STAGES AND IMPLEMENTATION

General Implementation

SEC. 13. (a) The President is authorized and directed to provide, by regulation, guidelines, and otherwise, that implementation of this Act commence at once and that full implementation be achieved within 36 months of its enactment, at which time the administrative and judicial enforcement of the guarantee of the right to work at useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation as secured by the provisions of sections 5 (g) and (h) shall enter into effect. This subsection shall not be construde to prevent the President from effecting full implementation of this Act by an earlier date, including ordering the entering into effect of sections 5 (g) and (h) as applied to the guarantee of the right to work at useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation by such earlier date.

Emergency Implementation

(b) This Act shall be used as the framework for action taken to combat any recession or other absence of economic activity existing at the time of its enactment. In particular the President shall :

(1) submit an interim Economic Report and Full Employment and National Purposes Budget to the Congress within 60 days after the passage of this Act (if such report is not required within that time by section 3 (a));

(2) assure establishement of job guarantee offices in every labor market in the Nation and the appointment of the directors thereof within 90 days after the enactment of this Act; and

(3) request of the interim Purposes Budget an appropriation from the Congress of $15,000,000,000 or such other sum as he or she deems necessary for the purpose of implementing the reservoir of public and private employment projects and the Standby Job Corps as established in sections 5, 6, and 7. Such appropriation request shall reflect sums necessary to reach the temporary employment goal specified in section 3(b)(1) of not more than 3 percent unemployment within 18 months after the submission of the interim Purposes Budget and shall take into account implementation levels expected to be achieved under the priority programs of the Purposes Budget set forth in section 3(c) (with the exception of 3(c) (18) (A)).

Mr. HAWKINS. Our subcommittee is most happy to be in Milwaukee today which is the home of your distinguished colleague, Congressman Henry Reuss, who is chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee. I might also add that Wisconsin is also the home State of the junior Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, whose Senate Manpower Subcommittee also has jurisdiction over S. 50, which is identical to H.R. 50 in the Senate.

We are very pleased at this time to call on one of the most distinguished Members of Congress, one who has earned a great reputation in the field of international finance, and certainly is doing a magnificent job as chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee and one who has been highly supportive of the efforts of this subcommittee, your own Congressman, the Honorable Henry Reuss. Mr. REUSS. Thank you very much, Chairman Hawkins.

Let me first welcome to our city three of the finest Congressmen and finest people I know: First, Gus Hawkins, chairman of the subcommittee and the prime sponsor of the Equal Opportunity and Full Employment Act.

It is a truly bipartisan subcommittee. The ranking minority member is also an old friend of mine, John Buchanan of Birmingham, Ala., with whom I have had the pleasure of working on foreign

policy matters. He holds the distinction of being a member of two major committees.

John, I don't see how you do it.

He is on both the Committee on International Affairs and the Committee on Education and Labor, but he gives to each one his unremitting toil and attention.

The third member of the visiting delegation is Congressman Bill Clay of St. Louis, Mo., who combines youthful vigor, dedication and courage with attention to duty. It is a real pleasure, Bill, to welcome you to our city, too.

I am very, very pleased with our weather, it has been a glorious weekend. I only wish you could all stay longer.

John, I understand you are able to stay tonight and I am glad of that.

The chairman has summed up very well what the full employment bill is all about. There has been a great demand here in the Wisconsin area for the subcommittee to come and hold a hearing and I am grateful that it is now here. You would think that everyone would be in favor of a bill which would create jobs by meaningful methods consistent with our American free enterprise system, and which would see that everybody able and willing to work may have a dignified and decent job. Unfortunately, there are some, including some in the administration, who over the years have just given up on the goal of full employment. Thirty years ago we in Congress thought we had written the goal of fuller employment into the Employment Act of 1946, but full employment became a 3-percent unemployment and that became 4- and 5-percent unemployment and today there are those who sort of shrug off the 8-percent unemployment and say, "This is God's will, nothing can be done about it."

I was particularly disturbed to find one important agency of the Government of the United States, Treasury, come out a few weeks ago not only against the Hawkins-Humphrey bill but against the whole principle of full employment. It said that a legislative guarantee of continuous full employment would require in economic terms that "total demand would never fall short of the full capacity of the economy. The absence over time of any such gap would clearly be inflationary." Well, that is just saying, as Illinois utility monopolist Samuel Insul once said, that "the greatest aid in the efficiency of labor is a long line of men waiting at the gate." This is not 1975 thinking and I hope that before we are through we will convince even the Treasury that it is good economics to be back to full employment.

I would say one more word about what is not perhaps as emotional and as close an aspect of full employment as is the human tragedy of wanting a job and not being able to get it, and that is the international part of the picture, in which Congressman Buchanan is also very interested. I spent several hours last week in Washington with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the Federal Republic of Germany, and he made it very clear to me that our willingness to sit still even for a short time with as many as 8 million unemployed in this country has had an impact not only in terms of human tragedy here in America but in terms of our world relations. If countries like Germany or Canada or Japan have only a limping United States-one that is operating at a

fraction of its total capacity to do business-then repression and recession spreads to them, and in fact it has spread to them. The last words that the Chancellor of Germany gave to me were, "Try to do something in your country to get closer to full employment." The countries of Europe traditionally have something like 1- or 2-percent unemployment and they worry very much when they go beyond that. Mr. Chairman, I want to welcome you and your fine subcommittee once again. I know it is going to be a productive hearing.

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Henry. I wish to thank you for this very delightful southern California weather that we have today.

Mr. Buchanan, would you care to make a statement at this time? Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hear it may be Alabama weather before the day is ended which is even nicer.

Mr. Chairman, I share your pleasure in being in Milwaukee and being here in a city that is so well represented in the Congress. I think that there is no Member of the Congress more respected than our distinguished colleague to our right, Henry Reuss. As chairman of one of the major committees of the Congress, his leadership is respected by all Members on both sides of the aisle. We have learned the value of his intelligence and his character and even those who do not always agree with his judgments have learned to respect them.

So it is a great pleasure to be here, Henry, in your city and I, too, share your concern that the acceptance of the concept of anything less than full employment as being acceptable in our society is not itself an acceptable point of view. I note that even Chairman Burns of the Federal Reserve Board recently has indicated his understanding of the need for full employment and for the Government to be the employer of last resort toward that end. It is a pleasure to be in your city and we appreciate your leadership in this area as in so many other areas of importance to the Nation."

Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Clay has indicated that he will devote his time to some of the witnesses so we will not call on him at this time.

I am wondering whether or not those of you who are seated in the audience are able to hear us.

FROM THE FLOOR. NO.

Mr. HAWKINS. Well, let's take a 1-minute recess and see if we cannot adjust the loudspeaker system so that everyone can hear us. The committee is in recess for 1 minute.

[Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]

FROM THE FLOOR. Do you have to have those lights on? They are shining in my eyes. Is this a show or a hearing?

Mr. HAWKINS. We will try to adjust the mechanism to satisfy as many as possible.

FROM THE FLOOR. How come they don't put the lights on you? Mr. HAWKINS. Will you wait just a minute, sir. We would appreciate if you would be a little more patient until we can do something about it.

FROM THE FLOOR. How long do we have to be patient?

Mr. HAWKINS. I understand there is no speaker available in this room so we will just have to speak as loudly as possible and have the greatest amount of attention from the audience. The lights are going to be adjusted so as not to shine in anyone's eyes.

Can the media adjust those lights to accommodate us? Take your pictures at this time, please, and then we will adjust the lights so that they will not be shining in the eyes of those who are seated in the audience.

The committee is again in session.

The first witness of the morning is Sister Regina Williams. We are very pleased, Sister Regina, to have you as our first witness. Would you please step forward. I would suggest that you sit at this end of the table so that you will be facing in a sense both the audience and us as well.

We have your prepared statement which will be printed in the record in its entirety. Since it is a brief statement, I would suggest that you read it in its entirety. We are very pleased to have you as the first witness and certainly we await whatever testimony that you wish to give.

Will you then proceed.

STATEMENT OF SISTER REGINA WILLIAMS, JUSTICE AND
PEACE CENTER, MILWAUKEE

Sister REGINA WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Sister Regina Williams of the Justice and Peace Center in Milwaukee and I have a statement from the center endorsed by several of the religious groups of Wisconsin.

It is incredible that millions of capable and willing people in the United States must face the indignity of not finding work in a nation with both vast resources and innumerable domestic needs. Millions of persons need work and an enormous number of works need to be done: Poor persons need to be housed; hungry persons need to be fed; sick persons need to be cared for; illiterate persons need to be educated; mentally impoverished persons need libraries and museums open at times their working hours permit; immobilized persons need a better mass transit system; socially alienated persons need a more creative recreational system. These personal needs as well as untold other needs such as providing environmental protection, alternate energy supplies, traffic control, urban renewal are very evident. Why, then, as one of the wealthiest nations in the world can we not connect these obvious and serious needs which go unsatisfied with the millions of persons seeking employment?

The people begging for jobs today are not limited to the unskilled nor to minorities, even though the latter-blacks, native Americans, youth, women-are more seriously affected; many white middle-class college graduates are unsuccessfully seeking employment and this is ironic as well as tragic for they believed the American philosophy, "If you want a good job, get an education."

Work is an extension of who a person is. In its ideal form it is an outlet of a person's creative power. Work is also one key that enables the person to act toward the future she or he chooses. Unemployment cannot be viewed merely as an economic, statistical problem; it is a human problem and must be understood in terms of human dignity.

Our churches endorse the quality of life concept, a concept which affirms and esteems the worth of each individual. We believe God created us to live meaningful lives in this world, to grow into full adulthood, to develop our God given potential and to participate fully in the activities of life that direct our destiny. Without the opportunity to work, not only the chance for growth but also human dignity, freedom, and equality are denied. Unemployment is an expensive and senseless waste of human potential, both to the individual and to the Nation.

As believers in God and people we endorse a policy that would seek to give all individuals an opportunity to utilize their full capability. We endorse the concept of full employment-that every American able to work and willing to work has the right to work in a useful and remunerative job. We also believe that if the private sector does not provide an environment for individuals to enjoy this right, the Government has the responsibility to insure that job opportunities exist as part of its role in building up the common good. We are assuming that the work will not be deadend jobs, but jobs which allow people to grow and move up; jobs that are safe, fulfilling work with fair compensation. Realizing that nature's material resources are limited, we assume that the accent will be on labor intensive rather than energy intensive production. In keeping with our ideal, we urge a production of goods to increase the quality of life. for all people on the earth; we especially discourage the production of those nonessentials which not only cater to artificially stimulated wants of consumerism but wants ecologically indefensible. Therefore, we hope the implementation of the full employment concept will include an examination of all the creative possibilities such as shorter work weeks, sabbaticals with pay, early optional retirements, retraining sessions and public service/private business combinations.

A full planning process is required, some of which seems to be indicated in your bill. This long-range careful planning must avoid setting up a bureaucratic maze and make sure the money allocations for an effective program are targeted for the unemployed and those with needs and not merely ones which add to the enrichment of those already secure. We therefore commend you for taking your program to the people and listening to their hopes and fears.

It is fitting that this bill of economic rights be seriously discussed on the eve of the Bicentennial. Our founders proclaimed America as a land of equal economic opportunity where each person's work would help elevate citizens to the full potential of personhood. A declaration of independence is tragically ironic to the estimated 20 million unemployed in America who are not free nor independent in any practical sense. To provide job opportunities for these persons so they can exercise a contributory and participatory role in their country is in keeping with the goals of America. To speak of a 5-percent unemployment rate as normal is disgraceful and senseless for a rich nation that accents the rights of individuals, and to use unemployment as a lever to regulate inflation is not only unnecessary but cruel.

The cost of an effective full employment program will be high. Because it is truly an investment in people, we need to give it its proper