115 The absence of changes since mid-1965 in the proportion of Negroes in the GS 5-8 levels indicates that Chairman Dixon has not encouraged the promotion of Negroes to supervisory positions. Those in the GS 5-8 grades are trained clerical help, and it would be reasonable to expect hiring on the basis of equal opportunity to produce a proportion of Negroes somewhat higher than one-sixth the proportion of Negroes in the Washington population. The 1965 Civil Service Report on the FTC noted in its summary that one of the conditions in the Commission was that: "The program for equal employment opportunity has not been effectively implemented throughout the agency." Civil Service Report, p. 7. In the same report, the Civil Service Commission argued: Much greater effort must be made to seek out minority group candidates for professional positions. The system of almost total reliance on walk-ins must be replaced with a program of aggressive search if the Federal Trade Commission is to be assured that it is getting its fair share of top quality minority group candidates. Civil Service Report, pp. 9-10. There are currently five Negroes in the GS 9-18 grades for professional employees. One is a librarian, three are attorneys and one is a textile investigator. According to a member of the Office of Personnel who is in a position to know about the FTC's recruiting effort, Chairman Dixon has effectually disobeyed this Civil Service Commission directive. According to this source, Chairman Dixon has no desire to encourage Negroes to join the FTC and as a result no change in recruitment policies vis-a-vis minority groups has taken place since 1965. Two years ago an attorney was going to be sent to Howard Law School to do special recruiting, but because of minor disturbances on the campus, decided not to go. Since that attempt the personnel office has justified not visiting Howard Law School by invoking the general rule that they don't send interviewers to any of the D.C. law schools. A major problem is that the FTC has no young Negro attorneys who can be sent to intervice Negro law students, but this problem would solve itself if the Commission were to follow the edict of the Civil Service Commission and make a vigorous effort to hire competent Negro Jawyers. 116 The final suggestion of the Civil Service Report are two-fold: The FTC should provide: (a) (b) an intensive educational program to assure a positive recruiting program to utilize vacancies which are occurring, in the field in particular, to place qualified clerical and professional candidates in offices which have few or no minority group members on the rolls. p. 11. As of last fall, three years after the issuance of this report, the FTC had acted on neither provision. 117 problems of the higher staff In an article entitled "The Dim Light of Paul Rand Paul Rand Dixon's chief failure ... seems to be that he's been with the Federal Trade Commission far too long. Dixon is so accustomed to doing what he's always done that he finds it difficult to conceive of doing anything very different.... He simply lacks the clarity of conception necessary to give the FTC broad new objectives, as well as the tenacity of spirit needed to build a staff equal to achieving them. Washingtonian, Oct. 1963, p. 82. With this kind of leadership it is not surprising that a large number of the "old timers" have lapsed into a state of lethargy. The Office of the General Counsel epitomizes this problem. Including the General Counsel, there are thirtytwo attorneys in the Office. Of these thirty-two, twenty-two hold a GS rank of 15 or higher, which carries a salary of $20,000 to $25,000, primarily because of their long tenure at the Commission. GS- 15 is as high as one can go without getting into supergrades. Another five are GS-14's, three are GS-13's, one is a GS-11, and one is a GS-9. The progression, then, is the exact opposite of a normal hierarchy. The General Counsel, who is in charge of the Office, is James McI. Henderson. He is a Johnson man from Texas, who started his political career clerking for the late Senator Harvin Sheppard of Texas. of significant governmental positions. Now as General Counsel to the FTC, he is frequently absent from his office. In two separate attempts to interview him made by the project, was not in his office, and his embarrassed secretary could not say when he would be back or whether he was on extended leave, vacation or what. At other times during the summer telephone calls were made to his office producing similar results. In better days he occupied a number Host young attorneys at the Commission, and a few in high GS levels, are critical of the personnel in the General 118 Counsel's Office. "It is the office of sinecures," one remarked. And another commented, "there is alot of 'deadwood' on the fifth floor."* Some of the men in the General Counsel's Office are despirately in need of face-saving. One of these is Charles Grandey. When two members of the project went to interview Fr. Grandey in his office, they found him fast asleep on a couch with the sports section of the Washington Post covering his head. They woke him up, and he walked to his desk where he propped his chin up with his hands on top of a pile of books. Asked what his work entailed, lir. Grandey gave a very vague reply. Further inquires with other FTC attorneys established that he really did very little, his chief occupation being to abstract cases which are pertinent to the Commission's work. His yearly salary is $22,695. He is officially listed in the Commission telephone book as the Assistant General Counsel for Voluntary Compliance, along with the other Assistant General Counsels who head He is also listed on organization charts in divisions, the same manner, but in the confidential Budget Control Reports, he is simply placed along with the Assistants to the General Counsel. And just exactly what the Division of Voluntary Compliance docs is a mystery which is not solved even by the FTC's Justification of Estimates of Appropriations for Fiscal Year, 1968 and 1969, which are these presented to Congress. In tomes the Division of Voluntary Compliance mysteriously disappears and remains unjustified. *The fifth floor houses the entire Office of the General Counsel, Chairman Dixon's office, Commissioner MacIntyre's office, and the office of the Executive Director. 119 The Office of the General Counsel with all its inefficiencies resulting from too many high-ranking staff attorneys is representative of the whole central office of the Commission. Of the 297 attorneys in the central office (there are 156 attorneys in field offices), 34% are GS-15's or higher, 22% are GS-14's, 15 are GS-1315, 6% are GS-12's, 10 are GS-11's, 13 are GS-9's. These percentages do not include the Commissioners, the Executive Director, or the Hearing Examiners, all of whom are located in the central office and hold supergrades above GS-15. In short, the FTC is suffering from a bad case of too many chiefs. A constant complaint heard from younger attorneys concerned interference from higher-ups due to overlapping jurisdictions and "their desire to direct, not work." Here again we find a situation which was vigorously brought to Chairman Dixon's attention by the 1965 Civil Service Report. In the "Summary Evaluation of the Report, the following points are made: A number of key positions have overlapping, duplicative, conflicting assignments of duties and responsibilities. Positions are assigned grade-influencing duties that are not being performed. Attorneys are not assigned work commensurate with their grade level. The head of the agency is not meeting those responsibiliti es placed upon him by the Classification Act of 1949. Civil Service Report, p. 7. Our investigations have shown that in the three years since the Civil Service Report was issued, Chairman Dixon's style of running the FTC has continued to clog the gears of an agency which should be streamlining itself to deal with a growing and complex economy. * GS-10 rank is not applicable to attorneys. |