1 and 2. The fact of the matter is placing minorities and females on the job or getting them promoted is never emphasized. This problem appears to exist at all levels. Emphasis and priorities have been established through formal means such as staff meetings, production quotas, and BSA manual requirements. But even more important it is emphasized in management actions. Employees have had written reprimands for low production or for not following specific technical requirements. Omissions of these items have also resulted in low performance appraisals. Yet, there are members of the staff who satisfy the above items but never find major problems at a contractor where they exist and received high performance ratings. Two: Although sensitivity to the special needs and problems of females and minorities in the labor market is an absolute need for employees, training or orientation for equal opportunities specialists is met at best in a very haphazard manner. Specialized training should be provided to satisfy these special needs plus additional training should be provided in investigative techniques, legal procedures, and familiarization with skills held by minorities and females in labor areas. Three: Inconsistencies in management support of equal opportunity specialists, these inconsistencies relate to time variation-because of who is in charge or what pressures are placed on them from higher up. Grade variation, sex variation, male and female, who the current commander is changes every 2 years-and of course the size of the contractor or the influence the contractor has. Examples of the above problems are: (a) The top 100 contractors' functions must be approved by higher headquarters. To our knowledge there has never been a show-cause letter issued on bad-faith effort after having been referred to higher headquarters. (b) Female employees have been removed from reviews when a contractor allegedly called in and said he preferred not to work with females. (c) Promotions were denied and harassment was initiated against equal opportunity specialists after sanctions were recommended to an influential company. Our solution: strong direction at each level of management from OSCC down that place minorities and females on the job and up the ladder is the highest priority. This means actions, not rhetoric. Four: We consider the implementation of order 14 as being disastrous for the program. Some of the reasons are: (1) If an EOS properly analyzed the data, a contractor with 1,000 or more employees is required to submit, he would not have adequate time to deal with the problems of hiring and upgrading minorities and females. (2) Meaningful provisions to measure results are not included. (3) The reporting form requires the completion of many meaningless algebraic formulas, the results of which bear little relationship to actual problems encountered. Solution: involve successful field people in developing alternative procedures. Five: The only sanctions currently available are show-cause proceedings leading to debarment. This is a strong sanction, but since it is the only sanction the severity of the sanction becomes a problem because many of the contractors are sole-source producers of essential products needed by the Government. To compound this problem, the agency charged with monitoring the affirmative action program is generally the same agency who is purchasing the product. Because of this situation, alternative sanctions of less severity would aid enforcement. Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Mrs. McIntosh. Would you give us a brief explanation of what Order 14 is? Mr. CANFIELD. Order 14 is 41 Code of Federal Regulation 60–60. It is a regulation written by OFCC to put a guideline on how to do a compliance review for all of the different agencies. It changes our procedure and the purpose for it was to standardize all of the agencies who do it basically the same way. This is written by OFCC and then the implementation order through GSA manuals are written by the Department of Defense and that is the workbook that we work by, the Department of Defense implementation of Order 14 which is written by the Department of Labor. Mr. HAWKINS. You mentioned some discrepancy or implied some discrepancy in the manner in which OFCC has issued the order and the manner in which the Agency implements it. Could you elaborate on that? Mr. CANFIELD. Well, what we work with is the implementation order. Whether or not this was the original intent of the Office of Federal Compliance, I don't know. The implementation order we have involved following certain manual requirements, working with a number of different algebraic formulas, and coming out with different results. The basic intent in reading Order 14 deals with dealing with problems, although very often it becomes just bringing in the numbers in the way it is implemented. Part of it is that there is an awful lot of analysis required, and if it were done like Order 14 exactly, it would take an awful lot of hours to do a review of a rather large company with a lot of job titles. Not always is it going to be productive to work at the most detailed level, and that is the point we are trying to make. Mr. HAWKINS. My understanding is that Order 14 allows for desk audits rather than field audits. Is that correct? Mr. CANFIELD. Yes. We don't always agree on this particular issue. They have a procedure set up so that there can be a desk audit and it can be beneficial in that you can zero in your time on the companies that are getting the worst results and spend less time on those that are getting better results. That is the purpose of the desk audit, I believe, in reading Order 14. Although it just does not always work that way. In order to fill out the requirements to do a desk audit, just the written requirement to fill out the report forms takes up a lot of time. If that is the intent, it should be shortened, to take a quick look at where they stand and pass on and go to a worse company, I would say. Mr. HAWKINS. You are saying that a desk audit can be quite as revealing and more economical as to time rather than a field audit? Mr. CANFIELD. No. I am saying if the purpose we do not always agree on this-the purpose I feel is to-was good. The fact is you take a quick look and see which are the worst companies and you take the worst of those and you go make a field trip and go into detail and make a meaningful evaluation there. I don't think everybody in our office agrees with that philosophy. |