FOCUS OF PROGRAM IN 1967 Mr. FLOOD. That is what I have just been preaching. You have isolated the enemy, his back is against the wall. Now I want you to go in and kill him with everything you have got, and you are not going to do it. It's a shift of emphasis. You can't kill people with a shift of emphasis. Talk to the marines. You need that kind of philosophy-go in and destroy what is left. This may be your last chance in a hundred years. I see nothing here to indicate that kind of thinking. You have identified the problem, you are totally aware of it, but you have not taken the gloves off. You are not going to go in and kill him, you are going to wound him, and hurt him, and snipe at him, but there is nothing in your heart here--you don't have the heart of a killer on this problem. Nothing here indicates it. Mr. RUTTENBERG. To the extent the $400 million can be used, it is going to be used Mr. FLOOD. That is what you had last year. Mr. RUTTENBERG. That is right. Mr. FLOOD. Are you going to use what you had last year, and that's all. Is that going to do what I am talking about? ADEQUACY OF BUDGET REQUEST Mr. RUTTENBERG. You are asking, I think, Mr. Flood, a question which I discussed with Mr. Fogarty; namely, How much money have we asked for in the budget and have we gotten all that we need? Mr. FLOOD. Of course, I don't think you have asked for enough and I don't think you have what you need. I don't know, or I don't care, who is responsible for the figure of $400 million, the same as last year. I am a military man, and when I see the enemy, what is left of him, and you identify him and you know where he is, you have spotted him, you know his resources and you have your finger on him, now money should be no object. When you have a chance like this that you may never get again, I think you should dump everything you have on him. Mr. RUTTENBERG. With the money we are asking for, we do hope to concentrate and focus on these particular groups you are talking about. Mr. FLOOD. All right; I am giving you a pep talk. I know you know that. You understand, my friend-I am not being presumptuous— you know more about this than I do, but I want to help you, I want to pep you up. This is a fight talk between the halves. I am drawing what I think is a very interesting analogy. I want to inspire you and your staff here. Get in here and kill. I don't think you are killers, you are mixed up in too many other things. You are not shock troops, you have had to do staff work, you have had to do logistics, you have had to do everything, the same people. That is no good now. You don't need logistics, you don't need staff work, you need the First Marine Brigade. Have you got it? Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think we do. Mr. FLOOD. Have you? Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think we do. Mr. FLOOD. Then let's find out. This may be your last chance, mister. What a challenge. Wow. Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think the employment services around the country, with the augmented help they will be given with this appropriation, have the capabilities, they have the know-how, they have the knowledge, they have the ability. It is a question of having sufficient funds to provide the kind of staff we need. FEDERAL-STATE RELATIONSHIP RE USES Mr. FLOOD. Let me ask you about that. What is USES? What is the relationship? I get letters from hundreds of people a year who have trouble with problems that are not handled properly at some office, and they write me because at the top of the letter it says "U.S. Employment Service," and then in parentheses, in small letters, it says "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pa." They don't care about Harrisburg, Pa. All they know is Flood. These are not specialists in semantics. So they write Flood and squawk about some lack of service or something at the USES office. What is the USES office in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.? By the way, it is a damn good one. am lucky. I Mr. RUTTENBERG. As you know, the U.S. Employment Service is part of the Bureau of Employment Security, and they operate under a grant program where, like in Wilkes-Barre, they are actually State employees whose salaries and expenses are paid out of Federal grant money. Mr. FLOOD. What do you do-send the State of Pennsylvania a check and quit? Mr. RUTTENBERG. If we did that, sir, we would not be carrying on our responsibilities. Mr. FLOOD. What else do you do at Wilkes-Barre besides send them the dough? Mr. RUTTENBERG. There are continual Mr. FLOOD. Name three. Name one. My business here is not to jab you off balance. I am your friend. Mr. RUTTENBERG. I understand. Mr. FLOOD. Don't forget, when these hearings are over and this bill goes on the floor, the main friends you have are the ones sitting around this table on both sides of the aisle, because this committee will likely be seldom divided on what I am talking about. Both the Republicans and Democrats will be down there taking your part and you will be sitting in the gallery. Mr. RUTTENBERG. The Employment Service staff here in Washington, under Mr. Goodwin's direction, actually provides specific funds to help train and develop and educate the employees in Wilkes-Barre by having an outservice counselor training program. Mr. FLOOD. Where is that conducted? Mr. RUTTENBERG. There are a series of programs conducted in many universities around the country. Whether there is one specifically in the Wilkes-Barre area Mr. FLOOD. I am just using Wilkes-Barre as a guinea pig. I am lucky I have a good boy and a good setup. That is just dumb luck. They are doing a good job of cooperation and service. This is good. I hope everybody has the same thing. But I want the public to know, in an abundance of caution, what do you do besides send them a check to pay their salaries. Mr. RUTTENBERG. They are continually being reviewed and evaluated by Federal people that go out and meet with the State and local employment service people. Mr. FLOOD. Continually being evaluated? Mr. RUTTENBERG. And helped to appreciate the problems where they don't, to bring them into a further understanding of what their problems are, and to work Mr. FLOOD. Do your people go into the State of Pennsylvania, the USES offices, and evaluate the State employees working at a desk? Mr. RUTTENBERG. The operational program? Mr. FLOOD. You are making the speech, not me. What is the difference? At what level do you evaluate it, Harrisburg or Wilkes-Barre? Mr. RUTTENBERG. It is done at both, sir. Mr. FLOOD. By your people. How do you evaluate a USES program to determine whether or not the State employees are conducting it properly? By what yardstick? Who sets up the yardstick? What are you going to tell them? What is the rule? What do your people look for? Mr. RUTTENBERG. Do you want to comment, Bob, on this? Mr. GOODWIN. I will be glad to. We make an analysis of the work of the local office, the placements that have been made, the quality of the placements that are made, the effectiveness in working with employers in the community. Mr. FLOOD. How often do you do that in Wilkes-Barre? About? Mr. GOODWIN. This sort of thing we get around to only every several Mr. GOODWIN. Every several years for a local office. Mr. FLOOD. Do you think that is good? Mr. GOODWIN. No, I don't. Mr. FLOOD. Every several years. Why, the personnel will change 30 to 40 percent every several years. Mr. GOODWIN. Yes, but we do not have resources except to do this on a spot check basis. Mr. FLOOD. And the fact remains you do it every several years because you haven't got resources. So you don't do a job because you haven't got the resources period. Isn't that right-money or people? Mr. GOODWIN. That is correct. TEN-MILLION-DOLLAR RESERVE IN EMPLOYMENT SERVICE Mr. FLOOD. By what authority are you holding back some $10 million of funds appropriated by Congress for this fiscal year for improvements in the Public Employment Service and the training of their personnel for which purposes Pennsylvania has $1 million in supplemental requests in the hands of the Department? Mr. RUTTENBERG. In the fiscal 1966 grants budget for the Bureau of Employment Security, there is $2.5 million provided for outservice education and training programs for personnel of the Employment Security System. Second, $7.5 million for "Improvement in the Employment Service." That is a total of $10 million. Originally, I guess about a month after the money was appropriated and became available to the Department from the Bureau of the Budget I, as the Manpower Administrator, put into the reserve this $10 million with instructions to the Administrator of the Bureau of Employment Security, Mr. Goodwin, that I would specifically release the funds, step by step, as specific proposals and suggestions came in from the States to indicate precisely how they were going to use these funds. Sort of in line with your earlier comment about "Do we just give the money to the State or to Wilkes-Barre, or do we try to have them do something specific?" Up to now the total funds for the personnel improvement, the outservice education of $2.5 million has been released and of the remaining $7.5 million, $1.5 million has been released for specific programs in some of the selected cities that are engaged in intensive human resource development programs, such as the one in Chicago or in Los Angeles. PENNSYLVANIA PROBLEM Mr. FLOOD. With particular reference to the Pennsylvania problem which I have stated, why would the supplemental request there not be granted? What have they done? Haven't they met your conditions? Mr. RUTTENBERG. I am not familiar with the details of the $1 million that Mr. Brown is talking about and specifically what he is requesting it for. Mr. FLOOD. If you are not, Mr. Goodwin, are you? And, if you are not, will you supply it for the record so that we have the specific answer to this specific Pennsylvania problem? Mr. GOODWIN. Yes. I don't have the figures in mind; $1 million sounds a little high to me in the first place. I didn't realize they had requested that much. Mr. FLOOD. Since they have, for the record, so I know, and the people in Pennsylvania know, will you indicate why this condition exists? Mr. GOODWIN. I will be glad to. Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think one thing might be added. We are talking about a $10 million figure for the entire United States. If Pennsylvania came through with a request as high as $1 million, it is obviously more than we could approve for that one State anyway, out of the total. (The requested information follows:) BES ACTION ON SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGETS FOR PENNSYLVANIA STATE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY AGENCY The Bureau of Employment Security has received and taken action upon the following budget requests from the Pennsylvania State agency for staff training and employment service improvement for fiscal year 1966: The budget requests approved for staff training will provide out-service and in-service training for counselors, statisticians, research analysts, occupational analysts, field accountants in the unemployment insurance tax collection program, and labor market analysts. The training is designed to improve the overall quality of the staff within the State agency. The employment service improvement budget approval will provide 54 additional positions for job development, in-depth counseling, and basic placement services with emphasis on better services to disadvantaged neighborhoods. On an annual basis the employment service improvement budget will total $400,000. Mr. FLOOD. Now let's talk about something else. Whose fault that is I don't know, Congress or-don't mention the Bureau of the Budget to me, because when you do my mustache stands straight up on the ends. Mr. DUNCAN. Go ahead. I want to see that. Mr. GOODWIN. When we get to our appropriation we do have a request this year for help. INSTITUTIONAL TRAINING Mr. FLOOD. What is institutional training? Mr. RUTTENBERG. Institutional training is that part of the MDTA program which is carried on through the vocational, educational, and technical schools as contrasted to on-the-job training, which is with the employers. Mr. FLOOD. In my judgment, one of the most disgraceful sectors of this whole problem is the ignoring, the lack of attention paid through years to the upgrading of employed people and to the so-called underemployed as distinguished from the unemployed. And there are many more of them. You have been, to all intents and purposes, enmeshed and entrapped with this problem of unemployment to almost the neglect, in all elements of the Government, to what we call the underemployed. Mr. RUTTENBERG. Mr. Flood, I would like to just indicate that in the Manpower Development and Training Act activities 32 percent of the trainees in on-the-job training programs, 32 percent, are underemployed. In the institutional programs the figure is 8 percent of the total unemployed. Mr. FLOOD. In what way do you relate on-the-job training to the institutional instruction programs? How do you marry them? COUPLED PROGRAM Mr. RUTTENBERG. We have a combined type we call a coupled program. Mr. FLOOD. You should have. Mr. RUTTENBERG. Which simply means there are two or three different approaches that can be used. One is an individual can be working relatively full time on the job and getting just a few related, just a little or few courses in related instruction. That is one type program. Another type program is to give the individual himself 6, 7, 10, 12, or 14 weeks of actual vocational training prior to Mr. FLOOD. How much of this is done? Is this really a program? Mr. FLOOD. A great deal of it? |