The economic crisis has just added to the relatively poor situation that Black people have been forced to endure. In 1969, before the crisis, Black per capita income was $1,818 as compared to $3,383 for whites. As the age of the wage earner increases, the difference between earnings also increases. For example, Black males who were between 35-65 years of age earned only 55% as much as their white counterparts of the same age. The situation becomes all the more outrageous when one looks at the terrible economic conditions for mothers and children in one parent families. Black families whose support was dependent on the mother only had a median income of $4,465 in 1974 as compared to white one parent families who averaged $7,363. (These figures come from the Department of Commerce publication The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States 1974.) The discriminatory situation regarding men and women can be seen more clearly when one looks at family income where there is only a male wage earner. Here Black men earn slightly more than white women, namely they earn $7,773, White men who are the sole support of their families earn $12,381. When both parents work, Blacks don't achieve parity either. Black families earn only $12,982 while white families, with both parents working, earn $16,825. The larger percentage of one parent families in the Black community increases the economic distress. Therefore, to characterize the economic situation as brutally racist is not rhetoric. The Black community was in a depression before this current worsening of the economic situation. Indeed, the Black community has been in a depression always. This is true in all areas that concern the quality of life, be it medical care, recreation, rent or education. After some slight gains in the 60's according to the latest Manpower Report of the President, there has been a return to the historic unemployment ratio of 2:1 of Blacks as compared to whites. The scarcity of funds allotted to these needed social programs such as health, education, housing and recreation is the main cause of the emergence of the intensified racial hatred which is being expressed in Boston, Louisville and other cities around the false issue of busing. Fundamentally, we are all aware of the lack of resources in general as the basic reason for the conflict between races, nationalities and sexes. As long as the scarcity mentality and situation continues, the "Haves" will exploit the surface differences between peoples, so that they fight among themselves for a larger slice of the too small pie. Instead of trying to alleviate the conflict by increasing the scarce resources, President Ford, the supposed moral leader of the nation, inflames racism by his focus on his objections to bussing. His answer to the crisis is vetoeing legislation for school lunches, summer jobs, increased social security and welfare payments, increased federal aid to the cities and education while he spends more on the C.I.A. and the military. His answer to the crisis diverts people from their real needs and inflames racism. We believe that the need for this Act arises, not only from the current crisis, but from a progressive growth of joblessness in the past twenty-five years. We are witnessing the growth of a permanent army of the unemployed. Each year the percentage of acceptable unemployment grows larger and larger. In good times, it lessens, only to rise to ever larger percentages with each succeeding depression. At one time, 3% unemployed was acceptable to the expert economists. Now the acceptable level is 5 or 6%. For us, no level of unemployment is acceptable. We further believe that unemployment is bred by the profit system. In order to maximize profits, automation and labor saving machinery are introduced into the economy. These labor saving devices cut the cost of production and increase the share of profits which the monopolies extract from each employed worker. The profit system does not use automation in order to lighten the lot of the laborer, but, in fact, serves to speed up the workers who are not tossed into the heap of surplus labor. It also serves the purpose of reducing the portion paid to the remaining workers, thereby, cutting the costs of wages through either direct wage cuts or through inflated prices which reduce the workers' real income. In St. Louis, the reserve army of unemployed are the many discouraged workers, the youth and Viet-Nam veterans who remain unemployed. They are the handicapped who can't find jobs. The one parent families who receive the second lowest money-award in the United States. (Only the state of Mississippi pays less to welfare recipients.) They are the thousands of women who want to work but can't find jobs. They are the underemployed who, either, are in jobs which do not meet their skill level or, who are forced to work only part time. Our calculations indicate that the above groups represent well over the official rates of unemployment and, actually, represent one out of every four persons in the area. The reserve army is overrepresented with Black people of all ages, women and youth. We suggest that, as long as the only reason for production is the profit motive, we are going to be subjected to a growing army of permanently unemployed. The simple reduction of the work-week to 30 hours would do much to take up the slack in unemployment. However, only doing away with the profit system could ensure a job for all who want to work. Then people would work to meet their needs rather than to create profit for the few. In a word, we need socialism. In regard to H.R. 50, we applaud and support the concept of linking full employment to equal opportunity. As a national goal, there is nothing of greater importance. We enthusiastically support this bill's special attention to heretofore specially oppressed groups in our society so that they can achieve parity. We, too, believe that an injury to one is an injury to all. However, we suggest that there are several ways in which the Act can be strengthened. The situation we have described above can be rightfully called a national emergency. Therefore, in the first place the phasing in of the Act should be reduced from 36 months to 12 or, at the most 18 months. In addition, the Act can be strengthened if the composition of the local planning bodies ensured that, at least 51% of its members, were hourly wage workers with appropriate representation from minorities, youth and women. The Act can be strengthened if the legislation empowered the local planning bodies to reduce the number of hours of the work-week without a reduction in the living standards of the people. This stipulation would facilitate full employment, as defined in the Act, given the current trend towards automation. The Act can be strengthened if it adopted an explicit position of people before profits. The Act can be strengthened if it directed the President and all the agencies under the Act to link employment with the tasks of rebuilding the cities and removing the rural slums. Finally, the Act can be strengthened if it specified the kinds of jobs established shall be those which build houses, schools, and generally improve the quality of life for all, i.e., jobs for a cleaner and healthier environment, jobs which will better educate our youth to live in multi-racial and multi-ethnic society, jobs which provide day care for all families who want it so that greater numbers of people can enter the labor force. In conclusion, we believe that this historic piece of legislation will not be enacted with a trickle down approach. The trickle down approach has failed economically and will surely fail politically. We recognize that the one way to pass social legislation such as H.R. 50 is by organizing a grassroots movement of the employed and unemployed, of the union and non-union, of the Black and white, of male and female, and, of young and old workers whose unified strength can demand the passage of this legislation. We respectfully suggest that, regardless of any differences on any other issue, or on the causes or ultimate solutions to the problems of unemployment and equal opportunity, we all join together as groups and inviduals to work for a strengthened full employment act. We need to have a mass campaign which will reach every working and unemployed person in St. Louis. We need to raise the Hawkins Bill on the floor of every union meeting, in the churches, the P.T.A.'s and in the neighborhood groups and block units. As a first step in developing massive support for a full employment act, we propose that 100,000 signatures be gathered in a petition campaign to support and strengthen the movement for full employment. We are confident that many groups and individuals will support this effort. For our part, our Party pledges to collect 5,000 signatures in the shops and in the streets. We applaud the thrust of this Act and we know that, with the worsening of conditions, an opportunity for all working people to advance their lot is thereby presented. We are encouraged by your determination and effort in behalf of such positive social legislation. We are certain that you want massive participation on the local level to support your efforts in Congress. We are confident that Black and white working people will unite around this issue of Jobs for All. Testimony submitted by: Thomas Crenshaw, Chairman, Communist Party of Missouri. Mr. HAWKINS. The following have foregone testifying but indicated they will present a statement: Mr. C. Samuel Ehlers, Mr. William Hostetler, Ms. Ruth Jacobson, Mr. Arnold H. Bringewatt, Ms. Pat Martin, Rev. Canon William Á. Kolb, Dr. Richard I. Goldbaum, and Father William D. Stickney. [The statements follow:] Re: Committee Hearing October 14, 1975 in St. Louis, Mo. From: New Democratic Coalition of Metropolitan St. Louis, Steering Committee ST. LOUIS, Mo., September 23, 1975. Hon. AUGUSTUS F. HAWKINS, Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee on Equal Opportunities, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. We are proud to co-sponsor this Committee hearing in St. Louis on October 14th. We hope that your appearance here, and concern for other vital issues, will be repeated by you and other governmental bodies interested in bringing government to the people. We emphatically endorse the concept of full employment as our national labor policy and urge your Committee to examine the quickest humane and efficient methods to accomplish this goal. We object to an expansion of the bureaucracy as a diversion of funds from projects for the unemployed while there are existing governmental agencies capable of most of the administrative work. However, the concept of Local Planning Councils, composed of a cross-section of the population, which would evaluate projects and monitor them, is sound. We are convinced that it is time to abandon the concept summarized by President Truman that "42% unemployment is good for the country". Chronic unemployment is neither good nor acceptable for our country nor for the able and willing who want to work. Regardless of one's priorities, there is a lengthy "shopping list" of nationwide projects to which we should commit our attention. The restoration of our cities, schools, railroads, forests and rivers alone would go a long way towards absorbing the skills and energies of our unemployed and towards restoring the prevailing lack of confidence in all levels of government. The following premises can best summarize our position and support our argument for full employment. 1. New workers and business people, even in expansive periods, are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the marketplace. 2. Too many workers are engaged in meaningless if not counterproductive tasks. 3. Older workers, who may be seeking other alternatives to a competitive and overly demanding job, are locked in to their work by rigid pension and seniority systems. 4. There needs to be special opportunities for young workers to acquire skills to enable them to enter the job market. In closing, we are aware of the social and economic gains that millions of Americans have made since the Korean hostilities. We believe that these gains were just and long past due for low and middle income workers. Most have been lost in an inflationary decade of waste and national drift. Let us begin a policy that will reverse that trend and permit young and old to enjoy their productive years and the benefits of living in this rich and resourceful country. Submitted by: Mrs. PAT MARTIN. PREPARED STATEMENT OF REV. CANON WILLIAM A. KOLB OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL Congressman Hawkins and Congressman Clay: We have a ministry to what we call transients, mostly men who come here asking for all kinds of help mainly for food and at other times for jobs around the church. Two years ago, referring them to the labor pools for day-at-a-time manual labor jobs was the information that they needed. Now it seems they all tell me they have been there as early as 5:30 in the morning and there is nothing available. One older man recently said, "It's getting like the depression." Hon. AUGUSTUS HAWKINS, ST. STEPHEN'S EPISCOPAL PARISH, DEAR CONGRESSMEN: Thank you for your efforts on behalf of H.R. 50, the Equal Opportunity and Full Employment Act. In our ministry in the near southside St. Louis public housing community we at St. Stephen's Church are deluged with requests to help unemployed residents find a job. Many, many of them have long since given up on reporting to the State Employment Office, for the answer is always the same . . . no jobs! I have had persons weep in my office because they cannot find employment. It is indeed sad that the wealthiest nation in the world does not have work for every one of its citizens who are able to work and that at a decent, livable wage. We have so many needs right here in St. Louis for medical facilities, housing, recreational facilities, schools and libraries. Still thousands are unemployed and many additional thousands are under-employed, barely eking out an existence. People I talk with want jobs-meaningful, productive jobs. My own son, age 23, married and with a 20 month old child has been unemployed for nearly a year. He has walked the streets day after day and returned time again to the employment offices in three counties and still no work. We at St. Stephen's hope that the Congress and Senate will pass this bill and that, in the event of a presidential veto, it will be passed by sufficient votes to over-ride. Again, we are grateful for your efforts and hope that you will not waiver one bit in building support for this urgently needed legislation. Sincerely yours, WILLIAM D. STICKNEY. PREPARED STATEMENT OF GRACE HILL HOUSE WHY FULL EMPLOYMENT? Grace Hill House is a long established settlement house dedicated to the service of helping the neighborhood help itself. The neighborhood is the Murphy-Blair area of north St. Louis, a poor predominantly white, inner city. Grace Hill House provides services such as a Health Care Center, Youth Development Service, Service for the Aging, and family counseling and housing to help the people redevelop and revitalize their lives. The high rate of unemployment in this area which the Grace Hill Employment Division serves, has some successes but many failures in attempting to place the high number of unemployed, who seek their assistance. We wish to convey the particular problems of employment programs and suggestions as to the reason unemployment is not being remedied by the present system in St. Louis and the nation. We support full employment legislation be incorporated before the end of the decade which safeguards against the neglect and lack of job placements of local employment agencies to readvocate and reinvolve business and industry to train and hire, and thus places responsibility on communities to reduce their unemployment. "Full Employment Legislation" has been in existence since '46, hasn't been implemented. There has not been sufficient input in the development of employmentrelated legislation agencies because the resources existing in the community haven't been tapped. The government programs have operated without cooperation of local business and industry and aren't broad enough to alleviate unemployment alone. Grace Hill House recognizes the lack of training, experience and education amongst many of the clients they service as the leading drawback for those seeking employment, and therefore, believes that a Federal program which develops resources with local business and industry, particularly employment and training programs, would erase the numbers of jobless in the long run. Grace Hill House operated an employment service directed by a local agency which was in turn directed by a labor department program. The network of this bureaucracy severely handicapped any input at the local level; there were incidents of applicants for job placement being forgotten and unprocessed in the shuffling of paperwork, and cases in which people were trained for work that appears on the market for a short duration of time and then terminated. Fullemployment legislation should guarantee training and placement in areas which will provide permanent work with promising futures. There should be this safeguard to avoid allowing the system to slip backwards as Grace Hill House views it now; a recurringly unemployed number cannot secure permanent work because as unskilled laborers they are terminated earliest. Under the present City Manpower Employment Program, Grace Hill cannot place enough of the unskilled in training programs. Grace Hill House reports that most of their clients between the ages of 18 and 35 have only a ninth grade education and lack experience and skills. At a time when many skilled workers are seeking jobs, the majority type unemployed are not being serviced by Manpower. The Administration of Manpower has been poor because it hasn't created or developed enough job training programs and will continue to do a superficial job unless there are more resources in their job bank. An example of their failure to use existing resources in the community : in January of this year when Grace Hill House became a part of the city's Manpower Employment Program, 13 agencies were subcontracted to train personnel. The recruitment and locating (or career orientation) began at Grace Hill House and Manpower began its recruitment. However, to date there is little training. Besides this limitation, Grace Hill House notes that it is only one of nine similar City Manpower Employment referral services, and because of the numbers subscribing to the single job bank, there is a quota established which restricts the number of people Grace Hill House may refer. The Missouri state job training programs are filled and it requires a year before people get off the waiting list. Also, 50% of Grace Hill House's clients are between the ages of 18 and 22 and are not eligible for Manpower's job training programs because they are of age which may not be the heads of their households. Grace Hill House has placed 103 out of 250 referrals it has made since January. We believe that with greater resources available it wouldn't have been this limited. The guidelines of the City Manpower Employment Program and the limitations of its resources has restricted its service to a very few and it is realized that it will not alleviate unemployment until it becomes more dynamic and coordinates the ranging areas of resource in the community. Although the processes to achieve a near full employment are complex, we are convinced that the resources to service all the unemployed are not being used efficiently and that legislation must appear before the end of the 70's which will be implicated at the local level. This hope rests at the moment on the HumphreyHawkins Bill. It is important to take steps in the direction beyond a state of policy where Full-employment legislation has resided in the past to a state of implementation. Submitted by, Mr. C. SAMUEL EHLERS. STATEMENT SUBMITTED OCTOBER 14, 1975 Gentlemen, Grace Hill Settlement House is a social service agency which has served the near northside of the City of St. Louis for over 70 years. The areas we serve have historically been entry points into the city for migrants and immigrants. We have worked with those who need a variety of services and assistance, in adjusting to their new homes and establishing a stable foundationamong these many request for assistance have been those of food, clothing, and employment. Seventy years ago, and today, request for help in obtaining employment is one many of our workers deal with daily-and gentlemen we are not an employment agency. However, during the last six months alone we had over 400 individual requests for assistance in locating jobs. Needless to say, we could not place most of these clients on jobs. From our social agency counterparts and data from local employment agencies we know the problem of unemployment is critical within this metropolitan area. Contrary to some opinions we find that we have many clients who are on public assistance through no fault of their own. Many of our unemployed mothers come in weekly in hope of job placement-they have work experience-they have a desire to work-and they have pride-but they are denied the opportunity in a "land of opportunity" to work, and earn a wage which will provide for their families. Unemployment has hit all segments of our neighbors as it has the country as a whole. We serve an integrated community and we know unemployment |