7/

Exempted from the registration requirement are:

71) those unable to engage in work by reason of illness, incapacity or advanced age; (2) a relative caring for a child under 6 (under 3 after July 1974); (3) the mother of a child where an adult male is in the home and has registered; (4) a child under 16 or a student under 21; or (5) someone who must be at home to care for an ill or incapacitated member of the family.

8/ The Committee Report states that "good cause" is to be found "only in clear-cut situations where the individual's reasons are sound and compelling". It gives as examples the absence of child care or lack of transportation to the job.

9/ Some of these individuals probably are (or have been) enrolled in existing training programs such as CEP, WIN or MDTA, but the DOL has no hard figures to document this. Even under the best of circumstances, it is clear that only a small number of the registrants will receive training and job upgrading.

10/

For example, 78.3% of North Carolina's 1969 placements were agricultural; in California, the figure was 78% and in Ohio, it was 31.9%.

11/ Both the President and the architects of H. R. 1 have endorsed the latter course of action, immediate placement of registrants in existing jobs, regardless of the nature of those jobs.

12/

DOL officials state that the "work requirement" is premised on a reduction of the present 6% unemployment rate to around 4%, with a resultant reduction in the number of people eligible for H.R. 1 manpower programs. They also state that if the manpower component of H.R. 1 is fully financed and the nation's manpower effort is doubled, the ES will not be able to handle such a sudden expansion.

13/ Earl Klein, Office of Financial and Management Systems.

In recent years, the Employment Service has mounted a strong effort to reverse its long history of discrimination against minorities. Although minorities are still underrepresented on many ES staffs, particularly at the higher levels, the services have a much improved hiring record. Complaints about discrimination in job referrals persist, 1/ but the DOL has taken a series of steps to bring the local offices into compliance with the civil rights laws.2/

The chief weakness of the ES with regard to minorities is that it mirrors the attitudes of employers in the community. The ES should provide a model of vigilance and aggressiveness toward affirmative action for equal employment opportunity. Instead, it is frequently a passive accessory to discriminatory employment practices; it is widely viewed in that light by the minority community.

The situation has improved somewhat in recent years as the result of federal pressure to bring the ES into compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the recognition by some state administrators of the need for reorientation if the ES is to meet its statutory responsibilities to the poverty community. Some offices have, in fact, taken noteworthy steps to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, but by and large the majority of the services have given this goal a low priority.

As Senator Nelson declared in the hearings on the Comprehensive Manpower Act of 1970:

"I am dismayed by the unanimity of the
poor whites, poor blacks, poor Mexican-
Americans, that the Employment Services
discriminate, that they aren't equipped,
that they don't care, that all the treat-
ment they have had in the past with these
agencies has been disagreeable by people
unconcerned and unequipped and unprepared
to advise and help." (Sen. Manpower Sub-
comm., Comprehensive Manpower Hearings,
March 25, 1970, p. 1272.)

1. Staffing Patterns. Spokesmen for the ES system have frequently blamed the discrimination in staffing on state civil service laws; this may be relevant in some states.3/ But it is not a valid excuse: the laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination in federally funded programs override state laws that require or contribute to discriminatory results.4/

In 1966, a Labor Department survey showed that 11.8% of ES employees were members of minority groups, but only 5.5% of the managerial-supervisory positions were held by minorities (they held 58.9% of the custodial service jobs).5/ This led to stricter review procedures, which drew attention to each state agency's internal equal-opportunity performance. By 1969, according to DOL data, minority-group staff had increased to 14.1% of the total, with the percentage in managerial-supervisory positions rising to 7.3%; minorities still held about 60% of the custodial-service jobs. The 1969 data showed that there was extreme underrepresentation of minorities in 11 southern and border states; in the ten other states where blacks were underrepresented, the difference between the ES percentage and state-wide percentage ranged from 0.1 to 0.9%. In six of the states included in this survey, the percentage of blacks on the employment agency staff was far smaller than that in the state's population as a whole.

In early 1970, the Labor Department began a new effort to eliminate racial bias from the Employment Service staff. Assistant Secretary Arnold R. Weber announced that "the figures on minority staffing are so low as to raise a question of compliance with the January, 1963, amendment to the Federal Merit System Standards," and admitted that while the national figure of 14% "seems reasonable, many localities have little or no staff representation of minorities." He pointed out that the figures on the level of minority staff positions were similarly misleading: while nearly 11% of those in professional-technical positions were from minority groups, "the great majority of the 11 percent is located in a relatively few areas." 7/

To meet the problem, on March 25, 1970, the Department issued General Administration Letter No. 1367, which requires each local office to provide detailed information on minority hiring and the upgrading of minority employees, to enable the state administrators to prepare special sections of their Plans of Service dealing with minority personnel. The letter set forth the DOL policy that "[t]he State Employment Security agencies should employ such numbers of workers from minority groups as will assure that all agencies and offices can operate effectively in responding to the manpower and employment needs of the community being served." (GAL 1367)

It may be too soon to judge the responses of the state agencies. GAL No. 1381, issued by the Department of Labor on May 11, 1970, gave detailed instructions on the preparation of the minority staffing plans, and required them to be submitted by July 1, 1970. Of the six states listed above in which minorities were seriously underrepresented on ES staffs, the supplementary 1970 data available to the public indicate:

Florida: 11.7% blacks, by July, 1970 (the
figure for Spanish-surnamed employees is
negligible, 17 out of a total 1016.)

Louisiana: 13.6% black; 20.6% minorities
Louisiana ES has been sued under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, by a private party).8/

North Carolina: 9.5% black, no other minor-
ities represented.

Texas: 6% black, 11.7% Spanish-surnamed em-
ployees.

Virginia: 10.1% black employees.

The projected hiring plans for 1971 and 1972 look promising, although further efforts will be needed to correct the imbalance caused by past discrimination, particularly at the executive and managerial levels. Florida claims it will fill half of its 1971 job openings with minorities, 13% of whom will be Spanish-surnamed; Louisiana will reserve 40.4% of its openings for minorities; 86.4% of whom will be black; Mississippi promises to give half of its new 1971 jobs to blacks; 52% of North Carolina's new ES employees will be black; Texas will hire 28% from minorities, (split almost evenly between blacks and Mexican-Americans); Virginia plans to hire Negroes for more than 63% of its 1971 openings.