As you know, Senator, Manpower, Inc., has been deeply involved with the JOBS Program from the beginning and on several levels. Our President, Mr. Elmer Winter, was among the original group of businessmen called together by President Johnson to form the National Alliance of Businessmen. From that time until a very short time ago, Mr. Winter served as the Milwaukee Chairman of NAB and devoted a great deal of time and effort to promoting the goals of NAB not only in Milwaukee but throughout the country.

Manpower, Inc., has also been a participant in MA-3 and MA-5 programs in Milwaukee.

On yet another level, a division of the Company, Manpower Training Services, founded in 1967, before the NABS Program, to provide basic education and supportive services to companies hiring disadvantaged employees, expanded with the introduction of JOBS to provide these services to companies across the country.

Therefore, in answering your letter, I have gathered information from many sources in our company. The replies to your questions are many and varied, reflecting the many points of view and the locations of our MTS people concerned with implementing the goals of JOBS. Responses to your questions are summarized below.

1. Where have you obtained most of your JOBS trainees?

Recruiting has been a major problem in every JOBS Program. As you know, the JOBS Program provides no support for recruiting trainees. This responsibility is assigned to the State Employment Service suppoted in large part by the Labor Department. However, in most instances, the Employment Service has not supplied the trainees to the programs. Either the company or the training organization has had to hire special personnel to recruit trainees from the neighborhoods (an outreach effort), take them to the Employment Service (physically) to have them certified for the program, then bring them to the company to be processed and begin their orientation.

In one company, a senior personnel consultant took it upon himself to recruit. He visited all of the community organizations to solicit their help. The resulting referrals are as follows:

This contribution is fairly typical. It represents the effort made to keep six (6) job slots in the program (MA-3) filled. Many of those recruited went on to better-paying jobs, or back to school. Many dropped out under the pressure of family problems, pregnancy (1), or moved to another location (at least one returned to the South).

In some areas the CEP (Concentrated Employment Program) has been quite effective in its outreach efforts. Unfortunately CEP performance has been irregular from location to location. Our reports indicate four things about CEP:

(A) In those locations where it has been well-organized, CEP has been both an effective recruiter and trainer.

(B) CEP has successfully demonstrated what can be done with outreach effort.

(C) In most locations, there seems to be a fundamental difference between CEP and SES-namely, CEP reaches the people who are the targets of JOBS where they are and how they are; whereas, SES in most cases has developed no outreach capability or interest (SES will not go out to people).

One of our men who had dealt with SES offices in all parts of the country puts it this way: "If you've been one SES counselor you've been them all. They are typical bureaucrats. They live by four things: the clock, their coffee breaks, their regulations, and their rating."

(D) Another manager summarized the feelings of most re: the reorganization of CEP under the direct control of SES-"That's feedin' the mouse to the cat."

Finally, another layer of cynicism develops in the company as their experience with the government agency designated to serve them in the capacity of recruiter is generally unresponsive either to the needs of the company as employers or the people of the communities who need the jobs.

2. What kinds of assistance have been furnished by the National Alliance of Businessmen?

(A) The NAB has been effective in publicizing the JOBS Program nationally and locally.

(B) The NAB has been successful in solicting pledges from employer companies.

Beyond these two general points, NAB has not played a major role in local programs. Below are typical responses to your question on NAB:

(1) ... assistance from NAB has come through the State Employment Co-ordinator.

(2) The local NAB assistance consists mainly of providing periodic Sensitivity Training Programs (one-day affairs), and referring employers to the Manpower Administration for assistance in preparing proposals.

(3) The NAB has been secretive and not of any real assistance in developing or conducting programs. Until they develop a co-operative spirit rather than a competitive spirit, we will continue to by-pass their office and deal directly with the Department of Labor and the business community. We are ready to co-operate when they are. Locally they are helping inexperienced businessmen submit inadequately-funded programs.

(4) No one, the NAB included, has effectively followed up on pledges except to request statistics. Companies need help in translating their pledges into bona fide opportunities. Too often the process consists of:

a. A pledge of jobs is solicited by NAB.

b. The officer of the company (usual,y high-ranking) responding with the pledge turns the implementation of the pledge over to someone else down the chain of command-usually a personnel person.

c. Usually the person receiving the JOBS assignment has little or no decision-making authority, budget control, or competence to carry out such a program.

d. Consequently the person designated must "sell" the program to supervisors who have job openings.

e. The program thus becomes "his" program-the person designated to carry it out (not the company's).

f. Supervisors have to work out their personnel budgets with the added burden. (Even though reimbursed for "nonproductive time", there is none-the-less a differential to be born. Top management seldom if ever gives the line supervisor budget relief necessary to absorb the extra costs. In other words, the supervisor is the man who must bear the burden for the company. He is put in the squeeze of keeping his production up while absorbing the costs of less than normally productive workers. He approaches at the program with a less than enthusiastic attitude!)

3 What kinds of contact have you had with the Department of Labor? Contacts with the DOL have differed according to two sets of variables: (a) time; (b) region.

In the earlier stages, contacts with the DOL were marked by some confusion, vagueness and considerable regional differences in guidance.

Recently all points report great satisfaction with the DOL offices. The help received has been clearer and given in a spirit of real concern and understanding. One region has kept to its pledge of acting on proposals within five working days. This has been very helpful to those seeking funding assistance and is in marked contrast to earlier long delays in proposal action.

Regional differences persist as they should, but they are now much more closely responsive to actual regional needs.

From some sources the most critical comments referred to an apparent policy of the DOL to discourage and eliminate sub-contractors providing services to MA Programs. This seems to many to be an unwise policy (if indeed it is a policy) since many of the service groups have invested heavily in time and money to make the MA Programs successful. The experience and results among the service groups have been uneven. This was to be expected in such a new endeavor. However, the investments have been made, the mistakes well noted and hopefully corrected, the "fly-by-night” operations have been sorted out, and only the strongest, most dedicated groups have survived the early difficulties. Many of the service groups which have experimented in Job-Related Education, Orientation, Job-Coaching and Counseling now have a wealth of successful personnel and materials. To deprive companies under JOBS, MA funding of the experience of good subcontractors is to guarantee the repetition of errors and the squandering of both funds and goodwill.

Another disturbing tendency on the part of the DOL and other Federal agencies is that of directing funding more and more exclusively to established public institutions. There are a few "skill centers" around the country which deserve both the title and the support. (Notably the McNamara Skill Center in Detroit). But many institutions are public school establishments which have not really adapted to the needs of the trainee population. They have rather rigidly stuck to their conventional lock-step block programs. Their “adult” programs are warmed over from their long experience in citizenship classes. The principle problem is that it was in such an environment (physical and psychological) that many in the trainee population experienced failure and frustration in "school". To cast them back into their environment is to program many for more and deepening failure and frustration.

Finally, the above policy drifts toward public institutions, while initially producing economies in the program will ultimately destroy whatever faith and impetus have been built up. Much of the early enthusiasm for NABS JOBS sprang from the emphasis on finding solutions to difficult social problems through the private sector. It is ironic that the present administration should encourage a strong reinforcement of the public sector. The school systems by and large are beset with problems they are ill-equipped to solve. To expect them to carry a major portion of the JOBS program is hard to comprehend. The private sector, on the other hand, has explored alternatives and found some answers. The gap between public education and the world of work is more likely to be bridged by the efforts of the private sector than by significant change within the educational establishment according to all the evidence we have been able to gather from both public and private sources. The Department of Labor should be contributing to the development of alternatives rather than the reinforcement of failure for this significant minority of the population.

4. What your general evaluation of the program is, particularly its strongest and weakest points;

Strongest points:

A. The program allows intensive supportive services tailormade to the job situation-usually during working hours.

B. It has a minimum of government involvement for employers.

C. It offers businessmen the opportunity to tailor meaningful training programs that relate to their particular business.

D. Unlike some other government training programs, the trainee is employed the day he enters training.

E. Employment of marginal members of the labor force, who were previously sporadically employed.

F. Provides some awareness by supervisors and fellow workers of the problems faced by many members of the minority groups.

Weakest points:

A. Lack of good jobs and/or the lack of opportunity for upward job mobility.

B. Lack of relevance of the Job-Related Education to the jobs (it is difficult to relate such educational content to jobs such as porter, freight handler, etc., but if career paths were actually prepared and implemented, education could be directed to the content needed for advancement.)

C. Lack of emphasis on counseling and job-coaching both in programming and funding. It is this component which can contribute most to the success of trainees in making adjustments to the "world of work.”

D. DOL checks contract performances strictly on the basis of attendance. This encourages businessmen to think in terms of training slots rather than trainees.

E. It currently does not provide enough funding flexibility to meet the supportive services needs of minority groups. Many potential trainees never completed grade school and are handicapped by language. Education and counseling funding based on a formula calculation do not meet their needs. The formula allows trainees in higher skill levels to receive more counseling and job related basic education. The lower skill job allows much or more. The employer is more likely to put the better qualified applicant in the upper level job and the poorer applicant in the entry level job.

F. The program got saddled with the name "hard-core” which makes it difficult to "sell." The term arouses unfortunate images for the businessman and often arouses the worst of his prejudices.

5. Most importantly, what effect the present downturn in the economy has had on your participation in JOBS, and what likely effect further cooling of the economy would have on your participation.

The cooling of the economy has had direct adverse effects on the program. The profit squeeze had produced lay-offs of personnel with both experience and seniority. Employers of goodwill have tried to keep JOBS trainees on in spite of conditions. This brings them into direct conflict with unions and other employees over seniority, etc.

The ultimate effect on the trainees is a reinforcement of their opinion (which may have been beginning to die) that all such programs are just more of the man's game. "The situation hasn't changed really-still the last to be hired, first to be fired."

It is very difficult, if not impossible to hire the disadvantaged while layingoff regular employees. Many employers (including Manpower, Inc.) are reporting difficulty in continuing their participation.

There are some exception to the above such as insurance companies, banks, and service businesses, but they too will find it increasingly difficult to participate if the cooling deepens much more, because of the numbers of people with experience who will be seeking employment.

In conclusion, it is obvious that the NAB JOBS Program has initiated the release of some new dynamics in our society. The good things learned and accomplished must be kept alive.

It is necessary to note that opinions reported in this letter are mainly those of middle-class whites who have become deeply involved with the program at one level or another. In working within our own company and many, many "customer companies," and with hundreds of trainees throughout the nation, we have learned a great deal about prejudice, discrimination, deprivation, "the establishment," "the man," etc, etc. We have come to have some understanding of the deep and bitter frustration of minority groups in our country. We do not want to see the effort wasted.

Any program designed to perform at the cutting edge of societies' most pressing problems is bound to run into difficulties. Any such program is going to be costly. Neither problems nor cost should be used as excuses to diminish the effort. Too much-much too much-is at stake.

The JOBS Program has not solved the problems. It could not be expected to in this time. But some beginnings have been made. The effort to find new avenues must be maintained. Not enough has been accomplished to gain the faith of minority groups. The business community has not even begun to really show its willingness to wrestle with the problems at a level commensurate with the complexities involved.

The main problem with JOBS is that it remains a token program. Its impact, so far, is commensurate with that fact.

Yours sincerely,

JAMES F. RODNEY, National Director of Education, Manpower Training Services.

Senator NELSON. Our next witness is Dr. Herbert M. Greenberg, Marketing Survey and Research Corporation, New York, N.Y.

40-963 0-70-pt. 4-13

STATEMENT OF HERBERT M. GREENBERG, PH.D., PRESIDENT, MARKETING SURVEY AND RESEARCH CORP., NEW YORK, N.Y., ACCOMPANIED BY MRS. JEANNE CORWIN, VICE PRESIDENT AND DAVID MAYER, BOARD CHAIRMAN

Dr. Greenberg. I would like to introduce my two associates, Mrs. Jeanne Corwin, vice president of marketing survey, and David Mayer, board chairman and cofounder of the company.

Senator NELSON. Fine. The committee is pleased to have you here today. If you would, briefly describe your organization and present your testimony in whatever way you desire.

Dr. GREENBERG. I will speak extemporaneously, and I will be happy to answer questions.

Our organization, Marketing Survey and Research Corp., was formed in 1961 and is in the business of working with industry throughout this country and overseas, assisting in personnel selection in sales, management and other areas. We have developed batteries of psychological tests and other valuable techniques for that purpose.

In 1968 we organized and began to run a consortium which was funded under MA-3. This consortium was comprised of a group of 25 companies offering 800 jobs in the New York area. In May 1969 the consortium was expanded under MA-4 to 51 companies offering altogether 2,520 jobs. This total number of jobs includes both our MA-3 and MA-4 contracts.

Senator NELSON. Are these companies all located in the same city? Dr. GREENBERG. They are all in the greater New York area, and they represent a cross section of New York business and industry, although heavily oriented to retailing and Wall Street. The consortium includes such retail companies as Macy's, Gimbel's, A & S, and Lord & Taylor; Oppenheimer and Co., Brown Bros. Harriman, F. I. DuPont and others in Wall Street; and other kinds of companies including Grace Lines, Hertz Rent-A-Car, and Muzak.

To the extent possible, each company provides us a broad cross section of their jobs, ranging from low-end jobs as stockclerks up to management trainees, margin clerks, clericals, rental representatives, and salesmen on various levels. So we have both a cross section of companies and a cross section of jobs, which was our initial and very important objective in putting the consortium program together.

The basis of the program is, to a large degree grounded in our experience in testing and evaluating in our regular work over 100,000 people. We have discovered in this testing (which I might add is in eight languages, and represents every socioeconomic group imaginable, including the so-called hard-core unemployed), that in the disadvantaged populations, you find exactly the same range of human abilities, as is possessed by any other segment of the population. There are no ability differences in this group at all.

For example, one in four of the hard-core unemployed have tremendous sales ability. Concomitantly, one in four of the general population has good sales ability.

About one in four among the disadvantaged has sufficient numerical ability to do computer programing. About the same percentage