[United States Department of Labor Annual Report, 1972]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR ANNUAL REPORT 1972
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR ANNUAL REPORT 1972
JAMES D. HODGSON, SECRETARY
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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Secretary of Labor...................................
Executive Assistant to the Secretary...............
Special Assistant to the Secretary.................
Special Assistant for Legislative Affairs .........
Special Assistant for Communications...............
Director, Public Affairs ..........................
Director, Office of Information, Publications and
Reports .........................................
Under Secretary .....................................
Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary ........
Chairman, Employees’ Compensation Appeals
Board............................................
Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs . .
Associate Deputy Under Secretary for International
Affairs .........................................
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade and Adjustment Policy........................................
Solicitor............................................
Deputy Solicitor...................................
Deputy Solicitor (Regional Operations).............
Assistant Secretary for Policy, Evaluation and Research ..............................................
Deputy Assistant Secretary.........................
Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management ................................................
Deputy Assistant Secretary ........................
Associate Assistant Secretary (Program Review and Audit) .....................................
Associate Assistant Secretary (Financial Management) ..........................................
Associate Assistant Secretary (Systems Development and Administrative Services) ..............
Associate Assistant Secretary (Organization Management and Personnel) .........................
Librarian........................................
Assistant Secretary for Manpower.....................
Deputy Assistant Secretary and Administrator, Manpower Administration ...........................
Deputy Manpower Administrator .................
James D. Hodgson E. Carl Uehlein1 William H. Schmidt, Jr. Frederick L. Webber Joseph A. Loftus Frank S. Johnson, Jr.2
John W. Leslie Laurence H. Silberman Richard J. Wise3
Theodore M. Schwartz (Vacant)
Edward B. Persons4
Herbert N. Blackman Richard F. Schubert5 Alfred G. Albert Jeter S. Ray
Michael H. Moskow6 Saul Hoch
Frank G. Zarb Tom Kouzes
Edward J. McVeigh
Richard E. Miller7
Walter C. Terry8
Leonard B. Pouliot9 Lillian A. Hamrick Malcolm R. Lovell, Jr.
Paul J. Fasser, Jr. Harold O. Buzzell10
'Appointed Nov. 22, 1971 to replace Richard F. Schubert.
2Appointed June 22, 1972.
3Appointed Nov. 22, 1971 to replace John S. Irving.
4Appointed Jan. 17, 1972 to replace Charles D. Stewart.
sAppointed Oct. 25, 1971 to replace Peter G. Nash.
6 Appointed Mar. 27, 1972 to replace Richard J. Grunewald who replaced Jerome M. Rosow.
’Appointed Aug. 30, 1971.
8Appointed Nov. 28, 1971.
’Appointed Jan. 3, 1972.
10Appointed May 26, 1972 to replace John L. Blake.
Associate Manpower Administrator for Financial and Management Information Systems . . Alfred M. Zuck11
Associate Manpower Administrator for Policy, Evaluation, and Research......................William B. Hewitt12
Administrator, Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training .....................................Hugh C. Murphy
Associate Manpower Administrator, U.S. Employment Service .............................Robert J. Brown
Associate Manpower Administrator, Unemployment Insurance Service........................Robert C. Goodwin
Associate Manpower Administrator for Public Service Employment ...........................William Mirengoff13
Director, Job Corps .........................John L. Blake14
Associate Manpower Administrator for Management and Administrative Systems...............Katharine Many15
Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Relations and Administrator, Labor-Management Services Administration ....................................W. J. Usery, Jr.
Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Administrator ..........................................
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation ........................................
Assistant Administrator for Field Operations . .
Director, Office of Labor-Management and Welfare-Pension Reports ......................
Director, Office of Veterans’ Reemployment
Rights...................................
Director, Office of Labor-Management Relations Services ............................
Director, Office of Labor-Management Policy Development ...............................
Director, Office of Federal Labor-Management Relations . . .............................
Director, Office of Administration and Management ......................................
Assistant Secretary for Employment Standards . . . . Deputy Assistant Secretary and Administrator, Employment Standards Administration...............
Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director, Office of
Federal Contract Compliance (EEO)...........
Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director, Women’s Bureau .......................................
Commissioner of Labor Statistics ...............
Deputy Commissioner ..........................
John C. Shinn
Frank M. Kleiler Jack A. Warshaw
Leonard J. Lurie
Ralph E. Hall16
Beatrice M. Burgoon
(Vacant)
Louis S. Wallerstein
Albert L. Moore, Jr.
Richard J. Grunewald17
Horace E. Menasco*
Philip J. Davis18
Elizabeth D. Koontz Geoffrey H. Moore Ben Burdetsky
11 Appointed Apr. 14, 1972.
12 Appointed Apr. 6, 1972 to replace Marvin H. Kosters who replaced William H. Kolberg.
13 Appointed May 26, 1972.
14 Appointed May 26, 1972 to replace William Mirengoff.
15 Appointed Feb. 6, 1972.
16 Appointed Nov. 7, 1971.
17 Appointed Jan. 5, 1972 to replace Arthur A. Fletcher.
18 Acting, effective June 16, 1972 to replace George L. Holland who replaced John I— Wilks.
♦Also serves as Administrator, Wage and Hour Division.
Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and
Health ......................................
Deputy Assistant Secretary and Administrator for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. . Regional Directors
Atlanta .........................................
Boston ..........................................
Chicago..........................................
Dallas ..........................................
Denver ....................................'.	. . .
Kansas City .....................................
New York ........................................
Philadelphia.....................................
San Francisco....................................
Seattle .........................................
George C. Guenther
Marl Chain Robbins19
Henry A. Huettner20 Carroll Paul Sheehan21 Donald M. Irwin22 Truman Branscum23 John M. Ekeberg24 William S. Harris25 Clayton J. Cottrell26 Thomas A. Phelan27 Edward Aguirre28 Maxine E. Daly29
19 Appointed Aug. 26, 1971.
20 Appointed Aug. 26, 1971.
21 Appointed Jan. 9, 1972.
22 Appointed Dec 17, 1971.
23 Appointed Jan. 23, 1972.
24 Appointed Feb. 11, 1972.
25 Appointed Dec. 12, 1971.
26 Appointed Mar. 15, 1972.
27 Appointed May 28, 1972.
28 Appointed Nov. 14, 1971.
29 Appointed Jan. 3, 1972.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
ANNUAL REPORT, 1972
Contents
Page
Report of the Secretary of Labor .......................... 1
Department reports:
Manpower Administration................................ 8
Labor-Management Services Administration ............. 22
Employment Standards Administration .................. 30
Occupational Safety and Health Administration ........ 38
Policy, Evaluation, and Research ..................... 44
Bureau of Labor Statistics............................ 48
Office of the Solicitor .............................. 60
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration . 74
International Labor .................................. 78
Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board ................ 80
Information Activities ............................... 82
Appendix tables .......................................... 84
Report of the Secretary of Labor
In this 60th annual report, the U.S. Department of Labor can point to solid and substantial gains for the working men and women of the Nation during fiscal 1972.
It was a year in which marked progress was made in opening up new employment opportunities for workers with special problems. And significant strides were taken toward improving the conditions under which Americans work.
As 1972 ended, more Americans than ever before had jobs; the total was 2.7 million persons greater than at the end of fiscal 1971.
Moreover, the real weekly earnings of workers—adjusted for inflation—rose more than 3 percent.
The rate of inflation was sharply reduced.
And unemployment, which had hovered stubbornly around 6 percent for more than a year, had been reduced to 5.5 percent. As the President’s constructive economic policies became more firmly rooted, a sluggish economy gave way to a vigorous structure strongly on the upbeat.
An example of the progress in economic stability was the success of the Construction Industry Stabilization Committee. The size of negotiated wage settlements in the industry continued to decline as the tripartite committee based at the Labor Department clamped down further on wage inflation.
A related tripartite group, the Construction Industry Collective Bargaining Commission, continued in its assigned dual role of facilitating industrial peace and stability in the construction industry and promoting the health and growth of the industry while helping it to adapt to changing needs.
The commission, as the year ended, was well along with formulation of plans for a new, cooperative public-private sector demonstration program to be based in Chicago. The program’s aims include reducing unemployment, eliminating bottlenecks, relating training more closely to industry requirements and modifying costly industry practices.
Safe and wholesome working environments were one of our primary concerns.
The Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, only two months old at the beginning of the fiscal year, settled swiftly into its assignment of protecting the physical well-being of 60 million workers. These employees worked in 5 million establishments, and ten regional and 51 area offices were opened to serve them.
Safety and health standards were set up for the workplaces. A constantly growing force of inspectors carried out more than 32,000 inspections and issued 23,000 citations for more than 100,000 violations discovered during the year.
An intensive program of education and information was conducted to keep employees and employers abreast of their rights and responsibilities under the
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terms of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act.
One of the most pressure-laden tasks of the year was the implementation of the Public Employment Program. Within five months, 100,000 persons were put to work under terms of the Emergency Employment Act, approved by the Congress and signed by President Nixon early in fiscal 1972. By the end of the year, nearly 170,000 had been placed and the full $1 billion appropriation had been allocated. The logistics of this program to relieve unemployment quickly on an emergency basis presented an unusual challenge.
Those hired were placed in constructive transitional jobs with authentic benefits to their communities. More than 40 percent took jobs in public works, transportation and education, with the remainder spread through law enforcement, health services, parks and recreation, social services, environment, fire protection and miscellaneous public service functions.
Veterans, members of minority groups and the disadvantaged drew the vast majority of the assignments.
This Department continued to give top priority to its major role in the President’s Jobs for Veterans Program.
The veterans, all of whom were prepared to risk their lives in the service of our Nation, deserve the utmost consideration from their countrymen. Insofar as their Government is able to help them in making the transition back into civilian life, it is determined to do so. And with cooperation from the private sector of our business and industrial establishment, the job is being done, not as fast as we wish, but as rapidly as human will and effort can accomplish it.
We set a goal of placing a million Vietnam-era veterans in jobs or training during the year. Nearly 1.3 million were placed.
Despite the flood of these veterans coming into the job market as a result of President Nixon’s withdrawals of troops from Vietnam, the unemployment rate of Vietnam-era veterans was cut from 8.6 percent to 7.2 percent during the year. We must and will cut this jobless rate to an irreducible minimum.
We sent teams of counselors to Europe and Asia to advise homebound veterans on how to find jobs after their discharge from the service. These teams gave job counseling to approximately 118,000 military personnel in Asia and Europe.
The Nation’s young persons, inherently one of the most difficult groups to find jobs for because of their youth and lack of experience, were not neglected.
Summer jobs were found for 759,000 of them, a record. Many thousands of others were placed in employment or training. Many of these worked on a part-time basis so they could remain in school. Dropouts were encouraged to return to the vital business of getting an education.
The Job Corps took up more of the slack for youths by enrolling thousands of them in Residential Manpower Centers, Support Centers, regular Job Corps Centers and Civilian Conservation Centers. Almost 50,000 young persons
2
completed their stay at Job Corps centers during the year.
Also, more slots were being opened for young persons as apprentices in trades.
Effective job-finding, retraining and relocation assistance was given to engineers, scientists, and technicians who found themselves out of work because of changes in priorities in national defense and space programs. Much of this shift also resulted from the winding down of the war in Vietnam.
The new Comprehensive Migrant Manpower Program funded more than 4,000 training opportunities for migrant workers. This effort was part of the program of the Rural Manpower Service, which found jobs for more than 17,000 rural and migrant workers in all.
Employment service offices all over the Nation, affiliated with the U.S. Employment Service, made almost 4 million nonagricultural job placements, an 8-percent increase. Vietnam-era veterans got 304,000 of the jobs.
Special programs were carried out to train Spanish-speaking persons and Indians for work opportunities.
In line with the wishes of the President, all components of the Department intensified their efforts to decentralize their operations. Organizational changes were made in several units to this end, as well as to achieve greater all-around efficiency.
Ten regional directors with strong lines of authority were placed in office. Beyond that, every effort was made to give State and local leaders greater policy voices on Federal programs affecting their operations.
In last year’s report, I said it was my hope to make the Department of Labor a model of equal employment opportunity. The Department places special emphasis in its operations on helping the disadvantaged and making sure that no discrimination of any type shall be tolerated by private employers we oversee in any way. We recognize that it is therefore doubly incumbent upon us to take positive steps to guard against discrimination in our own house.
We are doing our best to achieve that goal.
During 1972, I established within the Department a central Office of Equal Employment Opportunity to coordinate a strong internal affirmative-action program on behalf of minorities and women. This is working well. Employees with grievances have direct access to EEO officials and counselors. In the field, the Regional Directors have responsibility for coordinating the EEO effort.
The proportion of minority members in the DOL work force rose above 31 percent in the course of the year.
To strengthen the position of women in the Federal establishment, I directed that all Department activities affecting women be coordinated through our Women’s Bureau. I designated the Bureau’s Director as Special Counselor to the Secretary for women’s affairs and she also was named a Deputy Assistant Secretary.
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The Women’s Bureau carried out a diverse and wide-ranging schedule of activities to upgrade the role of women throughout the working community of the United States. To facilitate this effort, the Bureau moved forward with a program which soon would have offices established in all ten regions around the country.
The Department’s network of compliance offices maintained alert monitoring of employers’ observance of laws dealing with minimum wages, restrictions on child labor, prohibitions against discrimination based on age, sex, race, color, religion or national origin and other fundamental standards protecting workers.
More than 65,000 compliance actions were taken, turning up employers who had illegally withheld $86 million in wages from half a million employees.
Twenty-three new “hometown plans,” to increase employment opportunities in the construction industry for minorities, were developed, bringing the total to 50. These are voluntary agreements among labor, management and community groups. In addition, the Department has imposed five plans and a Federal court one.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics streamlined its statistical functions. It speeded up and expanded its reports on the employment situation and continued to improve its programs involving wages and industrial relations and productivity and technology research. It instituted numerous other statistical improvements and innovations.
BLS was called upon to provide considerable technical support for the President’s economic stabilization program. It performed research and provided data and analyses for the Cost of Living Council, the Pay Board and the Price Commission.
The Bureau established a Quality Improvement Program, a self-evaluation effort to assure that the public’s long-held confidence in BLS data and analyses would be maintained.
The Office of the Solicitor had a busy year, particularly in the courts, where at least one of its victories was of landmark dimensions.
Our attorneys, combining forces with others from the Justice Department, succeeded in having set aside the 1969 election of international officers of the United Mine Workers of America. The court ruled union officals had violated provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.
A new election was ordered for December, 1972. The order directed the Secretary of Labor to supervise the new election and also all financial operations of the union until after the election. I assigned a large staff to this responsibility.
DOL personnel made substantial contributions to the formulations of legislative proposals of the Administration in the general field of labor. Numerous Department officials presented testimony and briefings at Congressional hearings.
4
The overall labor-management relationship showed substantial improvement.
All measures of strike intensity declined significantly between fiscal 1971 and 1972. Approximately 4,700 strikes were recorded in 1972, somewhat under 1,000 fewer than occurred in the previous year. Only 75 percent as many workers participated in work stoppages. In total, there were approximately 15 million fewer man-days of idleness as a result of strikes in 1972.
The Labor Department was forced to assist in the resolution of a few labor disputes affecting the national interest, while at the same time maintaining its chosen posture of minimal direct intervention in the collective bargaining process. Most notably, perhaps, we became involved in the successful pursuit of settlements of critical dock strikes on the Pacific, East and Gulf Coasts.
The Department completed more than 5,500 investigations pursuant to its enforcement role under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. A number of these compliance investigations resulted in indictments and convictions.
Responsibilities for monitoring activities in the labor-management field entails involvement with some large numbers. For example, at year’s end, there were on file 59,908 active labor organizations under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act and 174,170 employee benefit plans under the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act. The latter figure included almost 45,000 retirement plans.
In the field of international labor, the Department initiated technical aid projects in 33 countries, all in Africa, Asia, the Near East and Latin and Central America. Agreements were reached with four major supplying countries for controlling imports of man-made and wool textile and apparel products; previously, only cotton textile products had been controlled.
Additionally, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs negotiated four new cotton bilateral agreements and renegotiated 12 others.
Almost 5,000 U.S. workers who lost their jobs because of competitive imports were found eligible for trade adjustment assistance. Processing of applications for such assistance was speeded up.
The year’s research output covered a broad spectrum and provided meaningful groundwork for many of the Department’s policy decisions and plans for the future.
We are confident that those decisions and plans—and the many others which He ahead—will enable the Department of Labor to continue to meet the obligations of its charter, which dates back to 1913 but is still sharply valid:
“To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.”
5
Department	Manpower
Report:	Administration
Manpower
Administration
Many actions to help serve America’s unemployed and underemployed, school-age youth, veterans and minorities were initiated and continued by the Manpower Administration during fiscal year 1972.
The long-term and historic shift of operating responsibility for manpower programs to State and local authorities was measurably advanced during the year.
The quick and effective response of mayors and governors to the Public Employment Program (PEP) was significant evidence of State and local competence. With speed rarely if ever matched in a national program, nearly 100,000 unemployed Americans were placed in needed public service jobs in less than 5 months. By year’s end nearly 170,000 persons were working in these transitional jobs.
Under PEP, the Manpower Administration launched two test programs of special value for increasing knowledge about manpower activities and their impact on the unemployed and the economy. In one, selected areas were provided extra funds to expand vastly the public employment effort to see how it would affect the local economy and the jobless rate. In another, the public employment effort was directed solely at welfare recipients to see if such a focus would significantly reduce the relief roles and improve the employ ability of the welfare clients.
The strengthening and broadening of the Cooperative Area Manpower Planning System (CAMPS) contributed to greater local control over the planning and operation of manpower programs. Leaders of the community-client groups, labor, and business—were added to the committee and joined the Federal and State officials who made up the more narrowly-based organization of the past.
The Manpower Administration played a key role in a program to which the President gave top priority—his Veterans Program. The aim was to put a million Vietnam-era veterans into jobs or training slots. The goal was topped by about 30 percent.
Two other Presidential concerns were dealt with effectively. A special group of professionals—engineers, scientists, and technicians—made jobless because of shifts in national defense and space priorities, were assisted in transferring to new jobs and careers; and jobless youth were afforded a record-breaking number of work opportunities during the summer to help them gain a foothold in the marketplace or earn enough to go back to school.
Congress considered but by the end of the year did not take final action on two pieces of legislation—Manpower Revenue Sharing and Welfare Reform. Existing legislation was amended: The Manpower Development and Training Act was extended through fiscal 1973 and the Social Security Act was amended to strengthen the employment opportunities and incentives for
8
welfare recipients under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.
The year also marked the 10th anniversary of the Manpower Development and Training Act. A 2-day symposium in Washington, D.C., was attended by educators, government officials, representatives of management and labor, and others interested in furthering manpower actions. It provided a forum to review accomplishments and chart a course for the future in the manpower field.
Employment
Service Activities
The nationwide network of State and local employment service offices affiliated with the U.S. Employment Service made almost 3.9 million nonagricultural job placements in fiscal year 1972, including 304,000 for Vietnam-era veterans. This was an 8-percent increase over the previous year.
Using computers to update and print daily lists of job opportunities, the employment service operates job banks in most large metropolitan areas, giving wide exposure of job orders to applicants throughout the area. By the end of the fiscal year, statewide job bank systems were operating in 20 States, covering 65 percent of the Nation’s population.
The employment service continued to serve unemployed scientists, engineers, and technicians through the Technology Mobilization and Reemployment Program (TMRP). Expanded nationwide in late 1971, TMRP registered 40,841 jobseekers, of whom more than 16,000 returned to work and 20,000 remained on the register. The program provided job-search grants to 3,651 workers, relocation grants to 1,065, and training to nearly 3,000.
Nearly 11,000 workers who lost their jobs because of foreign trade competition registered with the employment service for job-finding assistance under provisions of the Trade Expansion Act. About 7,000 were counseled, with 1,160 tested, 1,471 enrolled in training, and 435 completing training. Of the remainder, most were placed in jobs through the employment service or were recalled by their former employers.
A 13-point redirection of service to rural residents through the employment service was authorized by the Secretary of Labor, based on recommendations from the Manpower Administration’s Special Review Staff. Strategies of the Rural Manpower Service include: Redesigning farm placement operations to provide full manpower services; aiding migrant workers through special training and support efforts; and providing equitable manpower resources for rural areas.
Over 4,000 training opportunities were funded as part of the Comprehensive Migrant Manpower Program begun in fiscal 1972. This program helps migrant families through training, education, job development, placement, relocation,
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and health services. With its other programs, the Rural Manpower Service placed 17,000 rural and migrant workers in jobs.
In an effort to improve the operations of the State employment service agencies, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Manpower asked representatives of industry to report on their experiences with the employment service and make recommendations on how it could be more responsive to their needs. Committees made up of a cross section of employers were set up in six cities to report on their findings.
Training and Work-Experience Programs
The new Office of Employment Development Programs continued the manpower responsibility of preparing workers for jobs. During the year, welfare recipients, Spanish-speaking workers, Indians, and ex-offenders received special attention.
In fiscal 1972, the Work Incentive (WIN) Program recorded 120,600 new enrollees who were receiving or had applied for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). As a result of the Talmadge Amendments to the Social Security Act passed in December 1971, an estimated 1.5 million people will have to register for WIN. All adult welfare recipients or applicants not excused by law must register for the local WIN Program.
Emphasis has been placed on direct referral of AFDC recipients to jobs, with other registrants referred to manpower training and services. To increase the opportunities for gainful employment of these welfare recipients, at least one-third of program expenses must be for on-the-job training and public service employment, while employers hiring WIN enrollees may receive a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the enrollee’s wage for his first 12 months on the job provided the worker is kept on for another year. While these provisions were to become effective July 1, 1972, test projects of the tax credit were begun and administrative procedures, regulations, and guidelines were set up in the last half of fiscal 1972.
In special-emphasis programs, 6,600 training opportunities for Spanishspeaking people and Indians were funded, along with a number of other efforts.
Six Manpower Administration regional offices received $2 million to implement Federal Regional Council Action Plans for their high concentrations of Spanish-speaking residents. Another $2.8 million will aid 13,000 Spanishspeaking veterans in 22 cities through the efforts of the American G.I. Forum, while the Service, Employment and Redevelopment (SER) Program expanded from 15 to 29 projects, mainly in the Southwest, with $9.5 million in Federal funds. The $17 million total allocated for programs for this group also included
10
other projects such as Basic Occupational Language Training (BOLT).
The Indian program, in its first year of operation, laid the groundwork for producing comprehensive manpower services for Indians. Specific activities included convening the first National Indian Manpower Conference, developing manpower planning grants for 30 tribes through the Cooperative Area Manpower Planning System, and receiving delegations from over 35 Indian organizations. In the second half of the fiscal year, six manpower training projects were funded with $3.1 million to provide 1,426 opportunities for Indians.
Programs to help offenders, prisoners, and ex-offenders were allotted $15 million during fiscal 1972. Comprehensive State Correctional Manpower Models were negotiated with eight States, with four receiving $8 million in funding. These models, under the governor’s leadership, tie together all agencies involved in correctional and manpower fields to coordinate needed services. The models incorporate existing programs and provide supportive services.
In the Pretrial Intervention Program, 6,000 first offenders were enrolled in
522-314 O - 73 -- 2
manpower programs in lieu of sentencing; $5 million was allocated for inmate training programs; and bonding and drug abuse prevention and care programs were continued.
Enrollment in other manpower programs continued to climb in fiscal 1972:
—In the federally financed contract portion of the Job Opportunities in the Business Sector (JOBS) Program, 82,800 new enrollees were hired for jobs with private employers.
—The JOBS Optional Program (JOP) provided on-the-job training to 57,300 disadvantaged workers.
—Manpower Development and Training Act institutional programs served 150,000 new enrollees.
—The Concentrated Employment Program’s new enrollment totaled 84,600.
—Operation Mainstream helped 31,400 adults get work experience while improving their home communities. As the result of a commitment made at the White House Conference on Aging, funds allocated for programs for workers 55 and over were doubled.
—In the Public Service Careers Program, including New Careers and New Careers in Employment Service, new enrollments reached 65,900.
—The Neighborhood Youth Corps continued to encourage youth to stay in or return to school by providing young workers with paid work experience. The in-school component enrolled 186,000 students. The out-of-school component for 16- and 17-year-olds had over 65,000 high school dropouts working and receiving skill and educational training for permanent, unsubsidized employment. The summer component hired 759,000 youth during their 1972 summer vacations.
The Public
Employment Program
Early in fiscal 1972, Congress enacted the Emergency Employment Act, which authorized the Public Employment Program (PEP) for 2 years. It aims at getting the unemployed into transitional public service jobs as quickly as possible while helping local communities to provide services not otherwise available to their residents.
The act provided for $1 billion for fiscal 1972. The bulk of the funds were to be released when the national unemployment rate equaled or exceeded 4.5 percent for 3 consecutive months. Special area funds were to be triggered when a local area’s unemployment rate reached at least 6 percent for 3 consecutive months.
The first PEP enrollee was on the job in August. By January 1, 1972, all regular funds had been distributed to all the States through 658 program agents: 40 States, 348 counties, 222 cities, 22 Indian tribes, and 26 independent government units, such as school districts.
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Of the nearly 170,000 jobs filled through the use of PEP funds:
—	22 percent were in public works and transportation.
—	21 percent in education.
—	16 percent in administration and miscellaneous public service functions.
—	12 percent in law enforcement.
—	10 percent in health and hospital services.
—	8 percent in parks and recreation.
—	5 percent in social services.
—	4 percent in environmental quality improvement.
—	2 percent in fire protection.
The act calls for service to specific groups and PEP has met this mandate with 37 percent of its enrollees being disadvantaged; 36 percent, minority group members, 27 percent, Vietnam-era veterans; 16 percent, other veterans; 16 percent, 45 to 64 years of age; and 11 percent, public assistance recipients.
PEP is the largest public service employment program since the 1930’s; so far, it has met both national and local objectives without creating dead-end or make-work jobs.
Special funds were also allocated under the EEA to test the effect of large public employment programs. One demonstration project expanded public employment in 12 selected areas to permit the assessment of the economic impact of the program. Another created jobs specifically for welfare recipients in 13 areas to examine the use of public employment as an aid in the transition to work of welfare clients.
This first year’s experience with PEP gives ample evidence of the benefits to be attained in using public employment as a major tool of manpower policy. PEP is decentralized to the local level, responsive to local requirements, and flexible enough to meet both national and local objectives. Moreover, the program delivers an economic benefit of the highest value—employment, not in make-work or dead-end jobs but in jobs producing needed services—to a community while also providing assistance to its unemployed residents.
Service to
Veterans
Priority of service to veterans was reemphasized during the year as a result of the President’s Veterans Program, an interagency effort to reduce unemployment among Vietnam-era veterans. By the end of the fiscal year, nearly 1.3 million veterans had been placed in jobs or in training, with a drop in their unemployment rate from 8.6 percent in July 1971 to 7.2 percent in June 1972.
As part of the drive to increase job opportunities for veterans, an Executive order effective in September 1971 required all firms and subcontractors awarded Federal contracts of $10,000 or more to list their openings with the
13
local employment service office. The Manpower Administration also adopted a policy of absolute preference in job and training placements for disabled veterans, Vietnam-era veterans, and all other veterans, in that order.
Other activities for veterans and servicemen included:
•	Increased services to disabled veterans, with special training projects instituted for the handicapped. Cooperation was extended to military and Veterans Administration hospitals to aid placement of disabled veterans.
•	Counseling of almost 118,000 military personnel in Asia and Europe, who were provided with employment information by Overseas Counseling Teams.
•	An extensive publicity campaign waged by Jobs for Veterans, Inc., to acquaint the public and employers with veterans’ employment problems.
•	Special employment services for veterans claiming unemployment compensation for 13 weeks or more.
•	Initiation of a job bank openings summary to provide up-to-date information on available job opportunities to servicemen scheduled for discharge.
Job
Corps
At the close of the fiscal year, Job Corps was operating 72 centers for more than 22,500 young people—close to its capacity. The shift to more Residential Manpower Centers (RMC’s) and Residential Support Centers (RSC’s) was evidenced by the opening of seven of these types of centers. They are designed to place youth nearer their homes, permit more individual attention,
14
and utilize existing manpower facilities. One of these centers was designated by President Nixon as the Whitney M. Young, Jr., RMC in honor of the late Executive Director of the National Urban League.
Centers designed to meet the needs of multicultural, multilingual youth have also been developed. Seven centers have been designated to serve primarily Spanish-speaking youth, and another center is run by and for Indians.
During the year, emphasis was given to improving the vocational skill training of the corpsmembers to prepare them for jobs. At the same time, education courses were refined and several experiments were underway to increase the holding power of the program. For example, the Atlanta center for women combined child development services with job training of young mothers. Projects at selected centers were developing programs to deal with the use and abuse of drugs by disadvantaged youth.
More than 48,600 young men and women completed their stay at Job Corps centers during the year. About 78 percent of these youth were placed in jobs, entered military service, or returned to school. The remaining one-fifth were mostly girls who had married or others who were too young to meet age requirements for jobs or who had left the labor market.
Apprenticeship
Efforts to broaden the apprenticeship system and bring more minorities into its programs highlighted the activities of the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training during fiscal 1972. To permit apprenticeship programs in a wider range of occupations, the minimum training period was lowered from 2 years to 1 year. Studies were also underway to determine the feasibility of self-paced apprenticeship, in which apprentices could move on to a new task after they had mastered the previous one.
During the year, 28 State Apprenticeship Councils adopted plans for equal employment opportunities in apprenticeship which were approved by the Department. Twelve new Apprenticeship Outreach Programs were also developed, bringing the total to 102.
For the first time in a decade, the number of apprentices in training showed a slight decrease. As of January 1, 1972, the number of apprentices was 274,024.
Participation by minority youth in apprenticeship programs continued to grow. During the last 6 months of calendar 1971, over 16 percent of the apprentices indentured were members of minority groups. The largest numbers of these were in the construction industry.
Veterans were also given priority in apprenticeship programs—over 60,000 were active during the year. Additional programs were conducted in correctional institutions under the sponsorship of area multitrade joint apprenticeship committees.
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Unemployment Insurance
The Employment Security Amendments of 1970 became fully effective January 1, 1972, greatly improving the coverage of the unemployment insurance program and its ability to react to economic ups and downs.
Five million additional jobs were brought under the protection of the program by these amendments, increasing to approximately 65 million the total number of jobs covered. During the fiscal year, over 6.8 million individuals received almost $6.5 billion in unemployment insurance benefits. Nearly $400 million of this was paid to ex-servicemen during their transition to civilian employment. The total also includes $780 million in Federal-State extended benefits paid to individuals who had exhausted their regular unemployment insurance benefits but remained unemployed. The extended benefits program, also created by the 1970 legislation, is a permanent feature that became mandatory in all States in 1972.
A second program for lengthening the duration of benefits during periods of high unemployment also came into force during the fiscal year. The passage of Public Law 92-224 allowed additional temporary compensation for jobless workers in States with seriously high unemployment rates. About $400 million in federally financed benefits was paid out during the year to over 760,000 individuals experiencing long-term unemployment.
As a result of the Supreme Court’s Java ruling in April 1971, considerable improvement was made in the appeals area. The Java decision requires that benefits be paid as soon as administratively feasible after eligibility. To speed up the appeals process and reduce the possibility of overpayment, Federal standards were set which require minimum promptness performance levels for processing appeals and require States to submit annual appeals performance plans. Staff training programs were also initiated to improve the quality and speed of the appeals process.
The Disaster Unemployment Assistance program operated in 22 States during the year and paid out approximately $5 million in benefits.
Research, Development, and Evaluation
Manpower research and development continued to seek ways to make manpower programs more effective. Studies and projects completed in fiscal 1972:
•	Developed guides to help the launching of the new Public Employment Program.
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•	Designed models of Neighborhood Youth Corps programs to meet the special problems of rural youth, to provide school dropouts with a chance to enter college, and to involve private employers in the programs.
•	Provided new perspectives for industry reexamination of upgrading policies and methods.
•	Drew attention to the need for updating the methods of developing skilled craftsmen.
•	Developed basic guides for staff working with disadvantaged persons to use in “coaching” on the problems of getting and holding a job.
•	Guided some 15,000 displaced aerospace engineers and scientists in their efforts to find new jobs.
•	Enabled veterans and others with experience but no formal credentials in medical laboratory work to enter the field by passing proficiency examinations.
•	Helped shape work and training programs for welfare recipients.
Studies started during 1972 included efforts to: Improve the utilization of research and development findings by policy and program officials; find new employment opportunities for the disadvantaged in public service jobs; determine the quality and meaning of work in America; obtain employers reactions to tax incentives for hiring and retaining workers from the WIN or welfare rolls; see what effects the mandatory listing of job vacancies has on the efficacy of the employment service; and test the use of “vouchers to enable unemployed workers to “buy” the manpower services they want.
While new evaluation studies concentrated on the Public Employment Program (PEP), completed studies covered the total impact of federally funded manpower programs in four cities, Operation Mainstream (focusing on older workers), the Concentrated Employment Program, results of the new Comprehensive Model (COMO) for local office reorganization, the effectiveness of manpower services to Southern blacks, results of institutional and on-the-job training under the MDTA, the effectiveness of the Public Service Careers program, an assessment of manpower training in meeting employers skill needs, and the effectiveness of the 1971 summer NYC recreation program. At the end of the year these evaluations were being studied to identify the policy and program issues they raise for manpower activities.
Management
Improvement
The U.S. Training and Employment Service was reorganized during fiscal 1972 into the Office of Employment Development Programs and the U.S. Employment Service. In addition, the new Office of Public Service Employment was established to carry out provisions of the Emergency Employment Act of 1971.
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Within the framework of existing legislation, State and local governments have been delegated new responsibilities for manpower programs through:
•	A strengthening and restructuring of the Cooperative Area Manpower Planning System (CAMPS), including the use of advisory councils with wider representation of community members appointed by and responsible to elected State and local officials.
•	Implementation of the Operational Planning and Control System (OPCS), with regional planning, resource allocation, and control.
•	Allocation of $16 million to mayors and governors for handling this increased responsibility, including 1,250 staff positions.
•	DOL participation with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Office of Economic Opportunity in the initiation of pilot Comprehensive Manpower Programs (CMP’s) to test various criteria and techniques for decentralization. The State and local government units acting as prime sponsors will assume administrative responsibility for the full range of manpower services and programs.
The computerized property management system now controls $81,400,899 worth of Federal property used under 2,011 contracts, including property assigned to 40 Job Corps centers. Acquisitions and disposals involving $25,599,639 were transacted, and $20,233,584 in Federal funds were saved under this system.
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As part of a government-wide study to improve Federal reporting and to reduce related paperwork, 38 MA public reports were eliminated, saving 1,347,950 man-hours; 11 MA internal reports were eliminated, saving $505,543.
Equal
Employment
Opportunity
The Manpower Administration’s program of equal employment opportunity-regardless of race, color or national origin, age, or sex-is developed and monitored by its Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. The program is administered in the field by the Regional Manpower Administrators and their EEO staffs who make pre-award reviews, compliance reviews, and complaint investigations to insure equal employment opportunity in manpower programs run by sponsors, contractors, and recipients of Federal funds, including the State employment service offices.
In fiscal 1972, 241 compliance reviews were conducted by the regional offices, nine were conducted jointly by regional and State staff, and three were conducted jointly by regional staff and contractors. During the same period, 176 complaint investigations were conducted. To insure that contractors were capable of operating programs free from discriminatory practices, the Manpower Administration conducted 1,947 pre-award reviews.
The national office reviewed 257 regional reports on equal employment progress and 241 compliance reviews conducted by the regions. It conducted eight regional training sessions and 13 on-site monitoring reviews of regional activities.
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Department Labor-Management
Report:	Services
Administration
Labor-Management
Services Administration
In the area of labor-management services, the Federal Government extended a helping hand in many ways during the year. It helped resolve several major national-interest bargaining disputes and assisted state and local governments in connection with labor-management problems. The Labor-Management Services Administration played a major role in these efforts while tending to the other responsibilities with which it is charged. These include enforcement and the securing of voluntary compliance with laws regulating veterans’ reemployment rights, union activities, and employee welfare and pension plan disclosures. LMSA also administers key provisions of the Federal labormanagement relations program under Executive Order 11491, as amended.
Labor-Management
Relations
The Federal Government continued its policy of encouraging resolution of labor-management disputes in the private sector with minimum direct participation. This policy was followed with regard to disputes in key industries including: bituminous coal, non-ferrous metal mining, and telephone and telegraph.
Federal action was necessary, however, in a few critical stoppages. Shipping on the West Coast was halted by a strike of dock workers represented by the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. Later, most Atlantic and Gulf ports were closed by a strike of longshoremen represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association.
With virtually all of the Nation’s ports closed, the President invoked emergency provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act and West Coast operations resumed. Later, 80-day injunctions were issued resulting in a resumption of operations in Atlantic and Gulf ports. East and Gulf Coast parties agreed to an extension of the statutory no-strike period and negotiated final settlements resolving that dispute. However, on the West Coast, the strike was resumed in mid-January, but the parties negotiated a final settlement concurrently with the passage by Congress of special legislation designed to end the stoppage.
The Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor-Management Relations and the Chairman of the National Mediation Board successfully mediated two railroad disputes involving workers represented by the United Transportation Union. The first of these involved all of the. Nation’s railroads. Final settlement resulted in wage increases and work rules changes permitting the carriers greater flexibility of operation. The second dispute concerned the Penn Central Transportation Company’s effort to reduce the number of brakemen employed on train crews. An interim formula to accomplish this was agreed to.
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Staff assistance was provided to two Presidential Emergency Boards under the Railway Labor Act. One Board investigated and reported on the Penn Central crew consist issue. The other did the same in connection with a dispute involving the Nation’s railroads and some 6,300 workers represented by the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association.
“Early warning” reports covering disputes which could affect the national interest were provided to the Secretary and other officials. More detailed reports were prepared on specific major disputes. During the fiscal year, the various reports covered disputes in such industries as railroads, offshore maritime, longshore, trucking, and bituminous coal.
With state and local public employment a fast-growing sector, the Department has developed a vigorous program of assistance to state and local governments and public employee organizations in establishing their procedures for resolving collective bargaining problems.
In November 1971, the Secretary sponsored a special conference on State and Local Government Labor Relations which was attended by more than 400 participants from 45 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia. The conference provided the first opportunity for state and local government officials to express their views and to make recommendations for public policy in this labor-management relations area. The Department has responded to needs expressed by trying to improve its technical assistance, information and data services, training, and conference activities in the non-Federal public sector.
Upon request, the Department provided technical aid to a number of state and local governments, including school districts. The aid included development of legislative proposals and labor relations procedures. Services of the Department also were requested to conduct or to train local officials in conducting representation elections.
Under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, the Secretary must certify that arrangements are made to protect the interests of employees affected by urban mass transportation projects assisted by the Department of Transportation. Similar responsibilities are included in the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 and the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970.
During Fiscal Year 1972, certifications were made on 134 applications for assistance under the Urban Mass Transportation Act, involving total project values of more than $1.8 billion.
Federal
Labor-Management
Relations
Under Executive Order 11491, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor-Management Relations supervises representation elections, decides unit
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determination questions, as well as cases involving alleged unfair labor practices and standards of conduct violations. He also decides eligibility questions on national consultation rights. In 1972, his responsibilities were expanded by Executive Order 11616 to include deciding questions concerning handling of grievances and arbitration under existing contracts.
During the year, 871 cases involving representation petitions and unfair labor practice complaints were initiated in LMSA’s 24 area offices. During that time, 1,223 cases were closed. In the same period, 436 representation elections were supervised by LMSA field personnel. The Assistant Secretary issued 103 decisions based upon records of formal hearings conducted before hearing officers or hearing examiners. In addition, the Assistant Secretary made determinations on 127 requests for review of action taken by LMSA regional administrators. Also, the Assistant Secretary issued 16 reports on rulings setting forth administrative or policy decisions on other aspects of the program.
Compliance, Enforcement, and Disclosure
As of June 30, 1972, there were 59,908 active labor organizations on file under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), including 11,704 postal unions, which for the first time are included in these data. The 48,204 non-postal unions on file represented a decline of 1,141 from the 49,345 on file as of June 30, 1971. Approximately 5,590 investigations were completed, including 134 involving union elections. The Department instituted 40 actions under the act in Federal district courts. Seventy-seven individuals were charged with criminal violations of the LMRDA in indictments or criminal informations filed in Federal district courts, including 28 as the result of LMSA participation in the Organized Crime Strike Forces, which operate in 17 major cities. In addition, strike force activity led to the indictment of 63 persons, two corporations, and one union for violations of other labor-related laws. Fifty-five persons, including some indicted in previous years, were convicted of LMRDA violations; 15 were acquitted. LMRDA violations against three others were dismissed.
Registration reports required under the Standards of Conduct, section 18 of Executive Order 11491, as amended, have been received from 3,256 Federal labor organizations, as compared with 14,255 the previous year. This drop is due to the fact that postal employee unions no longer file under the Order. During the year, 137 investigations were completed, the majority (117) being cases to obtain delinquent reports.
Approximately 174,170 active employee benefit plans were on file with the Department under the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act (WPPDA),
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including about 44,450 retirement plans. Approximately 3,450 investigations were completed, about 3,230 of which involved delinquent or deficient reports.
In addition to 33 bills dealing with private welfare and pension plans pending before the 92nd Congress, 64 such bills were introduced. These included Administration bills H.R. 11272 (H.R. 12302, S.3012)—Individual Retirement Benefits Act of 1971, and S.3024 (H.R. 12337)—Employee Benefits Protection Act, introduced in December. At year’s end, none of the pending bills had been reported out.
Veterans’
Reemployment
Rights
The Department’s responsibilities to veterans, reservists, National Guardsmen, and others with statutory reemployment rights under the Military Selective Service Act of 1967 continued to be met with an increase in cases.
The number of complaint cases filed grew to 7,023, somewhat higher than the sharply-increased number filed during Fiscal Year 1971 and some four and one-half times as high as the number filed five years ago. The continuing high case load is attributable in part to the total separations from military service at the 900,000 level of the preceding fiscal year, as well as to the greater number of LMSA field offices able to handle this type of work.
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Some 67 percent of the new veterans participated in the referral procedure established in cooperation with the Department of Defense. Each participating veteran was sent basic information about reemployment rights assistance and other services available to veterans through the Department of Labor. About 52 percent of these veterans indicated they had preservice employers, and those employers were advised of the basic provisions of the reemployment rights law. As a result, many veterans were reinstated in their jobs and accorded their other reemployment rights without further actions by the Office of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights.
Copies of the referral forms received by the Office of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights continued to be made available to the Manpower Administration Veterans’ Employment Service (VES). The VES offers assistance to veterans in finding employment in those cases where veterans did not have or did not choose to exercise reemployment rights with preservice employers.
Policy
Development and Research
Recommendations for policy development in labor-management relations and labor legislation were made through monitoring of legislative developments and a program of analysis and research. Close examination was given to legislative recommendations for pension reform, proposals for emergency dispute settlements and for extending the protection of the right to organize to farm labor, and other proposals posing major changes in the nation’s labor laws.
During the year, the research staff published “Collective Bargaining in Public Employment and the Merit System” and completed a study of union election cases closed under the LMRDA during 1966-1970.
LMSA also developed research in labor relations and public sector bargaining through the financing of contract research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Through these means, research data, not otherwise available, appeared in the Bureau of Labor Statistics publications on municipal public employee associations, and on union memberships among government employees.
Other contract research resulted in publication of studies in public sector collective bargaining: “Scope of Bargaining in the Public Sector,” “Dispute Settlement in the Public Sector,” “Public Employee Bargaining in California,” and “Public Employee Bargaining in Oregon.”
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522-314 0 - 73 —3
Department	Employment
Report:	Standards
Administration
Employment
Standards
Administration
Nineteen seventy-two was a year in which the Employment Standards Administration (ESA) underwent a major realignment to better meet its responsibilities of carrying out a wide range of programs dealing with workers’ rights and protections. It was a year of new gains for American working men and women.
During the year, ESA was streamlined into an organization characterized by one concept and structure, and its programs were redirected to facilitate achievement of several key national goals-those of increasing employment opportunities, eliminating discrimination and improving and protecting the income of low-wage workers.
A major change gave ESA Regional Administrators line responsibilities for all field functions. ESA Regional Offices were opened in Denver and Seattle, and the Women’s Bureau established Regional Offices in New York and Kansas City. A new multi-purpose compliance action reporting system for management was developed and made operational. This system is used to report all compliance activity and to indicate measures of program accomplishment. A Research Advisory Committee was established to develop a comprehensive research program over the next four years as well as to focus on providing information relevant to ESA’s major goals and objectives.
Employment
Standards
Among the many laws enforced by ESA is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provides for minimum wages, premium pay for overtime, restrictions on the employment of child labor, and equal pay for equal work regardless of sex. The law is enforced by a staff of compliance officers working in more than 300 field offices located throughout the country who investigate establishments to determine compliance with this Act as well as with other employment standards laws.
In the wage standards area alone, excluding equal pay and age discrimination standards, over 68,000 compliance actions were made in fiscal year 1972, disclosing over $86 million in minimum wage and overtime payments illegally withheld from about 487,000 employees. The working poor continued to be helped most with 87 percent of the employees found underpaid classified as such. The working poor are defined as those earning less than the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower family income for the area in which they work. The correction of minimum wage violations alone will add about $22 million annually to these workers’ incomes.
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Perhaps even more significant than correction of the monetary violations this year was the fact that many thousands of additional employers voluntarily came into compliance with these laws due to informational and technical assistance efforts conducted by the Department.
In the child labor area, special emphasis was given to agricultural employment where illegal employment during school hours interfered with the opportunity of migrant children to get an education. This served as a strong reinforcement to the activities of other Federal, State and local agencies addressing the special educational needs of these children.
Administration of the Federal wage garnishment law continued to be geared primarily toward achieving voluntary compliance with the standards. Information programs with the courts were continued as well as an expanded technical assistance program directed to employers and employee organizations. The most important accomplishments were in the establishment of landmark legal
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precedents and the increased observance of the garnishment standards by the courts throughout the country.
In the wage determinations area, ESA adopted a new approach with respect to the issuance of wage determinations under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. The gathering of facts and analyzing of wage data for use in issuing wage determinations for a particular project was decentralized to the field, with final issuance remaining in the national office. This maximizes the effective use of ESA field staff capabilities and insures greater accuracy and speed in determining prevailing rates in a locality.
ESA responded to numerous requests from public officials and private groups for consultative advice and technical assistance to aid in improving State standards and administration. The need for more adequate worker protection against certain practices of private employment agencies and temporary-help contractors was the subject on which advice was most frequently sought. In functioning as a technical information center on State employment standards, ESA monitored new legislative developments, as reflected in some 400 laws passed by State legislatures during fiscal 1972.
A special project was initiated to measure further the attitudes of American workers regarding their working conditions. The first such effort had been made in 1969-1970 when, under the sponsorship of ESA, the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center carried out a national survey of working conditions. Arrangements between ESA and Michigan were made for a second survey, to be performed in 1972-1973. Comparison, of the data from the two surveys will provide important information regarding trends.
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Equal
Employment
Opportunity
Although progress was made in providing equal employment opportunities for all workers, discrimination against persons over 40 years of age, minority workers, and women is still prevalent in the workplace.
Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, continuing emphasis was given to securing widespread voluntary compliance and promoting employment opportunities for older workers through education, information, compliance contacts, and conciliation. As a result of informal compliance contacts, particular policies and practices with discriminatory effect were eliminated in over 24,000 establishments. These contacts were in addition to the more than 6,000 compliance actions which disclosed damages of over $1,650,000 as a result of illegal age discrimination. Concentrated efforts to eliminate discriminatory advertising for employees met with success and were especially heartening since such advertising is for many the gateway to employment.
ESA is responsible for administering Executive Orders 11246 and 11375, which prohibit discrimination in Federal contract work because of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
In fiscal year 1970, 102 cities were identified as targets for the development of hometown plans in the construction industry. These plans are designed to increase employment opportunities for minorities through voluntary agreements among labor, management, and community groups. During fiscal year 1972, 23 hometown plans were developed, bringing the number of plans to 50. In addition, there are five Department of Labor-imposed plans and one court-imposed plan. Twenty-six plans include funded training programs.
Almost 23,000 compliance reviews were made by Federal compliance agencies. Compliance agencies were given specific national guidelines to assist them in their compliance reviews of construction firms. Notices were issued to approximately 640 contractors, giving them 30 days to show cause why enforcement proceedings should not be institued against them. In some cases, contract approvals or awards were deferred pending correction of deficiencies. Eight notices of proposed debarment were issued and two firms were actually debarred from further government work.
ESA also gave attention to discrimination based on religion and national origin. Guidelines on discrimination because of religion or national origin were published for comment in the Federal Register on December 29, 1971. The final Guidelines were being prepared at the end of the year.
The Secretary of Labor also issued regulations barring government contractors and subcontractors from using unvalidated tests or other selection methods that discriminate against minorities or women.
ESA also carried out a broad program to improve the status of women.
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Steps were taken during the year to reduce sex discrimination by government contractors and subcontractors. The Secretary of Labor issued Revised Order No. 4 requiring government contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action to eliminate discrimination and underutilization based on sex, as well as for minority group members.
The elimination of sex-based wage differentials where men and women perform substantially equal work continued to gain impetus through vigorous enforcement of the equal pay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Wage discrimination because of sex resulted in underpayments of $14 million affecting some 29,000 workers, nearly all of them women. A nationwide educational program on the requirement of the law in member hospitals were undertaken in cooperation with the American Hospital Association, in an effort to correct particular problems in that industry. In June 1972, the law was amended to extend equal pay protection to 15 million executive, administrative, professional, and outside sales employees.
The role of the Women’s Bureau as the single unit within the Federal Government exclusively concerned with the interests of women was strengthened by the Secretary of Labor’s Order directing that all Department of Labor activities affecting women be coordinated through the Women’s Bureau. The directive also designated the Director of the Women’s Bureau as Special Counselor to the Secretary of Labor for women’s affairs to advise him and represent him on women’s programs with Federal and State agencies and other governmental and private organizations.
The elimination of sex discrimination in employment through affirmative action programs was the subject of consultations with representatives of business, industry and unions in Denver and Philadelphia. In addition, to these area-wide consultations, 20 local consultations, for which the Bureau gave technical assistance and supplied publications, were held. ESA also worked directly with women union leaders to explore ways of achieving equal opportunities within their unions and places of work.
To determine the needs of women of minority groups, a consultation was held for Spanish-speaking women in Phoenix, Ariz., and for black women in Atlanta, Ga. A preliminary, informal meeting with Indian women in Chicago also was held.
ESA continued its technical and advisory assistance to information and referral services established for Spanish-speaking and black women in Miami and for Spanish-speaking women in Albuquerque. It also assisted with the development of Manpower Administration contract proposals for information and referral services in Memphis and East Los Angeles.
ESA also continued to promote upward mobility for women and girls. It cooperated with the American Home Economics Association in preparing and distributing a report on careers in home-related services. Plans were initiated to secure funds for a nationwide program introducing the career ladders and lattices concept to household job skills. Another project provided training of
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women for apprentice-type jobs in Denver.
In its role as a center and clearing house for information concerning the economic, civil and political status of women, the Women’s Bureau participated in nearly 500 conferences, conventions, seminars, career days and other large meetings. More than 93,000 persons attended these gatherings. The Bureau distributed 991,369 publications in response to some 36,000 individual and conference requests.
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Workmen’s
Compensation
ESA is responsible for administering all of the Department’s workmen’s compensation programs, and effective September 14, 1971, reorganized these programs into two units: the Office of Federal Employees’ Compensation, for administering the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act; and the Office of Workmen’s Compensation Programs, for administering the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and for carrying out the Department’s workmen’s compensation responsibilities in other areas within the private sector—including the development of standards for use by the States. As part of the reorganization, the Bureau of Employees’ Compensation was abolished.
Effective December 15, 1971, with the President’s signing of P.L. 92-187, equality of treatment for all Federal employees became law. Consequently, the same benefits and requirements for benefits now apply to married men and women under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.
A total of 109,579 injuries was reported under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act during the year, down slightly from the 111 ,852 reported in fiscal year 1971. New claims for compensation again rose a substantial 5,787 over 1971’s total to a new high of 26,774. As of the end of the year, 27,502 cases were being compensated on the Office of Federal Employees’ Compensation’s periodic payment rolls—up 2,353 from fiscal year 1971. Benefits paid under the FECA amounted to $189,957,771, or 16.4 percent more than in the previous year.
In the Office of Workmen’s Compensation Programs, new injuries under the Longshore Act and its extensions totaled 101,329, down from the 109,590 in fiscal year 1971. OWCP made considerable progress in preparation for the future transfer of pneumoconiosis cases from the Social Security Administration’s jurisdiction to the Department of Labor—now extended to July 1, 1973 by passage of P.L. 92-303, the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972.
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Department Occupational Report:	Safety and Health
Administration
Occupational
Safety and Health
Administration
The safety and health of American workers received priority attention in fiscal 1972—the first full year of operation of the Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Operating under authority of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA strove to make America’s workplaces safer and more healthful through a vigorous and wide-ranging program.
The Act is a general statute providing a broad spectrum of powers for use by the Secretary in reducing exposure to hazardous conditions in the workplace. The Act covers some 60 million employees in about 5 million places of employment. Since April 28, 1971, the effective date of the Act, the Department has established OSHA with ten regional offices and 51 area offices across the country. OSHA’s first tasks were to issue occupational safety and health standards and to become a viable agency to administer the Act.
Standards
An initial package of occupational safety and health standards was published in the Federal Register on May 29, 1971. These contained prior Federal standards and national consensus standards which were promulgated under the interim procedures of the Act. For employers not previously covered by Federal standards, the effective date of the standards was delayed until August 27, 1971 to allow time for familiarity and compliance. Additional new and revised standards were also promulgated pertaining specifically to the construction and maritime industries.
During fiscal 1972, more than 100 revisions were made to the initial standards package. These revisions fall into four broad categories: 1) clarifications of the applicability and requirements, such as those to reflect the special nature of light residential construction; 2) updating standards based on newer national consensus standards; 3) changes in the effective date of some standards to allow a reasonable time period for compliance; and, 4) revocation of standards.
In addition, the Act provides for development of new standards through a careful process which assures adequate research and public participation. Research is basically the responsibility of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. OSHA appoints special advisory committees representing affected groups and technical experts to aid in this process. For example, there is an advisory committee on construction standards, another on the asbestos standard, and a new committee on agriculture.
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In December 1971, the first emergency temporary standard was published setting immediate limits on the permissable concentrations of asbestos fibers in the work atmosphere. Utilizing criteria developed by NIOSH, a permanent standard was promulgated in June setting maximum fiber concentrations and establishing additional requirements for engineering controls, personal protective devices, and medical examinations. This is the precursor of the requirements to be embodied in all new health standards.
Compliance Operations
The Williams-Steiger Act spells out in great detail the powers of the Secretary to enforce the standards and regulations issued. These powers include making inspections, issuing citations for alleged violations—including abatement periods—proposing penalties, reguiring records to be kept and made available, seeking injunctive relief in imminent danger situations, and protecting employees from discrimination for exercising their rights under the Act.
In enforcing Federal standards, the philosophy of focusing on the worst situations first has been adopted. The highest priority is investigating catastrophes and fatalities. The second priority is the investigation of valid employee complaints, with 4,951 of these received in fiscal year 1972. Third, two special programs—one for targeted industries, the other for targeted health hazards—have been implemented to eliminate some of the worst known hazards. In the target industry program, five industries have been selected primarily on their injury frequency rates. These industries are marine cargo handling, roofing and sheet metal work, meat and meat products, miscellaneous transportation equipment (primarily mobile homes), and lumber and wood products. In the health hazards program, five substances known to be especially toxic and affecting potentially large numbers of employees were selected for concentrated attention. These substances are lead, asbestos, cotton dust, carbon monoxide, and silica. Fourth on the priority list, inspections are made on a random basis from all industries and sizes of establishments in all parts of the country.
During fiscal year 1972, 32,701 inspections were made by OSHA, with 6 million employees in the establishments inspected. About 25 percent of the establishments were found to be in compliance, and in many others the violations were judged to be of a non-serious nature. 23,231 citations were issued alleging 102,861 violations, with penalties proposed in about 45 percent of the establishments inspected. Total penalties proposed amounted to $2.3 million. 1,084 cases were contested with the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, or about 5 percent of the cases.
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Training and
Education
OSHA provides training and education to assist employers, employees, and other in complying with their mutual responsibilities under the Act for maintaining safe and healthful working conditions and practices, in addition to general information materials and publications to increase the public’s awareness of job safety and health problems. In 1972, training and education activities were intensified to meet the requirements of an expanded compliance staff and public demands for more specific information on OSHA standards and regulations.
A training institute was established near Chicago, Ill. This facility plays a major role in upgrading the skills of OSHA’s compliance staff and the inspection staffs of the States, and in providing orientation to a broad cross-section of employers, employees, and their representatives. It is staffed by a combination of Departmental personnel and consultants and experts, and will accommodate a maximum training load of 180 trainees per session. More than 1,000 safety and health specialists were trained at this facility by the end of fiscal 1972.
Training and education efforts have a multiplier or “ripple” effect. That is, individuals directly trained by OSHA or using OSHA materials are affected and as they return to their firms and workplaces, they implement the concepts and techniques which they have learned. About 1,400 instructors have been trained to deal with job safety and health problems faced by foremen in the construction industry. In turn, these instructors have already trained an estimated 60,000 employees and supervisors.
State
Programs
Many States have their own safety and health legislation, and the Congress made it clear that the Secretary should encourage “the States to assume the fullest responsibility for the administration and enforcement of their jpccupa-tional safety and health laws.” In fiscal year 1972, 48 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa formally indicated their intentions to develop a State plan under section 18(b) of the Act. Forty-six of these States and all jurisdictions are continuing to enforce their own present standards under the authority of section 18(h) of the Act. These agreements allow States to retain jurisdiction and continue to enforce State occupational safety and health laws and standards. These agreements will expire with the approval of an 18(b) plan or on December 28, 1972, whichever is earlier.
Since initiation of the program, all States and jurisdictions have received section 23 planning grants totalling $8.5 million to assist in developing State
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plans. In fiscal year 1972, 48 States, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa received new or additional 90/10 planning grants totalling almost $5.15 million.
By the end of the fiscal year, plans had been received from Arkansas, Montana, New Jersey, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington. It is anticipated that about 30 State plans will have been submitted, reviewed, and approved or rejected by June 30, 1973.
Federal
Employees’
Safety
Approximately 3 million Federal workers in some 500,000 different occupations throughout the nation are covered by the Act. Yet, the Act provides no direct enforcement authority. Instead, it relies upon compliance through training, education, and consultative efforts.
On July 26, 1971, the President signed Executive Order 11612 reaffirming his commitments to the program and assigning specific responsibilities to all Federal departments and agencies. The Executive Order established a new Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health, composed of key representatives of agencies and unions representing Federal employees. The Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health was appointed as Council chairman.
Three major initial objectives have been established for improving Federal job safety and health programs. First, a new system for recording and reporting Federal agency occupational injuries and illnesses has been developed. Second, methods are being devised for evaluating agency programs, including agency reports on the steps they are taking to meet the applicable standards. And third, a special campaign, “ZERO-IN on Federal Safety,” is in effect to provide agency incentive and employee motivation. ZERO-IN helped lower the disabling injury frequency rate from 6.6 per million man hours worked to 6.0 in its first year.
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Department Report:
Policy, Evaluation, and Research
Policy,
Evaluation, and
Research
During Fiscal Year 1972, the Office of Policy, Evaluation, and Research carried out a diversified program in fulfilling its responsibilities for planning and developing policy for the Department, participating in the development of legislative initiatives, and stimulating and coordinating evaluation and research.
Policy planning activities in the Office of Policy Development included: Strategies for stimulating further growth of cooperative education; work on national growth policy; developing pilot tests for tax credits to employers for hiring welfare mothers; and analyzing the manpower impact of government programs. It also included exploring the relationship between public-service employment and revenue-sharing; assessing the adequacy of occupational projections in predicting demand for college-graduates; analyzing the issue of the youth differential in the minimum wage; compiling a round-up of academic economists’ views on the relationship of manpower and economic policy; and taking a new look at the arbitration process.
The Office of Policy Analysis and Evaluation designed and provided staff support for an internal four-year planning effort for all Department programs. Each administration and office within the Department was requested to develop specific program goals and strategies for the next four years. The office took the lead in analyzing the various four-year proposals and identifying policy and program issues for the Secretary. This planning effort also formed the basis for giving internal guidance for the preparation of fiscal 1974 budget requests.
The Office also made significant progress in meeting its responsibilities for evaluating Department programs. A contract was made with the Urban Institute to design an overall Department evaluation system, including the development of methodologies to evaluate the performance of specific programs. This work will be completed during fiscal year 1973. A contract was also made with the Center for Naval Analysis to make a series of short-term assessments of Department programs based upon available information. During the first six months, the center assessed four different programs.
By the end of the fiscal year, decisions were made to increase substantially the office’s evaluation responsibilities. These decisions include the creation of a new evaluation unit within the office, approval by the Department’s Program Budget Review Committee of annual evaluation work plans and office approval of all major evaluation studies undertaken within the Department using outside contractors.
The Office of Research has been reexamining its entire operation with a view toward helping each of the Department’s various research offices
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accomplish its mission. Three department-wide task forces on the quality of work, international trade and relationship to employment, and labor market information, have prepared research plans covering activities that cross the usual lines of interest of several offices. Additionally, more information about each office’s activity is being disseminated to other offices of research and to policymakers throughout the Department.
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Department	Bureau of
Report:	Labor Statistics
Bureau of
Labor Statistics
In response to Administration initiatives designed to achieve stable prices, promote economic growth, and lower the unemployment rate, the Bureau undertook a number of activities in Fiscal Year 1972 that transcended its normal program functions. Specifically the Bureau contributed to the efforts of the Executive Branch in—
•	Controlling inflation by supplying the Cost of Living Council, the Pay Board, and the Price Commission with Bureau statistics and analyses useful to their efforts to restrain prices, wages, and rents. The need for timely, comprehensive data on price and wage movements is intense during times of economic controls. The Bureau developed and published special tabulations of changes in prices and wages, particularly to measure the impact of the initial 30-day freeze and the follow-up controls. The Pay Board was supplied with analyses of wage changes. For its use in making assessments about productivity performance of specific industries, the Price Commission was given 400 output per man-hour measures not regularly published.
The Bureau also started to develop new data that would be useful over time in measuring inflation, specifically a general price index, a general wage index, and a new measure of the hours and earnings of 10 million nonproduction workers not covered by present statistics.
•	Improving productivity performance by extending considerable assistance to the National Commission on Productivity in its efforts to promote productivity growth and price stability. Several analytical papers were prepared for the Commission and the Bureau’s on-going work was expanded to produce additional industry sector measures of productivity, particularly in the service and construction industries. The Bureau provided technical and staff assistance to the General Accounting Office project to measure productivity in the Federal Government.
•	Alleviating discrimination by providing special reports and analyses to the Task Force on Discrimination set up by the Domestic Council to assess the dimensions of the problem of discrimination and to search for ways to alleviate it.
•	Reducing unemployment by supplying additional information to aid in a fuller understanding of the problem such as in-depth analyses of the relationship between the changing characteristics of the labor force and the impact on the level of unemployment to a special White House task force to explore the causes of unemployment.
•	Promoting economic growth by supplying information on factors affecting growth to a White House study group set up to identify ways to promote long-term economic growth.
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•	Promoting a more favorable trade position by developing export and import indexes of price change that are useful in assessing the price competitiveness of U.S. products in world markets.
During the year, the Bureau also made substantial improvements in its statistical and analytical work and continued with the development of several new programs.
As attention focused more intensely on the Nation’s unemployment level, the Bureau made two refinements to improve understanding of unemployment problems: (1) a new measure of the length of completed spells of unemployment and (2) an analysis of the effect of the shift in composition of the labor force on the unemployment rate. Considerable attention was also directed in the Bureau’s analyses to the significance of the rising level of employment.
During 1972, further progress was made in the decennial revision of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The survey to determine how consumers spend their money was undertaken and plans were completed for a survey to determine where consumers make their purchases. The consumer expenditure survey, conducted for BLS by the Census Bureau, will be carried on throughout 1972 and 1973 and will provide a wealth of information not only for the updating of the CPI but also for analysis of spending patterns of low-and high-income groups, families of different size and age, and residents of different cities across the country.
Useful in analyzing wage rate developments, a new monthly Hourly Earnings Index was developed to reflect underlying movements in average wage rates. This series excludes the effects of fluctuations in overtime payments, employment shifts between low- and high-wage industries, and normal seasonal variations. It is generally recognized as the most comprehensive monthly measure of wage-rate changes now available.
The Bureau offered staff assistance to the General Accounting Office in a project to measure the productivity performance of the Federal Government. The Bureau was requested to take over and develop this measure further.
The Bureau’s program to produce safety statistics under the new Occupational Safety and Health Act system moved into high gear as a major survey, covering 60,000 establishments, was undertaken.
A number of statistical improvements were made during the year. One was the expansion of the use of statistical charts to accompany press releases and the development of a monthly chartbook of prices, wages, productivity, and costs. The new charts have been made possible by the Bureau’s acquisition of a machine plotter that accurately produces charts in a short time. Other statistical improvements included the development of seasonal adjustments for major price indexes and rates of change for price, wage, and earnings series.
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Current
Employment
Analysis
The Bureau experienced continued success in speeding up reporting and expansion of the publication of basic employment and unemployment statistics. To provide a more comprehensive picture of the employment situation, a new seasonally adjusted series on the unemployment status of household heads was developed and published both in The Employment Situation monthly press release and in Employment and Earnings. In addition, special analyses of developments among discouraged workers, the meaning and measurement of unemployment statistics, geographic aspects of unemployment, trends in manufacturing employment, and weekly earnings of all employed persons were published.
Statistics on the labor force status of the population and its characteristics are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is conducted monthly by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 1972, the CPS was revised to reflect 1970 Census population data. It has been the practice to revise the CPS sample after each decennial census, utilizing data from the census, since the inception of the survey in 1940. Occupational data were also revised in 1971 and 1972, reflecting the reclassification of census occupations in the 1970 Census. An examination of the changes in occupational classifications and the revisions in the CPS was published in Employment and Earnings.
The Bureau provided considerable technical support to the President’s economic stabilization program. Among the tasks undertaken were a special seasonal adjustment of hourly earnings data and preparation of special tabulations. In a related development, the Bureau began publication of seasonally adjusted earnings data in The Employment Situation and Real Earnings press releases.
In response to the growing concern over factory worker disaffection, the Bureau completed a pilot study of absenteeism. By the end of the year, a study of labor mobility and the manufacturing quit rate was completed and being prepared for pubheation. The Bureau also expanded its efforts to provide better analytical tests for its data. For the first time, it published summary measures of variability for all seasonally adjusted payroll and labor turnover series and error measures for all published payroll employment, hours, and earnings series. The growing need for economic data in greater detail led to publication of a large number of new payroll series, including overtime hours for 46 additional industries and seasonally adjusted manhour and payroll indexes for all major industrial divisions.
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Prices and
Living Conditions
The Bureau’s Office of Prices and Living Conditions has three program objectives: to improve present measures of prices and living conditions such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI); to develop new measures that are needed; and to improve the analysis of these data and the analytical framework in which these data are presented.
In line with these objectives, recent program advances include: better checks on the accuracy of CPI data through the application of new computerized monitoring tools; collection of prices for some WPI commodities from buyers where list prices were formerly obtained; and improved adjustment of prices for quality change, particularly for machinery and equipment items.
New measures have been introduced: the number of price indexes for certain industries has been expanded by 25 percent; export price indexes, covering 13 percent of U.S. commodity exports, are now available; development of measures in the industrial price area are underway in the fields of construction materials, mobile homes, railroad transportation, motor freight transportation, life insurance, and retail trade. Collection of the Bureau’s nationwide Consumer Expenditure Survey, the data used for the decennial revision of the Consumer Price Index, began in January 1972. The Census Bureau is the collection agency for the BLS in this survey.
Analysis of Phase I and Phase II developments in the President’s Price Stabilization Program was an important aid to the Cost of Living Council, Price Commission, government economists, and the general public. The analysis was facilitated through the development of measures of price change for items that were exempt and those that were non-exempt from controls, diffusion indexes, and other analytical measures. New analytical tools were introduced to improve analysis; seasonally adjusted data are now available to measure price change over various time spans for 1-, 3- and 6-month periods; changes in wholesale prices along the various stages of processing have been highlighted in analysis to pinpoint sources of inflationary pressures; and a comparison of price changes of components in the WPI that are related to products in the CPI was made to see how wholesale price change is reflected in the CPI.
Wages and
Industrial Relations
In addition to special analyses for the Pay Board and Cost of Living Council, the BLS continued to expand and improve its wages and industrial relations program.
BLS continued work begun in FY 1971 on the development of a general wage index designed to measure the change in the rate of employee compensation exclusive of effects of industry and occupational employment
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shifts. Initial plans for the conceptual framework of such an index were completed at the end of the year.
The new hourly earnings index for total private nonfarm employees adjusted for industry shifts and overtime in manufacturing, initiated late in FY 1971, was published monthly.
Annual reports on trends in pay of firemen, policemen, Federal workers, and teachers were issued; plans were completed for issuing a similar report for sanitation workers of city governments, beginning in FY 1973. Ten wage chronologies were published.
Monthly Current Wage Developments reports on wage and benefit changes, compiled primarily from secondary sources, were issued for selected situations (generally those involving 1,000 workers or more).
The reference date of the annual National Survey of Professional, Administrative, Technical and Clerical Pay was changed from June to March to accommodate the Federal Pay Comparability Act of 1970. Surveys of occupational wages in municipal governments were conducted in 22 large cities; such surveys have now been conducted in all cities with populations of
52
500,000 or more in addition to several other smaller cities. The Bureau also conducted surveys of occupational wages in private industry for approximately 170 areas throughout the Nation. Wage structure surveys were conducted for a number of important industries; plans were completed to add to the program, for the first time, studies in the construction industries. A pilot study in the work clothing industry was conducted to determine the feasibility of collecting certain demographic data in conjunction with occupational earnings; results will be analyzed in FY 1973. Union wage rate data were developed for five industries (building trades, printing trades, local transit, local trucking, and grocery stores).
Wages of private industry workers in selected white- and blue-collar occupations were studied in five States to permit comparisons with salaries of State government employees.
A new study of private pension plan provisions that may lead to or result in the mandatory retirement of workers was completed. The Bureau published a report on employer expenditures for wages and other elements of compensation for the private nonfarm sector of the economy.
A survey of the distribution of employees by weekly hours and hourly earnings in all private nonfarm establishments was completed; the results were published by Employment Standards Administration as part of the Secretary’s IV-D report to Congress.
The Bureau’s digests of private health and insurance plans were consolidated in a single loose-leaf publication to be kept up-to-date by periodic supplements.
A report comparing the annual earnings of black and white workers was issued.
The Bureau published its second report summarizing the characteristics of major collective bargaining agreements. The Directory of National Unions was published and expanded to account for employee associations (near-unions) in the public sector. Several studies dealing with labor-management relations at the Federal, State, and local government level were initiated.
Productivity and
Technology
BLS strengthened and expanded significantly its productivity and technology research program. A new quarterly productivity series for nonfinancial corporations was published. It enlarges the analytical tools for measuring productivity in relation to costs and profits in the economy. Responding to the needs of the National Productivity Commission, substantial progress was made in providing productivity measures for several service industries and for many additional manufacturing industries. In addition, measures of output per man-hour for many industries were provided to the Cost of Living Council and the Price Commission in connection with Phase II activities.
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A study on the labor and material requirements for public housing was published, with comparisons of man-hour requirements of an earlier study. A new study of FHA multi-family housing was undertaken.
Additional studies of comparative statistics between the United States and other industrial countries were completed. One dealt with the changing sectoral composition of employment in manufacturing in major countries; a second provided updated measures of comparative unemployment rates, adjusted to United States definitions; and a third extended the series on comparative trends in manufacturing output per man-hour, unit labor costs, and hourly compensation in major countries. Finally, as part of the ongoing effort to assess the manpower implications of technological change, a comprehensive study of technology and manpower in the printing and publishing industry in the 1970’s was completed.
Occupational
Safety and
Health Statistics
Fiscal 1972 was the first full fiscal year of the Bureau’s occupational safety and health statistics program. The OSHA recordkeeping system was fully implemented and nearly 30 million recordkeeping forms were distributed to the public. Bureau staff in Washington and in the regions supported the mail
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campaign by responding to nearly 300,000 requests for specific information and OSHA recordkeeping forms.
Three surveys, for which these records are the base, were initiated and a fourth planned. The first annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses was begun with a sample of 60,000 employers in all industries except mining, government, and agriculture. A crossover survey of about 9,500 employers was implemented to investigate possible comparisons between data reported under the ANSI Z16.1 reporting standard and that reported under the OSHA recordkeeping definitions. Finally, a special survey of about 5,000 employers in four of the five target industries selected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was begun. The response rate for all three surveys was high. Finally, planning began for the second annual survey to include approximately 200,000 establishments.
The survey program is a joint Federal-State venture with many States collecting data and developing State estimates. Planning grants were awarded to 49 States and five other jurisdictions to enable them to plan for full operations in the survey program. Ten States received statistical grants to enable them to participate in the 1971 survey.
In addition to these projects, the Bureau provided OSHA with industry profiles and age-specific data, as well as collecting and editing schedules for the Federal Agency Reporting System. Finally, the Bureau undertook several case studies designed to evolve a methodology for future special studies in selected occupational safety and health problems.
Economic
Trends and
Labor Conditions
The Bureau published a report, “Projections of the Post-Vietnam Economy, 1975,” prepared at the request of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The report provides detailed projections of the U.S. economy to 1975 under alternative assumptions regarding the level of defense expenditures and patterns of final demand. Work was started on extending the long-term projections of the Bureau to 1985, covering estimates of GNP and major components, output, and employment by industry. Work on the manpower impact of Federal programs was expanded to include beginning research on Federal expenditures for pollution abatement (financed by National Science Foundation) and selected grants-in-aid to State and local governments (funded by Manpower Administration).
The Bureau developed a monthly chartbook on prices, wages, and productivity to provide a comprehensive picture of current changes in the U.S. economy with particular reference to the rate of inflation, the structure of costs, and price expectations.
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Bulletin 1721, “Employment Problems of Older Workers,” was prepared for the White House Conference on Aging. A Monthly Labor Review article and a United Nations paper were prepared on the family responsibilities of women workers.
A substantial amount of information on Black Americans was collected and incorporated in two chartbooks and in reports to the Domestic Council’s Interagency Committee on Discrimination.
Work has been started on research relating to a new and potentially major development in the U.S. economy-the 4-day and other types of rearranged workweek. One article has already been published on the subject.
In the area of research on manpower programs, technical assistance was provided to the National Planning Association on the survey design for evaluating the Emergency Employment Act. In addition, an article was prepared on the statistical effect on the unemployment rate of enrollment in the various manpower work-training programs.
The Bureau published monographs on labor law and practice in Uruguay, Venezuela, and Norway. Similar studies on Denmark, Thailand, Colombia, Zaire (Congo), Saudi Arabia, and Great Britain were completed in FY 1972 and will be the last studies to be published in this series.
Manpower
Structure
and Trends
A report was prepared on the first findings of a new survey of the employment of recent college graduates. The study was undertaken to provide information on the transition from college to career in a period when employment of professional and technical workers was adversely affected by economic developments.
Quarterly press releases on the employment situation of Vietnam-era veterans were initiated in response to the continued need for more information on problems of this group. In addition, an analytical report on their employment situation in 1972 was published.
A “generation” table of working life for men was prepared. The table traces the projected mortality and labor force experience of age groups of men over time. This approach provides a more realistic measure of work life expectancy and yields better estimates of the flows into and out of the labor force over time.
The Bureau, in cooperation with the Manpower Administration and State employment security agencies, launched a new program in FY 1972 that is designed to provide to each State and the District of Columbia an industry-occupational employment matrix consistent in format, content, and detail with the national matrix. The project also calls for the development of
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computer systems that will make it possible for the States to update their matrices; to incorporate new data, including data coming from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey program; and to make projections of State manpower requirements.
In the Occupational Employment Statistics survey program, also a BLS-MA-State cooperative program, data have been collected on employment by occupation in manufacturing industries, except printing and publishing. Fifteen States cooperated in the manufacturing industries survey effort, and estimates of occupational employment by industry are scheduled to be published for the Nation and for each cooperating State in FY 1973. At least 21 States will cooperate in a similar survey of nonmanufacturing industries which is scheduled for FY 1973.
Research is currently underway to develop information on the employment effects—particularly on scientists and engineers—of Federal expenditures for pollution control. A report of the study is scheduled for late FY 1973.
Occupational outlook material designed for use by disadvantaged young people was published and distributed to 10 cities involved in the pilot program. Evaluation of these materials is scheduled for FY 1973.
The 1972-73 edition of the “Occupational Outlook Handbook” and Handbook reprint series were published. Work on the next edition of the Handbook, which provides information for use in the vocational guidance of young people, is underway. Current plans call for development of additional information designed specifically to help counselors and others better understand the occupational outlook and earnings information presented.
Other Activities
Research in the BLS into data-processing methodology supports the Bureau’s mission in statistical and economic research, analysis, survey operations, and publication. Because of the combination of scientific computations and very large volumes of data to process, some of the Bureau’s problems are unique. The increasing demands for more timely release of larger, more complex, detailed, and comprehensive data are requiring substantial improvements in the entire statistical data-processing area.
The past year was marked by successes in two directions in response to these requirements. The first was the development of an approach to charting that simplifies and expands the use of graphic display of time series as a part of current production operations as well as for analysis. The new charting system is responsive to demands as urgent as current press releases and an appreciable number of these now attach computer-generated charts which include up-to-the-minute data—a first for the release of economic data in the Federal statistical system.
The second success was installation of a generalized cross-tabulation system. While limited in terms of long-range goals, the current system gives researchers direct access to data they wish to tabulate by means of a computer language
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comprised of English words. Additional research efforts will be needed to refine and improve the system and to extend its coverage to include its use in the recurring statistical production processes.
BLS has had a standing commitment to quality which has earned the public’s confidence in its data and analyses. To assure that such confidence would be maintained, the Bureau initiated a self-evaluation of ways to improve on existing quality. This organized effort, called the Quality Improvement Program, was started late in fiscal 1972. Guidance for this effort rests with the Bureau’s Management Committee. An Advisory Council was formed with representatives of each program and support office and a regional representative. A Staff Director was named to coordinate the program activities.
Priority attention is being given to the areas of technical training, quality measurement, and publication standards. A series of teams are at work in each of these areas. Facts and recommendations are being assembled in each area. Reports are to be completed during Fiscal 1973. Each report will identify a situation, make recommendations for quality improvement, and propose plans for implementing the recommendations.
In line with the Office of Management and Budget directive to streamline Federal statistical functions, the Bureau reorganized its functions in the fall of 1971, establishing an Office of Data Analysis and an Office of Statistical Operations and Processing. At the same time, it centralized responsibility for publishing activities in the Office of Publications. Plans were made to complete the reorganization by transferring the other general-purpose statistical activities of the Department to the BLS in FY 1973. The new statistical programs, formerly part of the Manpower Administration, are (1) estimates of labor force unemployment and employment by local areas and States, (2) occupational projection programs for areas and States, (3) quarterly report of insured unemployment and wages, and (4) characteristics of the insured unemployed.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has two advisory councils from which it seeks advice and reactions on current and proposed programs. The members offer to the Commissioner and his staff their advice and help on technical and operational aspects of Bureau programs. In addition to the Council members, other persons are assigned to substantive committees which are patterned on the major Bureau program offices.
The Business Research Advisory Council is the Bureau’s primary link with business and industry. During the year, there were three Council meetings, 11 subject-matter committee meetings, and two Program Committee meetings. The Bureau’s Labor Research Advisory Council provides a link with labor organizations. The six committees of this Council held 10 meetings during the year.
Plans are underway to set up a similar advisory council drawn from the academic and research community.
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Department Report:
Office of the Solicitor
Office of
the Solicitor
In the fiscal year 1972, the Solicitor’s Office participated in numerous significant and successful legal actions important to American workers and their families. The cases ranged from disputed union elections to restrictions on wage garnishment.
The Solicitor is the legal adviser to the Secretary and all other Department officials. He is responsible for all the Department’s legal activities. This includes coordinating and preparing the Department’s legislative proposals, reports and testimony on proposed legislation, and executive branch clearances. Under the 1972 revision of the Department’s regulations under the Freedom of Information Act, the Solicitor makes the final decision in all appeals taken by applicants from initial denial of their requests for disclosure of Department records.
The Solicitor oversees the Department’s litigation activities. He represents the Secretary in instituting and prosecuting all civil court actions involving the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and in briefing and arguing appellate court cases under those laws. He represents the Secretary in proceedings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and assists in representing the Secretary in civil litigation under this law. Litigation services are also provided in many other types of cases, including those under the Public Contracts Act, the Service Contract Act, the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act, the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act, the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and its several extensions, the Immigration and Nationality Act, title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act respecting restriction on garnishment, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order No. 11246.
The Solicitor’s staff is comprised of attorneys in Washington and in 11 regional offices throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. This staff is divided into seven divisions, each headed by an associate solicitor. Six divisions perform all legal aspects of the Departmental programs within their responsibility. The seventh, the Division of Legislation and Legal Counsel, provides the highly specialized legislative services required by the Department as well as fulfils certain special assignments.
Labor-Management
Laws
The Division of Labor-Management Laws experienced an unusual amount of significant litigation activity under the LMRDA in Fiscal 1972.
The outstanding event of the year was the landmark decision in Hodgson n.
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United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), setting aside the 1969 election of international officres of the UMWA, and making permanent the preliminary injunction directing compliance by the UMWA and its Districts with the Act’s financial record-keeping requirements. The court’s opinion and order marked the culmination of a five-month trial, in which attorneys from this Division participated actively together with Justice Department attorneys. The court’s order was the most sweeping and comprehensive order ever issued under the LMRDA, in that it directed the Secretary to supervise not only the conduct of the new election but also the financial operations of the union pending completion of the election.
During the pendency of the litigation, Mike Trbovich, the union member who filed a complaint with the Secretary concerning the conduct of the election, sought leave to intervene as a party to the lawsuit. In Trbovich v. UMWA, the Supreme Court upheld his right to intervene on a limited basis. Trbovich participated in the closing phase of the trial, and the court’s order granted him certain rights in connection with the Secretary’s supervision of the union’s affairs.
Among other significant decisions in the election area were:
•	Hodgson n. International Printing Pressmen and Assistants’ Union of North America, where the Supreme Court, by denying certiorari, left in effect a decision of the court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, holding that the 60-day period provided for the filing of suit by the Secretary to set aside a union election could be extended by a voluntary waiver on the part of the union. A decision to the same effect was rendered by the Seventh Circuit in Hodgson v. Lodge 851,1.A.M.
•	Hodgson n. Local 18, International Union of Operating Engineers, where the Supreme Court denied certiorari in a test case in which the Department successfully challenged the exclusion from candidacy for local union office of members of local “branches.” Pursuant to an agreement reached in 1967 between the International Union and the Department, the International adopted constitutional changes reflecting the decision.
•	Hodgson v. Local 1299, Steelworkers, where the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit took a very narrow approach to the permissible scope of the Secretary’s complaint in a suit to set aside an election, but adopted a broad view of the Secretary’s remedial power. The court ruled that the Secretary was entitled to supervise all phases of a new court-ordered election, including nominations, even though the violations alleged to have occurred in the original election were confined to its balloting phase.
•	Liquor Salesmen’s Union Local No. 2 v. Hodgson, where the Second Circuit affirmed a decision setting aside an election because of the union’s expenditure of funds to promote the re-election of the incumbent officers, holding that the complaining member’s internal union protest would not be deemed untimely when it was delayed by a postal strike.
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•	Hodgson n. Local 1291, ILA, where the District Court set aside a local union election, upholding the Secretary’s contention that the law does not permit allocation of officers on the basis of race.
•	Ansley n. Fulco, where the Secretary filed a brief as amicus curiae in a California court, in support of an appeal from a judgment awarding damages for libel against a union for the distribution of campaign literature at the request of a candidate, pursuant to section 401(c) of the LMRDA. The court reversed the judgment against the union, referring to the Secretary’s brief.
•	Saunders v. Schoemann, where an Ohio appellate court upheld the contention, supported by the Secretary’s amicus brief, that Title IV precluded state court jurisdiction of a challenge to the setting aside of a local union election by an international union.
Another decision of major importance was issued under the Act’s trusteeship provisions. Hodgson v. UMWA declared invalid the trusteeships maintained by the UMWA over seven of its subordinate Districts.
An action for declaratory judgment under the Act’s reporting provisions, Ruby v. Hodgson, was settled by stipulations providing for compliance by the Master Executive Councils and Local Executive Councils of the Air Line Pilots Association with the reporting requirements for labor organizations.
Non-litigation activity included preparation of several proposed amendments to various Departmental regulations.
Labor Relations
and Civil Rights
During 1972, the demand for legal services under Executive Order 11491 (as amended) increased sharply. Many of the 1,221 representation and unfair labor practice cases processed through the field offices to the national Office of Federal Labor-Management Relations (OFLMR) were reviewed for legal sufficiency by attorneys of the Division of Labor Relations and Civil Rights. Additionally, in conjunction with OFLMR, the Division participated in preparing a revision of the Assistant Secretary’s regulations and in formulating Freedom of Information guidelines. Attorneys from this Division also participated in the Task Force on State and Local Public Employment Legislation of the Labor-Management Services Administration.
Attorneys from this Division participated in the representation of various agencies and offices of this Department in grievances and adverse action proceedings before hearing examiners, arbitrators, and the Civil Service Commission. Legal advice was rendered for the Department’s own Equal Employment Opportunity Program. This Division also represented the Labor-Management Services Administration in a unit determination hearing before the Civil Service Commission and participated in the defense of the Assistant
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Secretary in an unsuccessful suit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania seeking to enjoin an administrative determination by the Assistant Secretary.
Legal services in the civil rights area were concentrated upon the Federal Contract Compliance Program under Executive Order 11246, as amended. Hometown area construction plans were prepared for various major metropolitan areas across the country which required an extensive outlay in attorney manhours to participate in fact-finding and formal hearings, to engage in negotiating and drafting plans, and to advise the contracting agencies of their responsibilities under the construction contract compliance program. The nonconstruction compliance program was significantly expanded by the
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revision and full implementation of Order No. 4. Additionally, participation by this Division’s attorneys was required in pre-award conciliation conferences, in defending lawsuits brought against the Secretary of Labor, in advising the agencies of the procedural and substantive aspects of debarment proceedings, and in prosecuting debarment cases on behalf of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance. Hearings rules for sanction proceedings conducted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance were also prepared. The Division provided extensive assistance in the formulation of proposed guidelines to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin.
The Division continued its close involvement with the Manpower Administration’s Title VI civil rights program, including a reevaluation of the testing procedures utilized by the State Employment Services and the drafting of revised regulations for Title VI enforcement, and assisted the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training in implementing and enforcing the Department’s revised regulations'for equal employment opportunity in apprenticeship.
Attorneys from this Division participated in the Department’s Task Force on Ending Economic Discrimination Against Minorities.
Manpower
The Manpower Division has been, and continues to be, instrumental in implementing the Work Incentive Program as affected by the Talmadge Amendments, effective July 1, 1972; the Public Employment Program (Emergency Employment Act of 1971); welfare reform planning; handling disputes before the Board of Contract Appeals arising from the Department’s annual 10,000 to 12,000 contracts; implementing new legislation in the Unemployment Insurance area; assisting the Department of Justice in numerous important defensive actions in both unemployment insurance and manpower services; and legal services in the whole spectrum of the multi-billion dollar manpower training and employment programs administered by the Manpower Administration.
Occupational
Safety and Health
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health provides legal services to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The first year’s operation of the Administration presented extensive legal problems regarding rulemaking and adjudications. The issuance of the many occupational safety and health standards necessitated the application of difficult requirements under the new Occupational Safety and Health Act and the reconciliation of its provisions with the rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. Rulemaking hearings in the course of the fiscal year involved such matters as the use of rollover protective structures on heavy equipment used in the construction industry, comprehensive standards dealing with the exposure of
64
employees to asbestos dust, use of load-indicating devices on cranes and derricks, and standards for work on power transmission lines. There was some informal rulemaking activity not directly related to the issuance of occupational safety and health standards. This activity principally included proceedings for adopting rules establishing recordkeeping and reporting requirements for employers subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
The Division provided assistance and guidance to the various regional offices of the Solicitor in handling adjudicatory proceedings resulting from the 4,085 citations contested by employers during the year. The Division also was responsible for preparing briefs submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission in its review of the initial decisions of its judges (hearing examiners). In further connection with the enforcement of the Act the Attorneys of the Division have provided extensive counsel in the drafting of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Compliance Operations Manual, a comprehensive administrative manual used by inspectors in applying the Act’s provisions.
The Division, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, obtained injunctive relief under the imminent-danger provisions of the Act in Hodgson v. Greenfield and Associates, et al. The case resulted from the so-called Port Huron tunnel disaster.
65
Attorneys of the Division assisted in establishing procedures for processing State plans to establish State laws in the occupational safety and health field. These plans are, or will be, at least as effective as the Federal program for the adoption and enforcement of occupational safety and health standards.
General
Legal
Services
In the area of administrative procedure, legal activity of the Division of General Legal Services included assistance to the Solicitor in his duties as a member of the Administrative Conference, preparation of replies to questionnaires and similar requests from the Conference for the Department’s views on many aspects of administrative law, and preparation of the Department’s revised regulations under the Freedom of Information Act which liberalized the Department’s policy on public disclosure of its records. This revision met with a favorable reception at Congressional oversight hearings on the Act.
The Division participated in similar oversight hearings on title III, restriction on garnishment, of the Consumer Credit Protection Act. Also, it actively participated in much litigation in the Federal and State courts. One of the two most important cases was Nunn v. The City of Paducah, Ky., the first to reach a Federal appellate court, involving the alleged wrongful discharge of a city employee contrary to the title’s restrictions on taking such action because
66
his salary had been garnished. The Department argued as amicus in the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the summary judgment in favor of the City and sent the case back to the lower court. The other case was First National Bank of Denver v. Columbia Credit Corporation, which the Department argued as amicus in the Colorado Supreme Court and which involved the “multiple” exemption formula applicable to the employees paid on other than a weekly pay period basis. Shortly after the end of the fiscal year, the State Supreme Court reversed the lower court in a 6 to 1 decision, and fully sustained the position taken by the Department that the $96 non-garnishment earnings floor prescribed for a bi-weekly pay period by our regulations applied where the garnishment writ was served before the end of the first week of the employee’s bi-weekly pay period.
Substantial legal services were rendered under Executive Orders 11588, 11615, 11627, and 11640 dealing with stabilization of wages and prices in the construction industry. This included opinions to the Construction Industry Stabilization Committee respecting its jurisdiction and to the various craft dispute boards regarding wage increases provided in collective bargaining agreements.
Extremely important in the construction wage standards area was the Department’s success in invoking in Davis-Bacon administrative enforcement hearings the general subpoena power conferred by 5 USC 304. The Davis-Bacon Act itself contains no subpoena authority, and to the Division’s knowledge no attempt since its passage in 1931 has been made to use section 304. The Department’s applications for subpoenas were granted by three district courts in Florida, Alabama, and Texas.
The Division successfully defended an action in a Texas district court challenging the Secretary’s authority to review a dispute involving a request for addition, to a Davis-Bacon wage determination, of classifications and rates not listed therein. The court held that the disputed matter was exclusively within the Secretary’s jurisdiction and that his determination was final and not subject to judicial review.
Forty-five cases were instituted and 50 were closed by the Division of General Legal Services under the Public Contracts Act and the Service Contract Act. The sharp decline resulted from the transfer of safety and health proceedings under these laws to a different Division of the Solicitor’s Office.
United States v. Powers Building Maintenance Co., 336 F’ Supp. 819 (WD Okla.), was a very important case under the Service Contract Act. In a civil suit to recover back wages found through administrative proceedings to be owed by the defendant-contractor, the court held (1) that the hearing examiner’s findings in this type of administrative proceedings are conclusive on any court if supported by a preponderance of the evidence and subjects of such proceedings are not entitled to a trial de novo; (2) that although the Service Contract Act makes no provision for allowing interest on back wages recovered through litigation, such a right is a question of Federal law
67
and by analogy with decisions under the Fair Labor Standards Act where courts have awarded interest, the United States in a Service Contract Act case is entitled to recover prejudgment interest at 6 percent; and (3) that although the surety was not a party to the administrative proceedings as this is not a requirement of the Act, the surety under the terms of the bond was bound equally with the contractor by the administrative determination.
City Chemical Corp. v. Schreffler was a favorable decision in a New York district court under the Public Contracts Act. An unsuccessful bidder sought to set aside the Department’s determination that the successful bidder was an eligible manufacturer under this law. The court said that since the scope of judicial review under this law is limited to that permitted by the Administrative Procedure Act, the meaning of the term “manufacturer” must within wide limits be left to administrative determination and that this Department and the contracting agency did not exceed their authority and reasonably interpreted this term in including the successful bidder.
In the tariffs and trade area, the Division assisted the Bureau of International Labor Affairs in certifying eligibility of groups of workers to apply for adjustment assistance under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Activity in the review of proposed certifications continued at a high level.
68
A total of 173 appeals were made to the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act. In 163 cases, the Division prepared 114 memoranda in justifying denial of the claims, 37 motions to remand the case to the Office of Employees’ Compensation, and 12 motions to dismiss.
Under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and its extensions, 44 cases in the district courts were referred to the Division and 34 were closed. Twenty-two responsive pleadings defending the determinations of the deputy commissioners were prepared, as well as 12 answers and 2 judgment orders. Division attorneys participated in 11 district court hearings and two appellate proceedings, both in the District of Columbia Circuit.
In the third-party program under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, there were 1,194 cases in which gross recoveries totalled $9,834,641.02. Savings to the Government, including refunds, medical expenses saved, and the unused portions of the surplus established as a credit against payment of future benefits in these cases amounted to $3,061,978.20.
The Division provided continuing legal advice to the Employment Standards Administration regarding the implementation of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, P.L. 91-172, which established a black lung benefits program for disabled coal miners and their survivors. On May 19, 1972, the Black Lung Benefits Act of 1972, P.L. 92-303, was enacted which provided that the Department of Labor would adjudicate claims and pay benefits during the transition period between July 1, 1973 and December 31, 1973. All claims filed after July 1, 1973, will, commencing January 1, 1974, be administered by those States that have benefit programs meeting certain qualifying criteria, or the Department of Labor.
Fair
Labor
Standards
The Fair Labor Standards Division is concerned with enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Equal Pay Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Almost all of the Department’s litigation in the courts arises under these acts.
In fiscal year 1972 some 1800 suits were filed in the Federal courts alleging violations of one or the other of these statutes. This was the second highest number of filings ever recorded by the Department, being exceeded only in fiscal 1970 when 1842 new court actions were commenced.
Included in the total were 156 equal pay cases, over 50 percent more than were filed in fiscal 1971, and 66 age discrimination in employment actions, a 70 percent increase in the 39 suits filed in fiscal 1971 and well over half of all such enforcement cases commenced since the Act became effective in the
69
summer of 1968. This compliance activity involved over 1,800 court appearances, including some 458 appearances at trials.
More than $14 million in unpaid wages was collected for some 77,000 employees as a direct result of litigation activity during fiscal 1972. Considering the ripple effect, literally hundreds of thousands of other employees benefitted.
Compliance activity in the Federal appellate courts involving the three statutes in question increased at the same dramatic pace. Thus, in fiscal 1972, the Division prepared and filed 62 briefs in the courts of appeals as compared with 48 in fiscal 1971 and 35 in fiscal 1970. This was almost a 30-percent increase over the previous year and about 80 percent more than the year before that.
At the end of the fiscal year, 55 cases were pending in the Federal appellate courts, including two in the Supreme Court.
The Division obtained a judgment against General Motors Acceptance Corporation, one of the country’s largest consumer credit companies which, in addition to enjoining future violations, required the firm to make restitution of almost $100,000 in unpaid overtime compensation to about 20 employees, several of whom got about $10,000 each.
The first appellate decision in an age discrimination case was handed down during the year. It established important precedents concerning the burden of proof and the scope and extent of injunctive relief in such cases.
Another first—at least in recent memory—was imposition of jail sentences in two different FLSA cases. One employer received 60 days and the other six months for disobeying injunctive orders issued under the Act. Both also had to pay stiff fines.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer cannot cure equal pay violations by simply opening up the higher paying male jobs to the women who were discriminated against. The only way to erase sex-based pay discrimination is to raise the women to the men’s rates.
Another court of appeals, the Eighth, held that an employer’s asserted inability to pay does not justify a trial court’s failure to order restitution of back wages. Financial embarrassment is only relevant to the question of punishment in a subsequent contempt proceeding for failure to obey the court’s lawful order.
The Fourth Court of Appeals held a training program restricted to one sex an invalid defense to a charge of violating the Equal Pay Act.
Widespread pay discrimination in the retail field was dealt a blow when a court in Alabama held that selling women’s and children’s clothes was substantially equal to selling men’s suits.
70
Legislation and Legal Counsel
The Division of Legislation and Legal Counsel performed numerous legal and drafting services regarding the Administration’s legislative proposals. The Division was responsible for assisting in preparing reports to the Congress and the Office of Management and Budget on a wide variety of legislation affecting labor. It also functioned as legal counsel to the Solicitor and to the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Evaluation, and Research.
Major legislative proposals on which legal services were provided included the Welfare Reform proposals embodied in the Social Security Amendments, the Manpower Revenue Sharing Act, the Administration’s crippling strikes proposal, pension reform legislation, amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, and special legislation relating to labor disputes. Special assistance was rendered in connection with the econonic stabilization program.
Extensive assistance and guidance was rendered to Labor Department officials in preparing testimony and briefings before committees of Congress.
71
Department Report:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration
Office of the
Assistant Secretary
for Administration
Nineteen seventy-two was a year in which the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration (OASA) stepped up its efforts to better serve the Department and its employees.
During the year, OASA was reorganized and its various supportive functions were divided among four Associate Assistant Secretaries having responsibility for program review and audit, organization management and personnel, financial management, and systems development and administrative services.
To implement the President’s policy on equal opportunity for minorities and women, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity was established. This office is responsible for coordinating and evaluating the work of EEO counselors, coordinators, and officers in the National and Regional offices and keeping them informed of up-to-date methods of handling EEO complaints in line with guidelines promulgated by the Civil Service Commission.
To advance the Department’s effort to decentralize authority and responsibility to Regional Offices, the position of Regional Director was established in each of the Department’s ten regions. This action was taken to improve the Department’s ability to manage itself on a decentralized basis and to ensure that Departmental programs and policies will be efficiently coordinated and carried out. A Field Coordination Staff was established in the National office to support the Regional Directors in the performance of their duties.
A field administrative services study was completed to identify problems and recommend actions to improve the delivery of administrative support services to the regional components of the Department. Of 73 recommendations made for improvement, 63 were accepted and were being implemented by the end of the year.
A Department-wide teletype system was established Unking all Regional Office locations and the National Office. This major improvement in communications capability facilitates more effective coordination of current program activities.
Plans for an Upward Mobility Program for grades 1-18 were developed. An important part of this program is the Individual Learning Center which will provide imployees the use of programmed learning equipment, including video cassettes. An Office of Executive Management has been estabUshed to provide for continuous development of executives through planned educational and developmental learning processes through on-the-job and classroom training including seminars and graduate school courses.
The DP contractor-held property accounting system was formally sub
74
mitted to the Comptroller General for approval. With the exception of this segment, the Comptroller General has now approved the Department’s Integrated Accounting and Financial Management Reporting System.
A new 40-hour course, “The Human Side of Management,” was inaugurated in January, 1972 as a part of the Department’s supervisory training. During the year, 146 supervisors received this training.
A Departmental coordinator for the administration of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) was appointed. During the year, 26 Department of Labor, state and local employees participated in the program.
522-314 O - 73 -- 6
75
Department Report:
International
Labor
International
Labor
In the international labor field, a wide range of significant activities were continued in fiscal year 1972.
The Department of Labor International Technical Assistance Corps (DOLITAC) initiated technical aid projects in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin and Central America, and the Near East.
The Overseas Veterans Counseling program, a joint job counseling effort of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs and the Manpower Administration to aid returning veterans, based eight counselors in Europe and nine in Asia. They briefed nearly 100,000 members of the military in groups and approximately 18,000 individually. This effort was part of the President’s Veterans Program.
Nearly 5,000 U.S. workers were found to have lost their jobs because of competitive imports and were certified eligible for trade adjustment assistance. Administrative improvements were made to accelerate the application and certification process for workers eligible for such assistance, and an evaluation of the delivery system at the local level was conducted.
In the field of trade and tariffs, agreements were reached with four major supplying countries for controlling imports of man-made and wool textile and apparel products. Before these agreements, only cotton textile products were controlled. During the year, four new cotton bilateral agreements were negotiated and 12 others were renegotiated. Research into the labor impact of multinational corporations was also initiated.
Training and cultural programs in the labor and manpower fields were arranged for 536 foreign visitors to the United States under the sponsorship of the Agency for International Development, the State Department, the United Nations (U.N.), and other organizations. Among the visitors were the Ministers of Labor of Costa Rica, Honduras, Fiji, Australia, and the Philippines.
Under the trade union exchange program, a 35-member team from 17 countries visited the U.S. to study containerization in the maritime industry and its impact on port labor.
A series of traveling seminars and exhibits was conducted by the Department for the U.S. Information Agency in 11 cities within six countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. The Labor and State Departments co-sponsored a conference in New Delhi, India, for labor attaches from the Near East, South Asia, and East Asia.
The Department continued its participation in the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other U.N. agencies, as well as in the Manpower and Social Affairs Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In addition, the Secretary took part in the eighth session of the Joint U.S.-Japan Committee on Trade and Economic Affairs where it was agreed a joint study of occupational safety and health would be undertaken.
78
Department	Employees’
Report:	Compensation
Appeals Board
Employees’
Compensation
Appeals Board
The Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board (ECAB) adjudicated almost 150 appeals cases arising from decisions under the Federal Employee’s Compensation Act (FECA).
The ECAB has exclusive jurisdiction to consider and decide such appeals cases involving work-connected injuries and diseases under the FECA.
The Board began the fiscal year with 28 cases. During the year, 170 new appeals were docketed and 145 cases were closed. That left 53 pending cases at the end of the year. Of these, only 12 cases were in posture for Board decision. The remainder were awaiting preliminary proceedings or pleadings, such as the filing of a memoranum by the Office of Federal Employees’ Compensation in justification of its determination or reply by appellant pursuant to the Board’s Rules of Procedure.
The average time for deciding an appeal was reduced to 3.2 months, a new record for expediting appeals.
80
Department Report:
Information
Activities
Information
Activities
The Department’s public-information effort in fiscal 1972 was marked by improved management and expanded media services.
The position of Public Affairs Director was established, with a view toward helping develop a stronger program for communicating with Americans in all walks of life.
As in recent previous years, the use of electronic media was expanded.
The Department’s Broadcasting Service continued to feed out tape-recorded news messages by telephone. The messages were re-recorded by radio stations. Daily feeds also were made to USDL regional information offices, which made them available to local and area stations.
Tape-recorded information of special interest to persons about to be discharged from the armed services was provided to the American Forces Radio and Television Service for broadcast overseas.
Plans were being developed for two special radio services, one a weekly Spanish-language news summary for Spanish-language stations and the other for Black-oriented outlets. Both were approaching readiness as the year ended.
More than a score of writers from Information offices received training in the art of writing for broadcast purposes during several seminars.
A seminar directed to black, Spanish-speaking and other minorities was held to learn what could be done to provide better services to minority news media. The result was a constructive discussion among minority media representatives, USDL information people and minority executives, and representatives of the Director of Communications for the Executive Branch.
In San Francisco, a public-information workshop was held. This seminar, called Intercom/72, was designed to coordinate information activities at the Federal and State levels of the social and economic disciplines which impinge upon USDL’s. It set the stage for more such workshops in other regions.
In addition to the steady flow of news releases to the general press, news packets were dispatched weekly to media serving specialized constituencies. These, each tailored for its specific audience, went to labor union publications, weekly newspapers in small towns and rural areas, publications serving mainly black readers, and Spanish-language newspapers, radio stations and television stations.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in its first full year of existence, conducted a major campaign to educate employers and employees about the terms of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
USDL’s manpower specialists put out two films during the year, designed primarily to broaden employers’ understanding of manpower programs.
The Employment Standards Administration also conducted a broad educational program to inform the public of its rights and responsibilities
82
under statutes regulating labor standards and prohibiting discrimination in employment.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics continued to improve and expedite dissemination of the mass of data which its surveys and research uncover.
The Department again enjoyed the cooperation of the Advertising Council, Inc., in a nationwide advertising campaign which sought to motivate youth to go to school or seek meaningful job training. This joint effort has continued for ten years.
Numerous national meetings, conventions and trade fairs were chosen for exhibits portraying USDL programs and activities.
Executives of the Department were active all year long with appearances before a wide variety of groups—labor, business, academic, professional, etc.—explaining and describing the merits of USDL programs. Middle-management personnel also were busy on the speaking circuit, often before student groups.
As always, requests for specialized information poured into Department offices by the tens of thousands.
And, as always, we attempted to give a complete and studied reply to each of them, trying to fulfill our obligation to the public to keep it informed to the highest degree possible.
83
Appendix
Tables
Appendix Tables
Page
Selected employment service activities, U.S. totals for 1960-72 ..... 86
Enrollment opportunities authorized and funds obligated for work and training programs administered by the Department of Labor, by fiscal year, 1963-72 ....................................................... 86
Enrollment opportunities authorized for work and training programs administered by the Department of Labor, by State and program, fiscal year 1972 .................................................... 88
Number of persons enrolled at end of month in selected manpower programs, fiscal year 1972 .......................................... 90
Registered Apprentices, 1941-1972 ................................... 91
Benefit data under State unemployment insurance programs, U.S. totals for 1961-72 and by State for fiscal year 1972 ....................... 92
Unemployment compensation for ex-servicemen, U.S. totals for 1961-72 and by State for fiscal year 1972 ................................... 94
Unemployment compensation for Federal employees, U.S. totals for
1961-72 and by State for fiscal year 1972 ........................ 96
Appropriations and other authorizations, fiscal year 1972 ........... 98
Number of employees on Labor Department rolls, June 30, 1972 ........ 99
85
SELECTED EMPLOYMENT SERVICE ACTIVITIES, U.S. TOTALS FOR 1960-72
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86
Enrollment Opportunities
ENROLLMENT OPPORTUNITIES AUTHORIZED FOR WORK AND TRAINING PROGRAMS* ADMINISTERED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, BY STATE AND PROGRAM, FISCAL YEAR 19722
[In thousands]
88
Mississippi.......... 1.2	1.1	1.9	1.2	13.0	.3	1.4	.4	1.3
89
NUMBER OF PERSONS ENROLLED AT END OF MONTH IN SELECTED MANPOWER PROGRAMS, FISCAL YEAR 1972
90
REGISTERED APPRENTICES, 1941-72
(Adjusted to account for reporting revisions)
	Year	In training on Jan. 1	New registrations1	Completions	Cancellations2	1 n training on Dec. 31
	1941 . . . .	18,300	14,177	1,289	5,051	26,137
	1942 . . . .	26,137	20,701	2,011	4,683	40,144
	1943 . . . .	40,144	11,661	1,715	6,975	43,115
	1944 . . . .	43,115	7,775	2,122	8,197	40,571
	1945 . . . .	40,571	23,040	1,568	5,078	56,965
	1946 . . . .	56,965	84,730	2,042	8,436	131,217
	1947 . . . .	131,217	94,238	7,311	25,190	192,954
	1948 . . . .	192,954	85,918	13,375	35,117	230,380
	1949 . . . .	230,380	66,745	25,045	41,257	230,823
	1950 . . . .	230,823	60,186	38,533	49,747	202,729
	1951 . . . .	202,729	63,881	38,754	56,845	171,011
	19523 . . .	172,477	62,842	33,098	43,689	158,532
	1953 . . . .	158,532	73,620	28,561	43,333	160,258
Jl	1954 . . . .	160,258	58,939	27,383	33,139	158,675
	1955 . . . .	158,675	67,265	24,795	26,423	174,722
	1956 . . . .	174,722	74,062	27,231	33,416	188,137
	19573 . . .	189,684	59,638	30,356	33,275	185,691
	1958 . . . .	185,691	49,569	30,647	26,918	177,695
r	1959 . . . .	177,695	66,230	37,375	40,545	166,005
	I9603 . . .	172,161	54,100	31,727	33,406	161,128
	1961 . . . .	161,128	49,482	28,547	26,414	155,649
	1962 . . . .	155,649	55,590	25,918	26,434	158,887
	1963 . . . .	158,887	57,204	26,029	26,744	163,318
	1964 . . . .	163,318	59,960	25,744	27,001	170,533
	1965 . . . .	170,533	68,507	24,917	30,168	183,955
	1966 . . . .	183,955	85,031	26,511	34,964	207,511
	1967 . . . .	207,511	97,896	37,299	47,957	220,151
	19683 . . .	207,517	111,012	37,287	43,246	237,996
	1969 . . . .	237,996	123,163	39,646	47,561	273,952
	19704 . . .	269,626	108,779	45,102	53,610	279,693
	19714 . . .	278,451	78,535	42,071	43,104	274,024
	1972 . . . .	274,024				
1 Includes reinstatements.
2Cancellations are not synonymous with “dropouts,” since they include layoffs, discharges, out-of-State transfers, upgrading within certain trades, and suspensions for military service, as well as voluntary “quits."
3 Major revisions in reporting system effected this year.
4 Revision of 1969 and 1970 yearend figures reported by most States.
522-314 O - 73 -- 7
91
BENEFIT DATA UNDER STATE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE PROGRAMS, U.S. TOTALS FOR 1961-72 AND BY STATE FOR FISCAL YEAR 1972
0)
92
Kentucky ........... 142,476	21,203	3.3	68,247	16,697	134.70	49.22	35.0	23.3	12.7	21.5	18,556	24.1
Louisiana........... 194,384	26,779	3.6	80,962	23,972	140.25	48.82	33.5	24.4	15.4	22.4	30,974	34.4
Maine............... 105,788	14,134	6.4	46,792	11,560	120.00	48.44	39.4	20.2	12.8	17.4	17,397	35.4
Maryland............ 241,609	33,493	3.5	112,863	28,553	140.53	60.13	40.2	26.0	13.2	26.0	28,440	25.0
93
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION FOR EX-SERVICEMEN,1 U.S. TOTALS FOR 1961-72 AND BY STATE FOR FISCAL YEAR 1972
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94
’Except for total benefits paid, data shown exclude claims and	2 Includes payments for partial unemployment,
payments made jointly with other unemployment insurance programs. All	P = Preliminary
columns relate to persons claiming benefits solely on the basis of military
service.
95
96
Maine..................... 9,164	513	103	97	364	299,473	43.77	13.8
Maryland................ 121,359	2,956	738	517	1,443	1,962,373	61.39	18.6
Massachusetts............ 63,201	6,056	1,631	1,927	5,476	8,867,221	61.00	18.3
Michigan................. 54,957	3,822	655	637	1,914	2,206,063	52.68	17.3
Minnesota................ 30,966	1,443	222	258	876	831,064	52.66	15.3
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APPROPRIATIONS AND OTHER AUTHORIZATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 1972
Function	Positions	Amount
Training under Manpower Training Services		103	$1,682,066,000
Federal benefit payments to unemployed Federal workers, ex-servicemen,and persons displaced under Trade Adjustment Act 			856,600,000
Emergency Employment Assistance		565	1,000,000,000
Administration of unemployment compensation and employment service administration 		305	832,000,000
Advances to Extended Unemployment compensation account			600,000,000
Administration of other manpower programs		4,052	89,622,000
Total manpower programs		5,025	5,060,288,000
Benefit payments to injured Federal employees . . .		112,000,000
Labor-management services		1,076	22,798,000
Employment Standards Administration		2,624	49,150,000
Occupational Safety and Health Administration . . .	1,696	36,008,000
Labor statistics		1,340	37,300,000
Departmental management		971	21,129,000
Total other programs			7,707	278,385,000
Total Department of Labor appropriations . . . .	12,732	5,338,673,000
Funds appropriated to other agencies’ programs administered by Department of Labor: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (Work Incentive Funds) 			227	185,136,000
Agency for International Development		110	2,425,638
Federal Employees’ Compensation Act claims . . . .		86,620,000
Grand Total 		13,069	5,612,854,638
98
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES ON LABOR DEPARTMENT ROLLS, JUNE 30, 1972
99
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1973 O - 522-314
V