ON-THE-JOB PROGRAMS COUPLED WITH SUPPLEMENTAL TRAINING

Mr. RUTTENBERG. Yes; the answer is yes, and one of the directions in which we are specifically going in fiscal 1967 is to increase the socalled on-the-job programs that are coupled with supplemental and related training and upgrading of individuals who are now underemployed.

Mr. FLOOD. You are going to consider the underemployed problem now, as a major target?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. In our on-the-job training program.

Mr. FLOOD. You never have and neither has anybody else. It is a word that nobody uses much. It was born under what we call here the Flood-Douglas bill, the ARA Act. I never heard it before that popped up.

Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think thanks to that kind of legislation, which is really the father of the Manpower Development and Training Act, as you well know, 32 percent of our on-the-job trainees are underemployed.

POSSIBLE ROLE OF THE OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

Mr. FLOOD. I am one of the fathers. I don't know how you can have two or three fathers, but I am one of them. Joe Clark and I worked very closely on this thing.

I just had approved a project under the poverty program to fund a proposal from my local antipoverty committee. I was upset about it, and I asked them to do it and it was approved immediately, I am glad to say. It isn't a big project, they don't have to be the hiring of people, and generally older people as far as we can get them, to go out and knock on doors to tell the older people who are not taking advantage of the medicare program what it is, and why aren't they signed up. This is serious. It's a good project, I think. I would like to see one in every town.

Now, why can't these community programs under the antipoverty bill have projects, working with you, at the level of the people who know where they live, who know what doors to knock on to save time. You know what I mean. I don't want to make that speech all over again. I overdid that analogy deliberately for the purpose of emphasis. Why can't we get ahold of Shriver's bright boys and give birth to a nationwide program-800 or 900 communities with these programs. Why, in each one, isn't there a program, like my medicare search-out and seek-out program, to go around to find these hard core people, their own friends and associates, and work on them, drag them in?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. Mr. Flood, I would like to call your attention to a development that we have, only in the last 2 or 3 months, begun to actively push. The Secretary of Labor refers to it as the Human Resource Development Program.

We have moved into specific communities-I could mention them if you would like-where we have developed with the Employment Service and with the local public assistance people and with the local Community Action people.

Mr. FLOOD. I am not talking about that. Why don't you go to Shriver and talk to the guy who heads up the Community Action Program under the second title of the act and request or suggest it to

every community organization? There will be a thousand in the next 30 days, a thousand allies to help you, with somebody else's dough?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. We have been working very closely with the people in title II, or the CAP program, the Community Action Program in Shriver's office.

Mr. FLOOD. On this point?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. On this point. In Chicago, New Haven, Atlanta, and in the State of Mississippi, interestingly enough, as well.

Mr. FLOOD. Then I will shut up. What a smart guy I am. I didn't know that, I figured that out in my own little head. This is good. It makes me feel good."

SIGNIFICANCE CONGRESS ATTACHES TO MANPOWER PROGRAMS

I am glad, Doctor, you are here. How do you like sitting out there in left field without being under the gun? You have had a picnic. You have had trouble staying awake all morning.

Dr. KEPPEL. No, I haven't, not with those questions of yours.

Mr. FLOOD. They are just loud. I am sorry if the volume kept you awake. This concerns you, and then I will put the curtain down on this act.

I have a very high opinion of you. I do not know you personally, I only know you across this table. I never met you socially, professionally or any other way. As a matter of fact, I never heard of you until you came here. That is not important, nobody ever heard of me before, either. A lot of people have not heard of me yet, and I have been here 20 years. Don't let that get you down. I am glad you did not quit and leave town. I think you were properly elevated, but now you have asked for it, Mister. You were a sucker enough to put your hand up, so here you are. I want to be sure you know this. You fellows are so busy, and I know it-and anybody that tells me that Government workers at all levels do not earn their pay gets a punch right in the mouth any place except for a relatively few people who drag their feet and do not pull their weight in the boat. We have them in the House. There is nothing unusual about that. But the high percentage pay their way and pull their weight. I am not sure that you are aware, if you are, then this is merely for emphasis, of the attitude-I speak only for the House of the attitude of the House of Representatives, and particularly this subcommittee, concerning the value and the importance of this manpower training program and this vocational training program, on both sides of the aisle. The vote was 395 to nothing, for cripe's sake. That is a good box score in any league. That is what the House of Representatives thinks of this program. Be sure you do not forget it. Don't let it get submerged or lost in this can of worms that you are going to try to run, and it is a can of worms, Mister, and we know that. But this is our pigeon, 395 to nothing. Don't forget that, and give it that priority.

ORGANIZATION FOR MANPOWER PROGRAMS IN HEW

I hope you reorganize, as far as you can, this place, although ordinarily I am against committees on reorganization. During the first conferences I had with Joe Clark in the Senate before we introduced

this legislation it was decided to put it all in the Department of Labor, the whole thing. Nobody wanted any part of HEW. As a matter of fact, yesterday there was considerable discussion here on both sides of the aisle, as to whether or not this whole business should not be put in the Department of Labor again. Wirtz, who is a very savvy character, and as a matter of protocol, could not be induced into the argument, would not talk much. I don't blame him. It is a matter of protocol. He said almost nothing. So we said it ourselves and as usual got no place. Now you are still going to have it. Even within your Department you can do something about that. We want you to take this all together, all the cats and dogs in that silly department of yours, and create a separate bureau dealing with manpower training and vocational training, which we just consider as a parenthesis under manpower training.

and

We think it is so important, and the problem is so important, now that you have the enemy backed into a corner, that you should go kill him. The only way you can do it is not to scatter your fire.

Set up a bureau in your Department and kill these three fellows. There are only three left. Now kill them. You may only have a year You may never get it again. You better do it now. Secondly and finally, this and this is no reflection on the integrity and dedication of your personnel-but they have the human and the bureaucratic evil, and for my purpose it is an evil, of being experts and traditionalists in Vocational training. This is no good. When I say it is no good, I do not mean that you should not have the best experts in vocational training you can beg, borrow or steal. Of course, you must have in that bureau. But I do not want an expert in vocational training heading the bureau. He cannot see the forest because of the trees. The only people he is going to hire are the traditional classical people who meet the yardstick of where did you go to school, how many years did you teach vocational training, what can you do as a professional. This is no longer the whole thing. That is what you have down there. You need administrators, manpower training experts, and managers, not guys who spent 11 years in the Wilkes-Barre vocational high school teaching, not guys from a 2-year technical institute in mechanics, draftsmanship and welding. You have to have many of them, but they are not going to run this bureau, not if I have anything to say about it.

FUTURE ROLE OF PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

Mr. MICHEL. Is there any place in the future for private employment agencies?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. I think Mr. Goodwin ought to comment. My answer to that question is, Yes, private agencies have a role to play. After all, even in the most highly developed socialist countries where manpower policy stands above almost everything else, not more than 25 percent of the placements are ever made through the public employment service. In this country I dare say the public employment service placements in terms of the total is somewhat in the neighborhood of 15 percent. So when that is the case, obviously the other 85 percent of the placements are either made by the private employer himself through his own personnel offices and by private agencies. The real

problem, as I see it, are those private agencies that are fee charging, that engage in practices that are not consistent with good, sound business administration. But other than that the private agencies have a role to play. As a matter of fact, the Secretary of Labor appointed in October a special task force to look at the employment service, chaired by Dr. Schultz, of the University of Chicago. One of their major recommendations was that private agencies need to be involved with the public agencies, and there is a role and a place for both, if they are properly administered.

SHORTAGE OF SKILLED WORKERS

Mr. MICHEL. Am I correct that this is the first year since 1953 in which you see a shortage of skilled workers as against professional workers in this country?

Mr. RUTTENBERG. I do not know whether you would say it is the first year. Certainly there will be more specific types of skilled shortages among machine-tool operators, tool and die makers, some of the building trades areas this year than in any of the previous years. I think it would be fair to say in certain localities and certain specific occupations and certain specific industries, we have had shortages over the last 2 or 3 years. But broadly speaking, I think we are going to move into more potential shortages in this calendar year 1966 than we have any previous year since the Korean period.

PRESTIGE OF CRAFT AND TRADE WORK

Mr. MICHEL. One thing that has concerned me, and maybe it is because of our attention to the education field. We keep talking about a college graduate making so much more than a high school graduate, and "don't be a dropout" for this reason or one thing or another. All the attention seems to be so directed toward academic advancement that we tend to minimize the importance of encouraging those who never really are going to quite cut it academically. We need to encourage them to have more of a respect for what can be done with the hands and that the craftsmen and tradesmen ought to be proud of engaging in these activties. I am reminded of a call on an auto body repair shop in my district not so long ago. I just asked the question: Have you taken on any of those graduates from the class. we had in Peoria? I believe 16 attended. The figures show that in the recruiting of some of the dropouts that if they could be properly trained and geared to this industry they could be employed. So I found out, "Yes, we took on one of these graduates and we started him out at $3 or $3.50 an hour to start."

I asked, "How is he doing?" "He did his work fine, but he only lasted 3 weeks." "Why?" "He didn't like to get his hands dirty. He didn't like the nature of the job because his hands were dirty and his clothes were dirty when he finished the job at the end of the day." This is unfortunate. This is a fellow that could end up making, after a while, $4 and $5 an hour and be able to provide a real nice life for his family, if he would stay at it. The fact is his reply was, "I want the white-collar job." Many of the dirty jobs, as a matter of fact, are paying better than the white-collar jobs. I have tried to make this point in some of my meanderings around the high school level.

What are you doing in the service to really get this point across? I am thinking now of those areas where it is going to be quite some time before they get all the way up on the education ladder, but in the meantime they can perform a very useful service and gain a nice livelihood.

EMPLOYMENT COUNSELING

Mr. RUTTENBERG. I would say the employment counselors have a very important role to play in terms of talking with and advising the people that come through the Employment Service. They are not the school kids as such, but they are the individuals that may have dropped out of school or the older worker. They are attempting to concentrate on this kind of employment counseling. In addition throughout the school systems, and the Employment Service plays a role in this, of providing employment counselors in the high schools of the country. I do not know how many high schools there are in the country where there are employment counselors.

Mr. GOODWIN. We have arrangements with over half of them, representing about 75 percent of all the schools.

Mr. RUTTENBERG. In addition to schools themselves, as Dr. Keppel can indicate, they have counselors that are actively engaged. I think the philosophy you are expressing is an important one. I think we have tended in this country to encourage too many people to think that they ought to have a white-collar occupation when they would be far better off in terms of their own experience and background and capabilities in getting into a skilled craftsman's occupation.

APPRENTICESHIP INFORMATION CENTERS

Mr. GOODWIN. One of the efforts we made in the last year along this line is to develop apprenticeship information centers in the local offices. We have done this in some of the larger cities. These centers have several functions, including one of advising these young people to come in and trying to interest them in skilled jobs and this sort of thing. Also to work with the various community organizations in getting more interest in this sort of thing. This program is being expanded. We are going into additional cities. We have them now in 10 cities and we have a list here of about 12 or 13. No, more than that. It is about 20, where we expect to start them this next fiscal year.

FULL INFORMATION IN JOB REFERRALS

Mr. MICHEL. When your local employment service offices catalog available job opportunities in a community, to what extent does the local detail what a particular person will be requested to do in the domestic field? As a personal example, if you will forgive it, my wife is looking for extra help around the house. I said, "Why not call the local employment office and see what they come up with?" We find after the girl comes out to the house, or I didn't find it out until I found my wife down scrubbing the kitchen floors and one thing or another, I said, "What did you get this extra help around the house for, to do the easier work or the hard work?" The first thing the last girl said when she came into the house, was that there was to be no scrubbing or none of the dirty work. When one calls for a do

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