Page images
PDF
EPUB

against the despair of indifference and the despotism of misguided benevolence, and misdirected effort and concern.

And section 104 of H.R. 15119, which would withhold the benefits. and protection of unemployment compensation from handicapped workers employed in sheltered workshops-this provision, Mr. Chairman, represents all of the adverse attitudes and embodies all of the adverse forces against which we, blind people, have contended in our strivings for equality of opportunity to achieve, according to our ambitions and our abilities, equality of opportunity, too, to share with our sighted fellows the responsibility for building a better world. Mr. Chairman, are men less than men because they are physically or mentally impaired?

Are the needs of individuals for food, clothing, and shelter different because they are physically or mentally different?

Do the basic living requirements of handicapped workers employed in sheltered workshops end when their wages end?

What of these people, Mr. Chairman, what are they to do when their work runs out and they become unemployed?

Are they to turn to their relatives for aid and private charity, or are they to apply for admission to the relief rolls and ask for public charity?

Mr. Chairman, why is such recourse less degrading and less shameful for handicapped workers than for physically fit workers?

It is our belief that the dignity of the disabled worker, his plight when employment stops, should be of just as much concern to the Congress and to the Nation as the dignity and plight of the physically fit worker when he becomes unemployed.

Unable to secure employment in the regular economic pursuits of the community, the handicapped person-wanting to work and able to work-obtains employment in a sheltered workshop-and he goes to work in a sheltered workshop, not because he cannot be readily ab sorbed in the competitive labor market by reason of his limited work capacity resulting from his impairment, but he goes to work in the sheltered workshop because employers in competitive business and industry will not hire him, will not even give him the chance to demonstrate the extent to which he can function in spite of his impaired condition.

Mr. Chairman, it is neither just nor equitable to penalize this handicapped individual because of society's failure, because of the prejudices and discriminatory practices of business and industrial employers. It is neither fair nor just to deny this handicapped worker the protection of unemployment compensation, to exclude him from advantageous legislation intended as a help to laboring men, for this person, too, is a laboring man even though he is physically or mentally impaired, even though he performs his work in a sheltered workshop.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I would remind you that unemployment compensation legislation represents the recognition of an enlightened social concept and its translation into Federal law.

It is a recognition that men who work have a right to and a need for Government-provided help when wages cease and new work can't be found.

It is a recognition that men who work have a right to dignity even though they are unemployed.

We ask you to extend this concept of "dignity in unemployment" to handicapped men and women who work in sheltered workshops.

Again I would remind you, gentlemen, the more than 43,000 handicapped workers employed in sheltered workshops are not obliged to work for their living.

Surely, no one would judge them harshly, no one would condemn them, if they were to accept dependence upon others as their normal way of life.

But these people have refused the easy and demeaning way, and are striving for self-sufficiency and dependence upon themselves.

These impaired workers could remain upon public welfare for all of their lives, and no one would criticize them for it-but instead, they choose to earn their own living, to support themselves and their families from their own efforts.

It is our belief that handicapped workers employed in sheltered workshops deserve the right, for they certainly have earned the right, to be treated as other workers when they are confronted by the catastrophe of unemployment.

We plead with this committee and the Congress to recognize that unemployment is a catastrophe-whether workers are physically fit or physically impaired, whether they work in competitive business and industry or in sheltered workshops.

The catastrophe has nothing to do with workers' physical condition or with the nature of their employment.

The catastrophe is loss of wages and rapidly multiplying unpaid bills.

We ask and urge this committee and the Congress, therefore, to delete the clauses of section 104 of H.R. 15119, which would deny unemployment compensation to disabled men and women who work in sheltered workshops.

The CHAIRMAN. I am going to ask that our staff undertake to find out the reasons why that provision is part of the law and what the objection would be to deleting it, and how those objections might be met so that this witness' testimony can be fully considered by the committee in executive session.

That concludes the session for today and we will meet again at 9 o'clock tomorrow.

(Whereupon, the committee adjourned at 11:20 a.m., to reconvene at 9 a.m., Tuesday, July 26, 1966.)

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AMENDMENTS OF 1966

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1966

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 9 a.m., in room 2221 New Senate Office Building, Senator Russell B. Long (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Long, Anderson, Douglas, McCarthy, and Williams.

Also Present: Tom Vail, chief counsel.

The CHAIRMAN. Today we conclude 2 weeks of hearings on revision of unemployment compensation. We have received oral testimony from more than 50 witnesses and the committee has received even more written statements in lieu of a personal appearance.

The information developed at these hearings will aid the committee in its executive consideration of the unemployment compensation amendments when it begins to work on the markup tomorrow.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Leonard Lesser of the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO.

Mr. Lesser.

STATEMENT OF LEONARD LESSER, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, AND GENERAL COUNSEL, INDUSTRIAL UNION DEPARTMENT; ACCOMPANIED BY JACK BEIDLER, GENERAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR; AND WOODROW GINSBERG, RESEARCH DIRECTOR

Mr. LESSER. Mr. Chairman, my name is Leonard Lesser. I am assistant to the president and general counsel of the Industrial Union Department.

I am accompanied by Jack Beidler, on my left, our legislative director, and Woodrow Ginsberg, who is our research director.

We appear here on behalf of the Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO's 6 million people.

Mr. Chairman, I have a statement which I would like to file for the record and then just make some oral comments on it.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have your statement printed and then you can go ahead and make your comments.

Mr. LESSER. Fine.

Mr. Chairman, the Industrial Union Department is strongly concerned with the whole problem of our unemployment compensation system.

This program has been a tremendously benevolent force in American life. It has brought help to millions of workers and their families when they suffer the risks of unemployment.

At the same time, it has benefited our economy by providing these workers with purchasing power during periods of unemployment. This concern has been expressed as recently as July 7 of this year when the executive board of the industrial union department met in Washington.

At this meeting it adopted several resolutions. One that dealt with the whole problem of income maintenance, and in this resolution it took a strong position on unemployment compensation and the provisions of H.R. 15119 as passed by the House.

I refer to the statement action in my statement. But, if I may, I would like to read a few sentences from that since it sets forth the position of the industrial union department. I quote:

Insofar as our unemployment compensation program is concerned, the provisions of H.R. 15119, the bill enacted by the House of Representatives and now pending before the Senate Finance Committee are inadequate. This bill, as passed by the House, failed to enact Federal standards to assure that unemployed workers receive at least 50 percent of their weekly wage; failed to permit benefits to be paid for a sufficient period of time; and failed to eliminate the most harsh and restrictive disqualifying provisions of State laws, all of which were contained in H.R. 8282 and S. 1991, the bill proposed by the administration and supported by the labor movement.

On the contrary, enactment of H.R. 15119, in its present form, eliminates even existing pressures on States to improve their own laws. H.R. 15119 is worse than no bill at all.

Unless it is substantially improved in the Senate we urge its defeat by the Congress or, if necessary, its veto by the President.

Mr. Chairman, in taking this position, the executive board was quite conscious of what it was doing. After the entire resolution was read, the president, President Reuther, called specific attention to the position set forth on unemployment compensation before calling for a vote on the entire resolution. The resolution was adopted unanimously.

As we indicate in the resolution, we are concerned not only with the shortcomings of H.R. 15119, its failure to enact benefit standards governing the amount of the weekly benefit, the period for which benefits are paid, and also the conditions under which benefits are paid.

We are also concerned, and equally concerned, with the harm which we believe this H.R. 15119 will do to existing programs in stiffing all hope for future improvement.

I would like to examine this point for a moment.

H.R. 15119 provides for a permanent program of extended benefits. In this respect or in this area, it is also similar to S. 1991. S. 1991, however, provides for benefits when the State responsibility ends, and it establishes a State responsibility and makes clear this responsi'bility must be met before the Federal Government will assume an obligation.

H.R. 15119, however, says that whenever the State duration period ends, and regardless of how short the State duration period is, it, the Federal Government, will pay for one-half the cost of additional benefits.

The effect of this program in H.R. 15119 which, as I indicated, provides for the Federal Government paying 50 percent of the cost of the benefits whenever State duration ends, regardless of how short it is, is clear. Why should the State extend its duration if there is on the

« PreviousContinue »