from the review and gave it to a male and then informed me they did not want to work with females. He listed the show-cause letter, and as far as I know, that one has never been written up. Being black, they have their own little intricacies of what a black female should do. In other words, you cannot write, cannot write reports, you cannot sell, and so therefore when my reports go through if I do not cross the t's and dot the i's it is held up for a long period of time. But if you pick up another report by nonminority females, the same mistakes are there, but they are never caught. Mr. HAWKINS. Well, let me rephrase the question a little but: With respect to the contractor, would discrimination against women by the company or by the contractor, be considered in the same light as discrimination against racial or ethnic minorities? Mrs. MCINTOSH. I don't understand the question. Mr. HAWKINS. The point is how would you rate the interest of the Agency in the enforcement of the act Mrs. MCINTOSH. As it pertains to women? Mr. HAWKINS [continuing.] As it pertains to women. Is it more vigorous or is it treated the same way as discrimination against blacks? Mrs. MCINTOSH. No; it is not. You are saying do we enforce equal opportunities for women with the contractors. We have in the last 3 or 4 months, I would say, but, no, it is not as vigorous. There is a lack of females in the blue collar are, which females can do the job. Contractors are very reluctant about putting females in blue collar jobs. They pay more money than white collar jobs and you find most of the females in the office and clericals, not in professionals, technicians, or management. They do not want to put them there. They will go as far as telling you that they are not going to put them there. But, you can come back from the field into the chief and you do not get the backing because you are a female. They figure that you are not there pushing females. But, it is part of our jobs to push females and minorities. I would say that they are not as vigorous. Mr. COLE. May I speak, please? Mr. HAWKINS. Yes. Mr. COLE. Yesterday, I was overruled by my Agency. I am doing a company that has 350 professionals, at least. They had two female professionals when I showed up. One was a nurse and one was the librarian. The reason this was brought to our attention was that a female with a law degree was working as a steno. When she finally filed a grievance with OFCC and brought this to our attention, they promoted another female to professional job to show they do promote females. I said I was overruled yesterday. Harassment started taking place place against the female and we could not deal with it. Mr. HAWKINS. You were overruled by whom? Mr. COLE. By my boss. Mr. HAWKINS. Your immediate supervisor? Mr. COLE. Yes. He said we cannot deal with those kinds of things. Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Mosse. Mr. MOSSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mrs. McIntosh, in your statement you said that to the best of your knowledge, there has never been a show-cause letter issued on bad faith effort after it had been referred to higher headquarters. At a later time you say that you knew of two or three. Are you thereby amending your statement? Mrs. MCINTOSH. No. Mr. Mosse. Do you mean Mrs. MCINTOSH. We are talking about the top 100. Those are your large companies. Mr. MOSSE. What would you say the overall number is? You say you are aware of two or three other than the top 100. Can we get your figures? Mr. KALISH. What we are aware of is there have been letters of show cause issued for lack of good faith effort that did not have to be referred to higher headquarters that came from a local agency. We were permitted to issue letters for lack of a good faith effort to contractors that are not among the top 100 Department of Defense contractors. But, we are not aware of any show-cause letters issued for lack of good faith that had to be forwarded to higher headquarters. In other words, they were issued to companies that were among the top 100 Department of Defense contractors. Mr. Mosse. So they are treated differently than the ones in the sub100 range? Mr. COLE. Yes. Mr. Mosse. And your jurisdiction stops right at the bottom of the top 100? Mr. KALISH. That is correct. For instance, last year, in the last quarter, I do not remember the month, we got to the point with a top 100 contractor where we decided, the local office decided; that a letter of show cause should be issued. As far as we know it was sent by our office and referred to the Washington headquarters where it was not issued, and the reason we were given was, that the contractor already had a valid affirmative action program. That was not the crux of the show cause. The crux was that, OK, he had a valid affirmative action program, but he was not living up to it. OK. Last month I came across a very small company, not among the top 100, with the same situation. He had a valid affirmative action program but he was not living up to it. I recommended that we issue a show cause for lack of good faith effort, and it was issued. But, it was a local determination; it was not something Mr. Mosse. How many show-cause letters would you say have been issued within the last year or two? Mr. KALISH. 15 or 16. Mr. CANFIELD. We can issue show-cause letters for a number of different reasons. Now with Order 14, if someone does not send in the data within 30 days is one reason. If a company has no affirmative action program or a nonresponsive affirmative action program, or if they are not living up to the current program that they already have, is the third reason. We are talking about a lack of good faith effort which is really result oriented. Prior to a year ago, I believe there was only one letter issued by the office. Within the last 12 months, there have been approximately seven or eight. When I say within the last 12 months, I think the first of the group was about 12 months ago. For other reasons, there have been a number of them over the years, companies that did not get their program in in time. But that can bewords can satisfy that one. Within the 30 days. That is not the problem. Mr. MOSSE. So that you would say for bad faith the number is about seven or eight? Mr. KALISH. It could be a little higher. Mr. CANFIELD. It cannot be more than 10 or 12 last year. Mr. KALISH. I don't think it can be that high. Mr. CANFIELD. I don't think it is either, but I could not tell you for sure. Mr. MOSSE. As to contracts valued at $1 million or more, is there any special treatment given to the contractor? Mr. CANFIELD. We generally deal with companies that have $1 million contractor more-it is total just about. We do not deal that much with companies that have less than $1 million. Mr. Mosse. We have been provided with some data from your organization, and one of the statements contained therein reads as follows: Before the award of any contract valued at $1 million or more, we are required to conduct an on-site review at that facility regardless of the size of the work force, if no such review has been performed in the last year. Mr. CANFIELD. Yes. Mr. Mosse. Now, your testimony indicates that you do not make onsite reviews in many instances, many of them are done at your desk. That seems to me to be inconsistent. Mr. CANFIELD. In practice we were talking about the rules and regulations which we are working with which started to be implemented in January. This is March. I do not think the office has had more than 10 or 12 desk audits in the whole time. So we are talking more theory than what the practice is. The way it is set up to carry on in the future, implementing the desk audit procedure, it is not going to get results. There have not been that many desk audits so far and in the case of a preaward, we do go onsite. Mr. MOSSE. So the point of the matter is that until now, you have been getting into the field. Mr. KALISH. We are talking about two different kinds of reviews, also. A preaward we have to go onsite. Mr. MOSSE. Yes. Mr. KALISH. When a contract is being considered to be let for $1 million or more, we get requests for a preaward review. On a regularly scheduled contractor, in other words, somebody-we get a quarterly schedule and someone who appears on that schedule, and we are not going there because there is a current pending contract, that is when the desk audit comes in. We are talking about two different kinds of reviews. Mr. Mosse. Do you feel that you have enough manpower, should a quarterly review come up on each of the contracts over which you now have jurisdiction, to go out into the field and make onsite reviews in every instance? Mr. CANFIELD. There have been times when we-I guess there haven't been. Generally, in most cases, somebody is assigned to a review. There is a procedure set up so that everybody is supposed to and someone slips through once in a while, I guess. But I don't think-they get assigned to somebody or they get a time problem maybe. Mr. Mosse. As staff, do you receive any special training or guidance from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance or from the Department of Labor? Does either provide any training programs for you? Mr. CANFIELD. Regulations only. Mr. Mosse. Everything merely filters down to you? Mr. CANFIELD. We get the regulations before we use them which are really interpreted through the Department of Defense. Mr. Mosse. From whom do you obtain your data on available labor force; from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics? Mr. CANFIELD. Indirectly. It is really census data in many cases. We get it from the State employment service which is really a subsection of the Department of Labor, although it is part of the State. They get their directions from the Department of Labor and that is where the bulk of our information comes from. Mr. Mosse. Do you find the available data to be accurate? Mr. CANFIELD. It is old. The census data was taken in November of 1969 and hopefully there have been a lot of changes since 1969. So, it is not all we have to work with and it is not particularly good. It usually indicates a much lower availability than what we know is out there, although it is not enough to hang our hat on. Mr. MOSSE. So it is possible in your tracking of the progress of minorities and women throughout the work force, that a contractor may, in fact, be in compliance on paper with the old data but not in actuality if you were to conduct an onsite review. Mr. CANFIELD. Well it is a question-I am not sure I get what your point is. What the current data is, no one knows. I mean we can say there was improvement in the last 5 years, but how much-how do you measure it—there has been no study to measure such things. Mr. Mosse. My point is if you sit at your desk and review the figures in affirmative action plans submitted by the contractors, they may be in compliance based on the data that you have at your desk, but if you went out into the field to talk to the people and see first hand if that were, in fact, true, you might find a great disparity in the numbers of women and minorities that should be there. 56-250-75—2 Mr. CANFIELD. Well-you Mr. MOSSE. While on paper it may look good, in practice it may not? Mr. CANFIELD. No. That is because the data has changed. I mean the point is, you can find other problems in going onsite that did not come up in paperwork. But, in terms of that which you judge as being good or bad, you may find internal movement upward. There is a different situation. I mean it is true that going onsite is going to add to it. Mr. COLE. Let me give you an example. There is a company that is located in Fullerton, for instance, that uses Orange County data as their local recruiting area. It is far closer from Fullerton to Pomona and Compton than it is from Fullerton to Irvine. If they have used Orange County data, it would show the availability of blacks being 0.7-0.1 percent. OK. If they use an area, took a circle around the area where Fullerton is located and include Irvine as they are included, as their office has accepted, then the availability of blacks may be 8 to 10 percent. So, if you are going to start off with the premise that Orange County is the right data, and you look at it because they gave it to you from Orange County, then you are denying the availability of blacks in Compton, Long Beach, Mexican Americans in East L.A.-I'm trying to think of some other towns out in that area Mr. CANFIELD. Going onsite is not going to help that, because you can look on a map to see where Fullerton is. Your question was, Is going onsite going to change that? It is not going to change that; it is going to make people aware that companies in Fullerton can recruit other than in just Orange County. Mr. KALISH. To take that one step further, we have some companies, and I know of at least one case, where companies are on the same side of the street right next to each other, and one of them has 25 percent minorities and one has 6 percent minorities. They are in Orange County, and they can both be in compliance with two different reviewers. Mr. CANFIELD. There is inconsistency and I think that is the point. Mr. Mosse. Is there anything which prevents the employer with 6 percent from recruiting from the available work force across the street, which, I assume, is the line of demarcation? Mr. CANFIELD. No, no. The point is he is saying that one person will accept the 6 percent as good in Orange County and another reviewer may not accept that, and it would be 25 percent. Mr. Mosse. So the discrepancy lies Mr. CANFIELD. Yes. Mr. Mosse. Within your own reviewers? Mr. CANFIELD. Yes. Mr. COLE. Yes. Mr. CANFIELD. I think what the point is, is making sure that everybody has the same general feeling of what skills are available out in the labor force area. That is a vital part. Mrs. MCINTOSH. They need training in other areas besides availability. They need training in how to find problems. There are a lot of problems in the companies that they do not know how to look for. |