CHAPTER I. FOOTNOTES 1/ Throughout most of its history, the USES and the Unemployment Insurance Division were administered at the federal level through the Bureau of Employment Security (BES), in the Labor Department. In 1969, the employment and UI components were separated and the Employment Service was merged with the Bureau of Work Training Programs to become the U.S. Training & Employment Service (USTES), a division of the Manpower Administration. 2/ Senate Report No. 63, May 11, 1933. 3/ Còng. Rec., June 1, 1933, p. 4771. (One Congressman from Ohio put it this way, "I hope...that it shall become not merely a system to provide a few jobs for employment agency clerks, but that the staff shall consist of men who are principally interested in the solution of the problems of unemployment.") 4/ Specifically, the federal government was required to aid and direct the states by "prescribing minimum standards of efficiency, assisting them in meeting problems peculiar to their localities, promoting uniformity in their administrative and statistical procedure, furnishing and publishing information as to other opportunities for employment and other information of value in the operation of the system, and maintaining a system for clearing labor between the several states." (PL No. 30, Sec. 3(a) 73rd Cong.) 5/ In actuality, the 1949 amendments did not legally alter the general purposes of the ES system or the federal control over it. Nor is it true that part or all of a state's ES grant cannot be withheld if used in violation of federal laws or regulations, as the cases upholding the withdrawal of federal funds for the salaries of state UI officials who violate the HATCH Act demonstrate. Stewart v. U.S. Civil Service Commission. (NDGC 1942) 45 F.Supp.697; Ohio v. U.S. Civil Service Commission. (EO Ohio 1946) 65 F. Supp. 776.Cf. Oklahoma V. U.S. Civil Service Commission, 330 US. 127 (1947). -15 6/ "ORD Review of Major Aspects of the Public Employment Service," 1947-1957, Memorandum from Charles Stewart to the Under Secretary, August 6, 1958, referred to hereafter as the Stewart Report. 7/ "In studies made in New York City in August 1957, Detroit in the Spring of 1957 and in Indianapolis as recently as May 1958, volumes of padded placements running as high as 15 percent to 22 percent of the total reported nonagricultural placements (excluding private household) have been uncovered. In the case of New York City the annual volume of padding ran in the vicinity of 70,000 placements per year, or more than the annual total of placements reported by almost half (24) of the 53 state agencies." (Stewart Report, p. 38). 8/ The MDTA, 42 U.S.C. § 2571, states: "The Congress finds. that there is critical need for more and better trained personnel in many vital occupational categories including professional, scientific, technical, and apprenticeable categories; that even in periods of high unemployment, many employment opportunities remain unfilled because of the shortage of qualified personnel: and that it is in the national interest that current and prospective manpower shortages be identified and that persons who can be qualified for these positions through education and training be sought out and trained as quickly as is reasonably possible, in order that the Nation may meet the staffing requirements of the struggle for freedom." 9/ MDTA provides for testing, counseling and skill training; education (where necessary to complete the training) is also available, as well as limited provisions for transportation allowances and health services. By and large, in contrast to the later manpower enactments, the Act does not place heavy emphasis on supportive services. 10/ The most publicized example of the Special Impact Program is New York City's Bedford-Stuyvesant rehabilitation project, now funded at $11 million. 11 / The discretion of the community action agencies and the degree of "community control" has been severely curtailed by subsequent DOL insistance that the ES be given the central role in the delivery of services. 12/ Title IB Sec. 123 (g) (8). Like CEP, this program had been started earlier without specific Congressional authorization, largely as a result of Presidential initiatives. 13/ JOBS has had an uneven performance. GAO and DOL evaluations have shown: the jobs generated under the program tend to have little career advancement potential; many of the individual participants do not meet poverty guidelines and some businesses have charged exorbitant training costs. The GAO complained that there are no reliable statistics available on job placements as opposed to job commitments. Commitments to develop training slots have not been honored, and as the economy has tightened, the JOBS trainees have been laid off first. (Comprehensive Manpower Hearings, Sen. Manpower Subcomm., pp. 22172231 and 2161-2169). 14/ This provision of the law has never been carried out by employment service offices even though they are "component programs" of CEP, and to a lesser extent JOBS, programs. 15/ The programs to serve the disadvantaged created by the MDTA and the EOA provided the ES with additional earmarked funds for recruitment, referral and placement of trainees. Reports coming to the Secretary of Labor indicated that the ES was simply pocketing the funds without performing the services. This poor performance record, as well as reports of blatant ES discrimination in referral treatment of minorities, convinced the Secretary that a Task Force was in order. 16/ "A Comprehensive Manpower Services Center," Employment Service Task Force Report, The Employment Service Review, February, 1966, p. 8. 17/ GAL 1131, Oct. 20, 1967. The notice expressed dismay that many Model Cities grants had failed to mention the ES or referred instead to the community action agency as the coordinator of manpower programs. 18/ On October 10, 1968, this delegation --transferring all programs under TITLE I-B of EOA--was filed in the Federal Register, 33Fed. Reg. 15139. 19/ 21/ At the local level, the lines are not so neatly drawn. Where the community action agency is strong, it still exercises considerable leverage over the EOA programs. In other areas, DOL control has resulted in a curtailment or elimination of community participation in the EOA programs, despite legislative language to the contrary. 22/ For a more complete discussion of the provisions of H.R. 1 and their implications for the ES, see pp. 55 - 60, below. This 23/ The DOL and OEO attempted an experimental revenue sharing 24/ DOL officials have stated that under revenue sharing the ES will continue to administer the Labor Department's Job Bank program, creating city-wide computerized listings of job and training openings, and will retain its present data collection and market analysis functions. |