C. ON-THE-JOB (OJT) TRAINING COMPONENT IS IN THE

MAIN ILLUSORY

Under our consortium contract participating employers have been awarded unit cost reimbursement ranging from $800 to $3,000 for assigned OJT training periods ranging from 10 to 26 weeks.

It is evident in our experience that with the exception of the handful of clerical and skilled jobs committed under our contract most of the OJT time and dollars allotted could have been better applied to JRE or eliminated from the contract entirely.

From the personal observation of project staff and reports from trainees, OJT for most of the jobs has amounted to no more than 15 to 40 minutes of initial job instruction and infrequent personal supervision to correct a work procedure.

OJT for trainees is a euphemism for breaking in; a routine supervisory task applied to all incoming employees. It is also important to note that the employer's OJT descriptions that are part of the contract do not promise more than they deliver. One OJT description for a packer reads as follows:

Trainees will be working with an experienced employee doing their respec tive jobs until they have sufficient competence.

The OJT unit reimbursement for this position is $1,155. Another OJT plan calls for a student-instructor relationship as the shop supervisor takes the trainee through a familiarization process of the operation.

This in fact takes place. The same familiarization lasting about 40 minutes the first day, is provided all new employees.

The OJT cost is $1,440.

The dollars assigned to OJT however do have some effect on employer tolerance for excessive absenteeism, tradiness, and problem attitudes. Where project counselors have had difficulty in convincing company supervisors to give a problem trainee a second chance. demonstrations of the trainee's per diem reimbursement to the company have at times been the decisive factor in the retention of the employee.

However, the deferred reimbursement schedule has this effect in a relatively low percentage of cases. This is explained by the fact that the greatest number of trainees leave on their own volition and this leads me to the last point I would like to make and probably the most important point and the one we would like this subcommittee to give the greatest attention to.

D. LOW SKILL AND LOW WAGE JOBS DO NOT OFFER SUFFICIENT INDUCEMENT FOR RETENTION OR SUFFICIENT TRAINING TO OVERCOME THE HANDICAPS OF THE HARD CORE UNEMPLOYED

In follow up interviews carried on by project counselors with trainees, 41 out of 55 trainees recently indicated that they would remain on their jobs only if they obtain a wage increase.

The average starting salary in our program is $2.10. This is in Chicago, Ill., I might emphasize. Virtually all of the production jobs filled by female trainees pay $1.75 an hour or under to start. Roughly half of the 130 jobs offered pay less than $2.25.

Our records show that the largest single cause of termination in our program has been trainees going directly to another job. A total of 98 left for this reason; of these 76 left for jobs at better pay. To have people leaving to go to a better job, certainly produces a social result.

However, in terms of the administration of the program, when that person leaves for a better job, the employer then has to accept a replacement trainee and put him through another full training period, if he is willing.

Oftentimes he is unwilling.

Second, our corporation, NED Corp. which has provided the training for that person, has in fact given him some skills or in fact taught him basic English, sufficient to be employed.

And yet we then do not receive the reimbursements for that person. In effect, it causes havoc for both the supportive services and for the employers to have this high percentage of individuals leaving for better jobs.

Another 43 trainees left for reasons of job dissatisfaction. The main reason was low pay. Some 62 trainees left to move somewhere else. They did so, in many cases it is suspected, because their income here did not offer them significant improvement over conditions back home.

Only 72 of total terminations were dismissed from their jobs because of poor production or excessive absenteeism. A number of those dismissed for absenteeism were absent because they were looking for or already found better jobs.

In conclusion, it seems clear that higher wages would have boosted our retention rate. The impact of this high rate of jobs and wage dissatisfaction in our experience raises the question of whether manpower moneys, aimed primarily at the improvement of employment chances for the unemployed, ought to be developed and deployed in supporting jobs that hold such slim opportunity for employment upgrading or permanence.

In my opinion the JOBS-70 programs should be directed at those jobs with high skills and high wages in which there are skill shortages.

Certainly this is the function of the Department of Labor in analyzing the labor market to determine in what areas there are skill shortages and then to seek out companies for JOBS-70 programs in those areas and not to accept JOBS-70 programs in those areas of low wages and very low skills.

And only in this way will opportunities for employment upgrading for the hard-core unemployed truly be achieved.

Thank you for this opportunity to present these views.

Senator NELSON. When you say skills, what are you talking about?

Mr. ROODMAN. First let me add in response to your questions I would have preferred Mr. Gilbert Walter be here who is the project administrator. I am an attorney in this program as their legal adviser primarily and sit on the board and I am not involved in the day-to-day administration.

In direct response to your question, however, high skills-for example I would take the example of an auto mechanic as somebody who has a skill, and there is a serious shortage of in the labor market today.

I am not talking about professional positions.

I think Raytheon's program certainly would meet those standards and I am certainly impressed by their statistics. Their jobs may be contrasted with a packer and loader which is a job in our program where you load a truck.

I could give other examples which are high skill I think. Some of the jobs in our program, die casters, I am not familiar with all of the specifics, are fairly high skills which do give somebody a marketable skill. That really should be the function and the impetus for JOBS-70, to give somebody a marketable skill.

Senator NELSON. Somebody has to do that job. If somebody qualifies for it and wants it, wants to do it, it would be helpful perhaps. Mr. ROODMAN. Senator Nelson, someone has to do the job. The question is whether Government is Government money ought to subsidize that kind of position.

I would suggest that it is certainly a more efficient allocation of limited resources to train people to do jobs with skills as opposed to the lowest level of jobs in our society.

Also, of course, just from the standpoint of the trainee himself, who certainly begins with to question the necessity for job related education, for basic training, when his ultimate function will be to load the truck.

Senator NELSON. I would guess that the program ought to aim if he starts there at giving him the opportunity to move on to another skill.

Mr. ROODMAN. Certainly in our program that has happened primarily because many of the participants trainees are people directly from Puerto Rico or from Cuba whose principal handicap is lack of spoken English.

So once they overcome that handicap, they then possibly can go on to higher skills.

Senator NELSON. Thank you very much. We appreciate your patience in waiting so long to testify.

You gave a very helpful statement.

The hearings will recess until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Thank you, Gentlemen.

(Whereupon, at 2:50 p.m., the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty recessed, to reconvene at 9 a.m., Wednesday, May 6, 1970).

MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING

LEGISLATION, 1970

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1970

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, MANPOWER AND POVERTY
OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,
Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:15 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Gaylord Nelson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Nelson (presiding), Cranston, Murphy, and Javits.

Staff members present: Robert O. Harris, staff director, and William R. Bechtel, professional staff member.

Senator NELSON. Our first witness this morning is Mr. Nicholas C. Ruffin of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Mr. Ruffin.

STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS C. RUFFIN, BROOKLYN, N.Y.

Mr. RUFFIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator NELSON. Do you have a prepared statement? Your prepared statement will be printed in full in the record, and you may present it here however you desire.

Mr. RUFFIN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Nicholas C. Ruffin. From October 16, 1969, until April 16, 1970, when I resigned I worked for the American Learning Systems, Inc., 229 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10003, a subcontractor of the remedial education, counseling and supportive service components of JOBS programs.

American Learning Systems, Co. hired me to work as a counselor at its center in Brooklyn, N.Y. From October until January 1, I was assigned to counsel employees in the JOBS program at Merit Enterprises in Brooklyn.

In January 1970 my counseling ended because of layoffs in the plants, and I began working on the preparation of proposals for new JOBS contracts and in March was promoted to the post of administrative assistant to Mr. Charles Hope, vice president of American Learning Systems.

While working at American Learning Systems, I noted with interest newspaper accounts of the continuing success of the JOBS program in finding jobs for the hard-core unemployed. As a counseor working with JOBS trainees in a plant, I saw too little success to justify the optimistic tone of the press reports of the program.

As I read these newspaper accounts, one question occurred to me Were the programs initiated by American Learning Systems atypical in their inadequacy, or were the newspapers talking only a superficial look at the JOBS program?

The JOBS contract for which American Learning Systems, Inc. is a subcontractor have, with one or two exceptions been awarded through the Manpower Training Consortium Inc. 145 East 52nd Street, New York, N.Y.

This report is drawn from the observation of JOBS contracts with the following firms:

Duralab Equipment Co., 303 Stanley Avenue, Brooklyn, NY: Hunter Outdoor Products, Long Island City N.Y: IBI Security Services, Chamber of Commerce Building, Jamaica, N.Y.: International Appliances Corp. 920 Stanley Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Merit Enterprises, 577 Wortman Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Morse Electro Products Co. 965 Shepherd Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Peter Pan Nursery Products, Inc., 435 East 99th Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Scottex Corp. 707 Atkins Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Stelber Industries, 774 Berriman Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.

In November 1969 Merit Enterprises a manufacturer of light electrical appliances, employed close to 350 workers under a JOBS contract. At least three quarters of these employees worked on the assembly line performing the most basic operations: inserting screws with an air powered screw driver, gluing parts together, soldering a few connections, wiping the finished product and packing the product. None of these operations required more than a few hours to learn and opportunities for advancement were quite limited.

Approximately one half of the workers under the program were Spanish-speaking (of Puerto Rican or Dominican origin) one third were French speaking (of Haitian origin) and one sixth were English speaking blacks born in the United States.

Moreover, somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the employees in the program were women. Yet Merit is located in the East New York area in the fringe of a large concentration of U.S. blacks a presumed target group of the JOBS program.

Where were the black males for whom the JOBS program hopes to find employment?

In November 1970 Merit Enterprises' starting wage was only $1.60 an hour. If a man worked a 40-hour week at Merit his gross pay was only $64 a week.

It is unlikely that a man who had had a steady job for months or even years would be attracted to a job at Merit offering little security or opportunity for advancement and $1.60 an hour to support himself, much less a family.

The high proportion of Spanish speaking and French speaking workers in the program at Merit Enterprises is not surprising when one considers that jobs are much more difficult for non-English speakers to find and that Merit was willing to hire workers with little or no knowledge of English.

In addition the job related basic education classes offered in the program included classes in English as a second language. Many workers said that they had been drawn to a job because of the