Testimony on November 29, 1978

employer practices. The Commission is undertaking a study of the additional information it should request on EEO-1 forms in the future, but no new forms will apparently be in use for more than a year, and it may well be a year or more after that before information from employers will be returned, computerized, and available for use in targetting.

In the future, but, particularly during the next two years before new EEO-1 forms are producing usable information, the Commission would be well served by instructing its intake officials to go through a standard questionnaire with each charging party who has been employed by a company, and to make the results available to its systemic unit. Sample types

of questions that would be helpful in targetting employers for suit by the EEOC are set forth below:

If so,

what is the

(1) Does the respondent use an educational
requirement for any jobs?
level of education required, and to which jobs
does it apply?

(2) Does the respondent use a test for any
jobs? If so, what is the name of the test, and
to which jobs does it apply?

(3) Does the respondent have a seniority system that does not apply to blacks in the same way it applies to whites?

same way it applies to men?

describe it.

Or to women in the

If so, please

(4) Does the respondent have any training

or apprenticeship programs? If so, do blacks
have the same access to the programs as whites?
If not,

Do women have the same access as men?

explain.

(5) Are notices of vacancies posted, so

that employees can bid on them?

(6) Is there an objective system for making
promotions, or are promotions completely up to
supervisors? (If the promotions are up to
supervisors, follow-up questions would inquire
as to the race and sex of supervisors, and as to
the race and sex of the persons who have been
promoted to high-paid jobs).

(7) Is it more difficult for blacks to get
hired than whites? Is it more difficult for
women than men? Why?

Such ques

Other questions of equal utility can be added. tionnaires would take relatively little time to administer, but would provide invaluable information to the EEOC's systemic units

and would clearly preserve the rights of charging parties to

bring subsequent enforcement actions on their own.

5. The EEOC's Responsiblity for Federal Employment

Under Reorganization Plan No. One of 1978, the EEOC will

on January 1, 1979 receive from the U.S. Civil Service Commission authority over the complaint-processing procedures for claims of discrimination in Federal employment, and

Testimony on November 29, 1978

over the obligations of Federal agencies to

prepare affirmative-action plans.

The Lawyers' Committee has collected its analysis of the problems in the Civil Service Commission's present complaintprocessing activities, and with the Civil Service Commission's affirmative action efforts, in a February 1978 publication entitled Towards Making the Promise of Nondiscrimination in Federal Employment a Reality. Copies were sent to a number of Congressmen and, we believe, to the members of this Subcommittee. We are today filing five additional copies with

the Subcommittee.

In essence, we concluded that the present Civil Service Commission regulations are unfairly "stacked" against complainants, and that they are in need of substantial revision. We recommended that the EEOC be given the authority it has now been given, and recommended further that it use its authority to establish a model cease-and-desist procedure for Federalsector complaints of discrimination. Doing so would help to redress the fact that no public agency currently has the authority to prosecute discrimination complaints against Federal agencies in court, and would provide a clear indication of the Commission's ability to conduct a fair and efficient cease-and-desist procedure. Only with such a practical demonstration can the continuing dispute over giving the EEOC cease-and-desist authority in the private sector be resolved.

Testimony on November 29, 1978

We also concluded that the present affirmative-action program was almost completely ineffective. The Federal

government lags far behind the private sector in employing blacks in the South and in employing Hispanics in the Southwest, and lags far behind the private sector in employing blacks in higher-paid jobs. There are, for example, 73 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas for which both private-sector and Federal-sector performance as of 1975 can be measured. our measure, in two-thirds of these SMSA's, Federal performance was less than half the performance of the private sector in the proportions of employees in high-paid jobs who were black. Towards Making the Promise at 13-21.

By

The EEOC should require meaningful statistical reporting

by Federal agencies and meaningful efforts to identify and eliminate barriers to the progress of women and of minorities. Above all, the EEOC should require the Civil Service Commission to prepare a detailed public "Minority and Female Impact Statement" with respect to each test and other employment standard it administers, setting forth its exact impact by race and sex and, where disparate impact is severe, the precise reasons why no other standard would be sufficient. CSC should be required to reconsider its use of each such test or standard in light of the Statement. Such public statements should also be required for all new tests and standards the Civil Service Commission desires to put into effect, before the CSC makes its final decision on their use. Such detailed, public statements may help

Testimony on November 29, 1978

CSC shift its focus from a myopic preoccupation with

coefficients of correlation to the far more important social effects of its decisions.

Conclusion

Once again, we thank the Committee for having invited us to testify. We hope that these hearings will strengthen the EEOC's determination to improve its present procedures and to enhance the quality of its litigation efforts. We offer our comments and recommendations to be constructive and we hope they are considered in that light. We believe in a strong EEOC as is evidenced by our earlier recommendations to the President's Task Force on Reorganization. We hope that our recommendations will be considered favorably, and we will be happy to work with the EEOC in these and other areas.

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STATEMENT OF RICHARDSON SEYMOUR, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT PROJECTS, LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW, WASHINGTON, D.C.; ACCOMPANIED BY LINDA THOME, STAFF ATTORNEY

Mr. SEYMOUR. There are three main areas of our testimony. The first is the adequacy of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's litigation effort. The second is the effect of the commission's new procedures on enforcement of Title VII by litigation. The third is the EEOC new responsibilities for discrimination in the Federal sector.