[Final Report, June 28, 1946]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
FINAL
REPORT
FAIR EMPLOYMENT
PRACTICE COMMITTEE
June 28, 1946
United States Government Printing Office Washington: 1947
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office. Washington 25, D. C. - Price 30 cents
THE COMMITTEE ON FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE
Malcolm Ross, Chairman
John Brophy
Charles L. Horn
Boris Shishkin
Sara E. Southall
Milton P. Webster
George M. Johnson, Deputy Chairman
Clarence M. Mitchell, Director of Field Operations
Eugene Davidson, Assistant Director of Field Operations
John A. Davis, Director, Division of Review and Analysis
Marjorie M. Lawson, Assistant Director
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CONTENTS
Page
Letter of Transmittal and Resignation_________________?_____________ v
Letter of Acceptance________I — -.__________________________________' vn
Summary and Conclusions_____________________A________________________ _ vm
Part I. Wartime Experiences_________T______________________________ 1
Value of the national policy against discrimination in industry_i _ 1
Acceptance of minority group workers in war industries. _____...____ 4
Domestic war morale_________________________________________________ 5
International aspects of discrimination______i.___.L____________ 6
Administrative procedure___________________________________ _ 7
Effectiveness of FEPC________________________________________2_______ 8
The difficult cases_________________________________________________ 11
Aircraft_______________________________________________:__11
Railroads. ________________________________________________ 12
Street railways_____________________________________________ 14
St. Louis_____________________________________________________ 17
Cincinnati _ J___________________________________________ 19
West coast shipyard cases____'______________________________ 19
Boilermakers______________________________________________ 19
Seafarers International Union (A. F. of L.)_________________ 22
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, and Helpers (A. F. of L.)________________________________ 22
Shell Oil Co__________________________________________1_____________ 23
Governmental support of the nondiscrimination policy________________ 23
War Department______________________à_______________________________ 24
Navy Department_____________________________________________________ 25
Maritime Commission.________________________________________________ 26
War Shipping Administration.______________________;________________ 28
War Manpower Commission_______________________________________________ 29
Civil Service Commission______________________________________________ 30
Regional wartime experience.________________________________________ 33
The South. _ _ _____________________________________________________ 33
The Northeast_______________________________________________,_______ 36
The Middle West_________________________________________________I ” 36
The West____________________________________________________/_________ 37
Minority groups_______________________________________._____________ 38
Mexican-Americans,____________________________________________________ 38
Religious cases_____________________________________________________ 39
Japanese-Americans____________________________________________________ 39
til
Page
Part II. After VJ-Day________________________—-------------------- 41
Problems of reconversion_______________________________________ 41
Impact of reconversion on minority workers_____________________ 41
Reconversion reports on status of minority workers for 10 selected communities. ______________________________________________ 48
Introduction and acknowledgments_____________________________________ 48
Kansas City--------------------------------------------------------- 50
St. Louis__________________________________________________________ 56
Detroit_____________________________ -4- --------------------------- 60
Toledo_____________________,___________________-------------------- 64
Chicago___________________________________________________________ 65
Indianapolis_________________________________________________________ 70
New York..______________________________________________________ 72
The west coast_____________:__________T--------. .----------------- 75
Portland, Oreg., and Seattle, Wash...__________._______ 75
San Francisco----------------------------------------- 77
Los Angeles_____________________________________________ 81
Unemployment and job changes of Negroes in St. Louis during reconversion_________________________________________________ 83
Reconversion problems of minority group veterans___>___________ 86
Postwar opportunities by industry______________________________... 89
Discriminatory wage rates______________________________________:____91
Migrations____________________________------------------------------ 92
The relation of Negro employment to the general economy_____________ 94
Racial tension______________________________________________________ 95
Appendix A. Executive Orders 8802, 9346, 9664__________t___________98-101
Appendix B. Memorandum to Heads of All Government Departments, Agencies and Independent Establishments. _ 102
Appendix C. Letters from Heads of Departments Summarizing Their Wartime Experience With the Nondiscrimination Policy as Expressed in Executive Orders 8802, 9346 and 9664_______________________________________________ 103
Letter, April 1, 1946, from the Acting President, U. S.
Civil Service Commission,_______________________ 103
Letter, April 17, 1946, from the Director, Department of Labor, United States Employment Service_______ 110
Letter, March 16, 1946, from the Secretary of War_ 112
Letter, April 10, 1946, from the Acting Secretary of the
Navy____________________________________________ 113
Letter, March 29, 1946, from the Acting Chairman, United States Maritime Commission_________t______ 120
Letter, March 19, 1946, from the Acting Administrator, War Shipping Administration_______________________ 126
Letter, March 23, 1946, from the Postmaster General. _ 127
IV
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL AND RESIGNATION
Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Washington^ June 28, 19^6.
The President of the United States.
Dear Mr. President: The Fair Employment Practice Committee has the honor to transmit to you its final report on the Committee’s wartime activities, and on the present status of minority group workers.
We are making this report in accordance with your request, in Executive Order 9664, that,
As a part of its duties the Committee shall investigate, make findings and recommendations, and report to the President with respect to discrimination in industries engaged in work contributing to the production of military supplies or to the effective transition to a peacetime economy.
The Committee’s first B^port, published in June, 1945, covered in detail the major part of its wartime experience. In its present final report the Committee has endeavored to draw together its entire five years’ experience, in the belief that it will serve as a guide to the solution of the continuing problem of employment discrimination.
The Committee’s wartime experience shows that in the majority of cases discriminatory practices by employers and unions can be reduced or eliminated by simple negotiation when the work of the negotiator is backed up by firm and explicit National policy.
FEPC’s unsolved cases show that Executive authority is no^ enough to insure compliance in the face of stubborn opposition. Only legislative authority will insure compliance in the small number of cases in which employees or unions or both refuse after negotiation to abide by the National policy of nondiscrimination.
Studies made by and for the Committee since VJ-day show that I the wartime gains of Negro, Mexican-American, and Jewish workers ( are being dissipated through an unchecked revival of discriminatory practices. The future status of minority group workers depends, the Committee believes, on the course of action to be taken by the Con-giess relative to the passage of Federal fair employment legislation.^
The long history of industrial discrimination against minority group workers, the war-time resistance to the granting of equal
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opportunity, and the current revival of discrimination all impel the Committee to request your consideration of the following recommendations :
1. Conformity to the national policy of nondiscrimination will come only when fair employment practice legislation has been adopted by the Congress. We recommend, therefore, that you. continue to urge upon the Congress the passage of legislation which will guarantee equal job opportunity to all workers without discrimination because of race, color, religious belief, or national origin,
2. The mere existence of a Federal policy of nondiscrimination will not in itself result in fair employment practices within the Federal service or by Government contractors. We recommend therefore, that the Federal Government take steps not only to promulgate its policy more widely, but to enforce it as well.
3. The employment handicaps of minority-group workers are not fully known because of the incomplete reporting on employment and unemployment by race and by sex within industries apd occupations. We recommend, therefore, that the appropriate Government agencies be instructed to include such statistics.
The members of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, their official duties being ended with submission of this Report, respectfully request that their resignations be accepted.
Respectfully,
Malcolm Ross, Chairman.
Sarah Southall.
Boris Shishkin.
Milton P. Webster.
Charles L. Horn.
John Brophy.
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LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE
June 28, 1946. '
Dear Mr. Ross : I have your letter of June 28, containing the resignations of yourself and your fellow Committee members, together with recommendations made pursuant to Executive Order No. 9664.
The members of your Committee performed an important war service task of great difficulty and delicacy. They performed it capably, even under a continuous barrage of criticism and harassment.
The degree of effectiveness which the Fair Employment Practice Committee was able to attain has shown once and for all that it is possible to equalize job opportunity by governmental action, and thus eventually to eliminate the influence of prejudice in the field of employment.
Please convey to the members of the Committee my appreciation of the devotion they brought to this war-time task. I thank them for their service, and I accept their resignations with great regret.
Very sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman.
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The wartime gains of Negro, Mexican-American and Jewish workers are being lost through an unchecked revival of discriminatory practices.
The war veterans of these minority groups today face far greater difficulties than other veterans in obtaining training and finding work.
Government action was effective in reducing wartime discrimination, but the gains made by minority group workers began to disappear as soon as wartime controls were relaxed.
Nothing short of congressional action to end employment discrimination can prevent the freezing of American workers into fixed groups, with ability and hard work of no account to those of the “wrong” race or religion.
This denial of equal opportunity, if allowed to become permanent, cannot fail to create civic discord and to be a cause of embarrassment to the United States in its international relations.
Two fundamentally hopeful facts developed out of the Government’s efforts to open wartime opportunities to all workers:
1. Employers and workers abandoned discrimination in most cases where Government intervened.
2. Once the barriers were down, the workers of varying races and religions worked together efficiently and learned to accept each other without rancor.
FEPC during its 5 years satisfactorily settled nearly 5,000. cases by peaceful negotiation, including 40 strikes caused by racial differences. During the last year of the war, FEPC held 15 public hearings and docketed a total of 3,485 cases, settling 1,191 of them. These settlements were not publicized and generally escaped attention. The contrary impression, that FEPC normally met with unyielding opposition, was created by the comparatively few difficult cases which received emphasis through public hearings and public expressions of defiance by some recalcitrant employers and unions.
In fact, the bulk of FEPC’s useful work was accomplished by the quiet persuasion of its regional representatives assigned to 15 regional and subregional offices located in major industrial centers.
That is not to say that persuasion alone can end discrimination. The employer’s need for war workers, or his patriotism, or dislike of
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exposure, each in its respective situation was a powerful incentive to stop discrimination. The practice, however, seldom disappeared spontaneously. The intervention of a third party, with authority to act if necessary, was required to start the process in motion.
The effective limits of persuasion appeared in the outstanding cases which FEPC never was able to settle. Relatively few in number, these employers and unions which successfully defied the national policy of nondiscrimination proved that persuasion must be backed by final authority if conformity with the policy is to be realized.
Government itself, as an employer, was subject to the final authority of the President and could not with impunity evade Executive Order No. 9346. This did not deter many officials in the vast wartime Government service from attempting to discriminate, as evidenced by the fact that 25 percent of FEPC’s case load came from Government sources. Nevertheless, the fact that the national policy was firm, and that agency heads were committed to it, created an atmosphere in which minority group members made great gains both in numbers and in grades of jobs. Signs of serious relaxation have appeared since V-J Day.
A concern not to return to prewar discrimination is apparent in many Government agencies, even though little is left to implement such concern. The Civil Service Commission, the War and Navy De-* partments, the Maritime Commission, the War Shipping Administration, and the War Manpower Commission all recently acknowledged that the wartime attempt to end discrimination, if not wholly effective, was worth while and should be continued in peacetime.
FEPC IN FISCAL YEAR 1945-46
The National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1946, approved by Congress oh July 17, 1945, included a $250,000 appropriation for the Committee on Fair Employment Practice. The act provided that this sum be used “for completely terminating the functions and duties of the Committee * * *” and provided further, “That if and until the Committee * * * is continued by an Act of Congress the amount named * * * may be used for its continued operation until an additional appropriation shall have been provided
The occurrence of VJ-Day less than a month later, followed by the wholesale cancellation of war contracts, raised questions concerning the Committee’s jurisdiction over private industry reconverting to peacetime production. The Committee immediately sought clarification of its responsibilities in industrial reconversion while holding that its authority to eliminate discrimination in government employment and in the performance of government contracts remained unimpaired.
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On December 20, 1945, President Truman issued Executive Order 9664, continuing the Committee’s work under “the duties and responsibilities” of the previous executive orders and “for the period and subject to the conditions” stated in its appropriation. In addition, the Committee was empowered to “investigate, make findings and recommendations, and report to the President with respect to discrimination in industries engaged in work contributing to the production of military supplies or to the effective transition to a peacetime economy.”
The Committee’s decreased appropriation necessitated two early cuts in staff, one in August and another in December 1945. These two cuts reduced the total personnel to 31 out of a previous total of 128 persons. In addition, as of that date, all field offices except those in Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis had been closed- Further cuts followed in March and on May 3, it became necessary to put all employees on leave without pay status. Except for volunteer work, active operation ceased on that date. . The Committee, however, has remained in being through June 28.
INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT OF DISCRIMINATION AT HOME
During the war Germany .and Japan used instances of American discrimination for purposes of hostile propaganda. Today our uncorrected discrimination enters as an adverse factor in the peace councils. In a recent letter to FEPC, then Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson stated that in his opinion “the existence of discrimination against minority groups in the United States is a handicap in our relations with other countries. The Department of State, therefore, has good reason to hope for the continued and increased effectiveness of public and private efforts to do away with these discriminations.”
STATUS OF MINORITY GROUP WORKERS DURING THE WAR
The minority groups most frequently subjected to discrimination during the war, as recorded by charges filed with FEPC, were Negroes, Jews, Mexican-Americans, and a scattering of religious creeds, as well as Nisei, aliens and citizens of recent origin in foreign countries.
Negroes, comprising the largest group, filed 80 percent of FEPC complaints. In general, discrimination against workers among the 3,000,000 Mexican-Americans in this country parallels that against Negro workers, so that facts stated about the problems of one may stand for both.
In 1940 a disproportionate number of Negroes were unemployed and on relief.
The early defense period failed to help them, since unemployed
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whites were the first tö receive training and jobs in the mushrooming war industries.
Negroes began entering war jobs in large numbers in 1942, and continued through 1945 to make gains, both in the number of industries entered and in the recognition of skills.
Despite the advances of Negroes beyond menial labor (greater than in World War I or eVer before) the “hard, hot and heavy” wär jobs still fell largely to the lot of Negroes. This was true because white workers were first to rise above common labor, while Negroes newly entering the war labor market took the vacated common labor jobs. By dint of war need for skills, plus Government action against discrimination, a large proportion of Negroes did become skilled operators and foremen in wär plants. Nevertheless, their basic concentration remained, änd still remäihs, in common läbor.
Negro wär employment increased steadily throughout the wär period, while total war employment declined steadily froin peaks in late 1943 and early 1944.
However, the seniority of colored workers is less than that of white workers in those industries which häve continued into the postwar period because Negro workers entered war production very late. Negroes stayed on until VJ-däy in the munitions industries, especiälly in shipbuilding and aircraft, which had little Or no postwar prospects. They were unable, because of racial barriers, to transfer to other employment. And their low seniority, in those industries in which they are still employed, subjects them to the risk of further displacement by returning veterans.
Of seven war centers studied by FEPC during reconversion, all but Chicago showed a heavier loss of jobs by Negro than by white workers and a necessity on the part of Negro workers to accept the lowest paid jobs. The Census Bureau’s unemployment rates between July 1945 and May 1946 show a consistently higher rate of unemployment among colored workers.
The chance to keep any job fell off for Negroes during the year ending January 1946 much more’ rapidly than for white war workers. A like decrease appeared in the opportunities to keep or obtain jobs above the level of common labor. Whereas during the war many Negroes had risen into the skilled, professional, and managerial categories, by 1946 these openings for them had dwindled to a scant few. New York city was an exception.
Skilled jobs mean better wages. Negro income, generally lower than white income, took a sharp over-all cut during the year that saw the war’s close. "
Discriminatory advertisements in daily newspapers have increased
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greatly since VJ-day, both against Negroes and Jews. A sample study of job orders in 11 selected areas during February 1946 showed 24 percent of the orders to be discriminatory. In a large sampling of orders for Government jobs, 10 percent had discriminatory specifications.
DISCRIMINATORY WAGE RATES
Negro workers, especially in the South, and the workers of Mexican origin in the Southwest, traditionally have been subject to wage discrimination. Although their earnings rose with the general wage rises of wartime, the differentials remained during the war.
In July 1942 hourly entrance rates of adult male common laborers averaged 47.4 cents per hour for Negro workers as compared with 65.3 cents per hour for white workers. Examples of differentials in such industries as iron and steel, meat packing, fertilizer manufacturing and leather, and for various occupations are numerous enough to base a conclusion that discrimination exists at all wage levels.
The war did little to change the relative disadvantage of Negroes and Mexican-Americans. Their concentrations in the common labor force, their lower wage rates, and “their difficulties in climbing into higher brackets, no matter what their individual abilities, are continuing sources of race friction and economic loss.
POSTWAR POSSIBILITIES
The outlook for the Negro worker has some bright spots. Negroes have long been important in the construction industry. Their acquired war skills, barring discrimination, could be well utilized in the veterans’ housing program, which is estimated to require the labor of 2,000,000 workers.
Broad opportunities for Negro labor exist in the iron and steel industry, in meat packing, communications instrument manufacturing, lumber, coal mining, tobacco, food processing, automobile and agricultural implement manufacturing and in the clothing and apparel industry.
The railroads offer a large, if restricted, volume of employment to Negroes. Wholesale and retail trade employs many Negroes, although at low skill utilization.
Shipbuilding, aircraft and ammunition, where Negroes found their greatest war production opportunities, are declining.
The 300,000 Negroes in peak civilian Government service were mostly industrial workers in Army and Navy establishments, and have experienced reconversion cut-backs.
White collar jobs in banking, insurance and financial services are open to Negroes only in Negro institutions.
In all industries, and in Government service, the attitude toward
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discrimination is the key to future expansion or contraction of Negro opportunities.
WARTIME MIGRATIONS
During the war more than 700,000 Negroes migrated across StateA lines. The movement was mainly from the South to industrial cities I in other parts of the country. The loss of manpower to the South, I and the necessary adjustments of the migrants to their new communi-y ties, constitute a national problem.
The wartime migration brought the largest increases of Negro population to northern and West coast cities. White workers, who also migrated in large numbers, began in 1943 to return home, but Negroes continued to arrive through 1945, and to a lesser extent they are still on the move.
As in World War I, white war workers are showing a disposition^ to go back home while Negroes tend to stay in the centers where they \ found war work.
Many Negro workers, who have become permanent dwellers in great industrial cities of the North, East, and West, face basic difficulties. They have taxed the already inadequate housing, educational, transportation, recreation, and commercial city facilities. They must have employment and these normal requirements of citizens, or else become social and economic liabilities.
The older population of these cities in turn must make its adjustments to the newcomers. In some industrial centers there are present moves to eject Negroes from wartime housing, with the evident purpose to discourage Negroes from remaining in the community. Rather than leave, Negro families double up with other Negro families.
A negative attitude toward Negro workers, who were welcomed when war labor was short, creates bitterness. Nor can it solve th,e economic problem of the Negro as an income producer and taxpayer. Given the fact of their determination to remain where they are, industrial jobs for Negro war workers are the only means of avoiding heavy relief burdens and civic unrest.
minority group war veterans
All reports on minority group war veterans show that they are meeting greater difficulties than other veterans in entering school, being admitted to apprenticeship training, getting GI loans and being placed in jobs at their skill levels.
In many Veterans’ Employment offices there is a marked difference in the treatment accorded minority veterans. In the South, separate and unequal services are provided Negroes and Mexican-Americans. Elsewhere the tendency is to refer Negroes, Jews, and Nisei only to
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menial jobs, to advice thepi to file for unemployment insurance instead of skilled work, and to refer them to community organizations— unequipped to deal with their problems—if they insist upon proper consideration for training and placement.
For the most part these officers reflect the practices prevailing in the hiring halls of industry. About one-fifth of all firms question veteran applicants as to their religion. A fourth of the commercial employment agencies require religious identification. Of all Jewish veterans who apply for jobs, one-tenth feel that they do not get proper consideration, even where vacancies exist, because of their religion-
Given the alternative of accepting a menial job requiring no skill oj? training, or of shifting for themselves, many former GI’s have selected the latter., In so doing, some have discovered that barriers to employment can be broken down through adequate preparation and persistent effort. The others sign up for their $20 weekly readjust' ment pay allowance.
A survey of job-seeking by Jews since VJ-day, conducted in 15 cities by local Jewish organizations showed a marked rise of discrimination against all Jewish applicants and that Jews who had fought for their country fared no better than those who had not.
This survey also revealed that discrimination in New York and New Jersey cities, covered by fair employment practice laws, was far lower than in cities where no attempts were being made to control discrimination.
The machinery for providing guaranteed assistance to minority group war veterans is presently inadequate. Whether these veterans are to become a national liability or self-supporting citizens depends on how much, and how soon, proper guidance, training, employment opportunities, financial aid and moral backing are forthcoming.
METHODS NECESSARY TO END INDUSTRIAL DISCRIMINATION
FEPC activities extended over the defense period, the war and the first months of reconyersipp. The Committee makes full acknowledgment of the vital support given the national policy of nondiscrimination by the Civil Service Commission, the War Manpower Commission, and other Departments and agencies. FEPC, however, worked more directly on the problem than any other agency. It devised and testefl the methods for enforcing government policy in this controversial field.
In the belief that Government should take steps to meet the evil of unequal opportunity among Americans, FEPC offers the following observations drawn from its wartime experience.
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Informal Negotiation
The majority of all discrimination cases can be settled by informal negotiation. Hostility to the admission of minority group workers is invariably more local than real, and it is often fomented by a very few who seek to win leadership by displays of intolerance.
A determined employer can overcome such hostility, the more easily if his local union supports him.
An international union with a firm nondiscrimination policy can make its local unions practice nondiscriminatioii, the more easily if local union leaders strongly assert the international’s policy.
A union bent oh overcoming discrimination can often lead a passive employer toward thé same objective.
À National Policy Against Discrimination
Discriminatory practices, if they can be solved by negotiation, are the more quickly ended when the National Government makes clear that its authority will be exercised against offenders. Such authority need be sparingly uséd. Its mere existence serves to ease the Way to settlements at every stage of negdtiation.
Education
Community educational efforts on racial problems are essential, whether in places where discriminatory practices have deep roots or in localities where Negro and Mexican-American war workers have recently settled in large numbers, or in cities where the war-bred sickness of intolerance has stimulated anti-Semitism.
Specific industrial discrimination against minority groups will not yield to community educational efforts alone. A few noisy intolérants can create situations which only authority can settle.
In what FEPC has described as its difficult cases (Western Cartridge, Capital Transit, West Coast Shipyards, Southern Railroads, etc.), education alone could not end discrimination, yet education would be an invaluable aid to create the atmosphere in which authority could work out its solution peacefully.
Social Patterns
Communities differ in their attitudes toward minority groups. However, the plea of the prevailing social pattern is no excuse for entrenched discrimination. FEPC has seen this excuse offered by employers who do not wish to be bothered by racial problems, and by unions who wish to maintain the economic advantages of limited membership. Among some employer and labor groups there is disposition not to be the first to move against discrimination. The
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artificial social pattern can be broken by employers and unions who recognize its nature, as FEPC experience has well shown.
Once discrimination is removed, the normal effect is a friendlier attitude of race toward race. * Cooperation takes the place of rancor. Plant morale improves. A series of such advances in local industries can go far toward changing community racial relationships, and can provide the foundation for better interracial feeling.
Public Hearings
The public hearing is an essential step toward the ending of discrimination where negotiation has failed. Dislike of public exposure of their intolerant actions is a stimulant to move the indifferent or the timid into taking the first steps by which workers of different racial or religious backgrounds may be brought together to work in harmony.
Court Decisions Against Discrimination
The United States Supreme Court rulings against discrimination in railroad employment in» the Steele and Tunstall cases, and the Supreme Court of California ruling against discrimination in shipyard employment in the James case completely support prior FEPC directives covering the identical issues. Yet these court decisions leave the respective victims of discrimination under the same practical disadvantage which they suffered before the Court spoke. The present legal remedies for discrimination involve expensive and lengthy suits to force an end to individual grievances.
No device will solve the problem short of the enactment by Congress of Federal fair employment legislation.
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PART I. WARTIME EXPERIENCE
VALUE OF THE NATIONAL POLICY AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN INDUSTRY
Equality of job opportunity permits a man to make a place for himself according to his skill. • America was reared on the supposition that no barriers to a livelihood exist except a man’s own inability or laziness.
Prior to World War II this concept was never backed by law; in part because the majority of Americans never felt the need for protection of job opportunity, in part because of unchallenged habits of assigning low-paid, heavy work to such groups as Negroes and Mexican-Americans.
The first national step to make equal job opportunity a protected right was taken six months before Pearl Harbor. National self-preservation inspired it. The blitzkrieg had demonstrated the importance of mass production of war materials. Our period of national defense might at any moment change to a state of war. A Social Security Board survey of American manpower needs showed, in 1941, a blockade of the full use of minority group labor which, if removed, might vastly increase production and in degree improve our chances to face the mighty war machines of the Axis and Japan.
At the beginning of the defense period, Negro workers were mostly on farms, in service, or at unskilled jobs. The percentage of Negroes in manufacturing was lower than it had been 30 years before. Although every tenth American is a Negro, only 1 Negro in 20 was in. defense industry. Every seventh white American was a skilled craftsman; only 1 Negro in 22 had a skilled rating. Many trade unions had constitutional barriers to Negro membership. Two-thirds of the Negro labor force was located in southern States holding only 13.5 percent of defense production contracts.
The million and a half Mexican-Americans in the labor force were similarly under-utilized, the vast majority being confined to common labor.
The defense period opened with a sizeable reserve of the unemployed. The white unemployed were first called back, trained and put on the job. Negroes remained disproportionately unemployed and on relief.
701290—47---=2
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Discriminatory hiring habits, in 1941, squarely barred the entrance of millions of minority group Americans into the factories and shipyards where productive skills were about to begin their race against the destruction of American lives and property.
America, peace loving and incredulous that the tragedy of World War I was about to be reenacted, had need also to strengthen its own democracy. The Axis brutalities to minority groups, and the Japanese rape of China were preparing American minds for inevitable war in defense of human decency, without, however, having stimulated action against racial discrimination in our own house.
Executive Order 8802, signed by President Roosevelt June 25,1941, both protected equality of job opportunity and stated “thè firm belief that the democratic way of life within the nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders * * *.”
The life of the President’s Committee bn Fair Employment Practice, established to implement Executive Order 8802, extended for five years through the defense, war, and reconversion periods. It went into three phases.
The first Committee was composed of six part-time members and a small Washington staff. In this new and controversial field the first Committee did yeoman service by devising a set of policies and by holding public hearings to examine specific complaints of discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national ancestry. The open disclosure through public testimony of discriminatory practices inspired considerable hostility against the Committee. Nevertheless, a subsequent check showed that the war industries involved in hearings scattered West, south and north, resulted in a higher utilization of minority group workers in the war plants involved thàn obtained in war plants not subjected to hearings.
The second FEPC was set up May 27, 1943, under Executive Order 9346. The new Committee had a full-time chairman and six part-time members chosen from management, labor and the general public. This Committee expanded its operations to 15 field offices covering the nation. It handled, in 3 years, some 8,000 complaints of discrimination within war industry and Government service. It held 30 public hearings. Its reliance on Executive funds was abandoned^ and twice the Committee received appropriations from Congress to carry on its operations.
The last phase of FEPC began after VJ-day when war production ceased. Executive Order 9664, issued by President Truman on December 18,1945, ordered the Committee, as part of its duties, to report to thè President “with respect to discrimination in industries en
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gaged in work contributing to the production of military supplies or to the effective transition to a peacetime economy-”
There is full evidence that the wartime national policy of nondiscrimination contributed much to the shortening of the war- The policy was binding on all government agencies, on war contractors' and on the unions.
The great war worker recruiting services, such as the War Manpower Commission and the War Shipping Administration, were constrained by Executive Order to eliminate discrimination. The War and Navy Departments, employers of more than a million industrial war workers, were bound to protect equal job opportunity. The Federal Government was obligated to be a model employer. A nondiscrimination clause was in every war contract.
All this is not to say that the policy was not repeatedly and consistently breached within all groups under FEPC jurisdiction. Discriminatory practices were too ingrained to be wholly carved out even by patriotism and Presidential authority. The Federal Government’s FEPC was never given final authority to end discrimination. Nevertheless, the existence of a clear national policy, and the constant efforts to make it effective, produced two important results. The conscience of the nation was aroused against the maintenance of underprivileged racial and religious groups within our own borders; the use of minority group war workers was greatly advanced.
Airplanes, guns and ammunition, and the ships to carry them, were the prime war needs. At the peak of War production in November 1944 there were 107,000 nonwhite workers in aircraft, 182,000 in shipbuilding and 142,000 in ordnance. To these, add 10,000 Mexican-Americans in California shipyards and 96,000 in the aircraft industry. Consider also that here hundreds of thousands of former farm hands had expanded wartime productive capacity by learning to become welders, chippers, inspectors, and leadermen. In contrast to the token employment of minority group workers during the defense period, here in these three vital war industries was a utilization of Negroes and Mexican-Americans large enough to increase production appreciably. By withdrawing the barriers to their labor, America had added an extra margin of desperately needed bombers, bullets and ships.
There were, at the war peak, 300,000 Negro civilian employees in Government service. The majority of these were actually industrial workers in army arsenals and navy shipyards, and their Government status ended at VJ-day. Nearly 100,000. Negroes staffed Government offices. Their levels of applied skills were far higher than Negroes had ever before attained in Government. Again the national policy against discrimination must be credited.
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Negro women workers found their first foothold in industry during World War I. Their contribution at that time was multiplied a thousand times between the period from 1942 to 1944. The lives of American soldiers were saved by communications equipment assembled by the fingers of thousands of Negro women workers.
ACCEPTANCE OF MINORITY GROUP WORKERS IN WAR INDUSTRIES
In general the workers in war industries willingly accepted minority group members, and, in many instances, their new tolerance will have a lasting effect on peacetime work relationships.
FEPC spent much energy in attempts to persuade workers to live on equal shop terms with minority group members. The problem is a continuing one, and some benefit may come from examining its wartime phase. The trade union movement in general accepts the principle of equal opportunity. The war merely accented the fact that unions which adhere strictly to it at the top cannot always control intolerant locals,, and that some unions still do not put into practice the principles to which they give lip service?
Worker hostility against minority groups is basically economic. FEPC was called on to intervene in many cases where white workers refused to work side by side with Negroes, Jews, Mexican-Americans, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Often a few intolérants won other workers to their way of thinking, and in some cases, the tide of racial feelings swept thousands out on strike. Usually they retreated from their positions. The minority workers remained. Plant morale gained from the eventual acknowledgment that the supposedly unwanted workers were all right when you got to know them.
Vociferoqs threats to strike if minorities entered a plant in many cases evaporated when responsible unions and employers took a firm position against discrimination. Hundreds of such instances disprove in fact the assumptions of the inexperienced that “It can’t be done.”
War production needed all the skills it could get. Jobs were plentiful, workers scarce. No one was in present fear of unemployment. Nevertheless the specter of eventual slack times inspired much wartime resistance to the upgrading of Negro and Mexican-Americans to skills above common laborer. FEPC field representatives worked to persuade workers not to raise racial and religious barriers. The Committee itself attempted to persuade top union officials to abandon traditional discriminatory policies. Some unions flatly refused. Others made some progress within the limits of their own rules. In a great many other cases discrimination was corrected.
The wat period spurred several trends in the direction of acceptance of minorities into unions. Mixed groups learned to work to
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gether. Disapproval of Nazi racism led many workers to alter their own attitudes.
The employer’s involvement with minority group workers is less direct than that of the employees who compete with them for the better-paid jobs. The employer wants efficiency and peaceful working relationships in his plant. If a minority worker is efficient and gets on Well with his fellows, both employer requirements are filled. The wartime employer, harrassed by lack of manpower wanted to hire minority group workers but was fearful, usually too fearful, of the difficulties he might encounter.
Some employers spent their energies trying to avoid the national policy against discrimination. Others took the initiative in hiring. Still others accepted FEPC and WMC guidance.
The majority of war producers who were charged with discrimination were willing to work at the problem constructively. They often blamed forces beyond their control, they saw greater difficulties than usually existed, yet they were susceptible to persuasion in all but a few instances of outright recalcitrance.
It should be noted that great numbers of war employers, reached by neither WMC or FEPC, did nothing whatsoever about hiring minority group workers.
DOMESTIC WAR MORALE
The First Report of FEPC, published in June 1945, made this statement on the unifying effects of the national policy against discrimination :
The war morale of minority group Americans lacks nothing in comparison with that of their majority group fellow workers. * * * The national policy, as applied by various departments and contracting agencies of the Government, has at once given protection to minority groups and served as the symbol of their loyalty to a great cause. It might have been otherwise; yet th$ Nazi and Facist powers derive small comfort from their attempts to weaken American war production by driving the wedge of hate between groups.
The unity between groups remained closely knit until the end of the war. This was accomplished not by the efforts of one agency or two, but rather because a firm national policy stimulated all groups to rid wartime America of a highly dangerous divisive force. Not least in influence were the community groups and national organizations whose untiring efforts to improve racial relationships were often inspired and always aided by knowledge that Government itself had taken a stand on the side of equal opportunity.
The letdown in these efforts has been considerable since VJ-day, while during the same period discrimination has rapidly risen.
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INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF DISCRIMINATION
Expert testimony in a FEPC hearing in September 1943 showed that Berlin and Tokyo used racial incidents in the United States as anti-American propaganda to the colored peoples of Asia and to Europe.
During the war the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, the counterpart of our House of Representatives, established a special committee “for the purpose of keeping the attention of the Mexican Congress focused on discrimination against Mexicans in the United States.” Mexico also placed restrictions on our importation of badly needed Mexican labor because of American discriminatory practices.
The Congress of the Inter-American Bar Association held in Mexico City in August 1944 took notice of discrimination as an international problem in the Western Hemisphere. All except three Latin-American republics, through their representatives, went on record as condemning discrimination and passed a resolution recommending to the governments of the American republics that a treaty be entered into pledging each country not to permit the citizens of other American states to be discriminated against within its territory.
At the first London meeting of the United Nations, charges of discrimination against South American nationals were raised against the United States.
The fact that foes have used our discriminatory practices against us, and friends have chided us for uncorrected discrimination, suggests the importance of coming with clean hands into the council of a world composed two-thirds of colored peoples.
In a letter to the Fair Employment Practice Committee of May 8, 1946, Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson stated that—
tile existence of discrimination against minority groups in this country has an adverse effect upon our relations with other countries. We are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesmen, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired. While sometimes these pronouncements are exaggerated and unjustified, they all too frequently point with accuracy to some form of discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin. Frequently we find it next to impossible to formulate a satisfactory answer to our critics in other countries; the gap betweeii the things We stand for in principle and the facts of a particular situation may be tod wide to be bridged. An atmosphere of suspicion and resentment in a country over the way a minority is being treated in the United States is a formidable obstacle to the development of mutual understanding and trust between the two countries. We will have better international relations when these reasons for suspicion and resentment have been removed.
I think that it is quite obvious * * * that the existence of -discriminations against minority groups ih the United States is a handicap in our relations with other countries. The Department of State, therefore, has good reason to hope for the continued and increased effectiveness of public and private efforts to do away with these discriminations.
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In the conduct of its foreign affairs the United States stands committed against discrimination because of race, creed, or color.
The Atlantic Charter announced an objective of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security.
The Teheran Conference sought the cooperation of all nations, large and small, “whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance * * *”
This declaration of Teheran was narrowed down by the United States delegation to the San Francisco Conference to the promotion of individual human rights “* * * without distinction as to race, language, religion, or sex * * The United States delegation also defined freedom from fear as encompassing the protection from persecution and discrimination.
The charter of the United Nations adopted as a primary purpose the encouragement of respect for human rights without distinction, and it placed upon the General Assembly the duty of making recommendations for the purpose of promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms irrespective of race, sex, language, or religion.
The establishment under the United Nations of an international trusteeship system makes specific the insurance of equal treatment in social, economic, and commercial matters for all members of the United Nations and their nationals.
The Potsdam Agreement abolished all Nazi laws which established discrimination on grounds of race, creed, or political action.
These commitments clearly establish antidiscrimination as the policy of the members of the United Nations, in their dealings with each other and with the nationals of all within their individual borders.
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE
FEPC was called upon to act in a field where Government never before had intervened. Discrimination, while deplored, was heretofore considered to lie in the realm of social conscience. Many who-] doubted the practicality of governmental intervention raised the point that “you cannot legislate against intolerance.” While true, L. this overlooks the distinction that intolerance, a state of mind which f laws cannot reach, nevertheless has certain practical effects, such as \ denying a qualified man the right to earn a living, which law can sue- ' cessfully regulate.
Conscious of this distinction, FEPC confined itself to action against demonstrated industrial discrimination. It scrupulously avoided interference in issues involving the social effects of intolerance.
Wartime pressures for getting things done quickly often resulted
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in procedural relaxations which would not be permitted to governmental agencies in normal times. FEPC, however, modeled itself on those administrative agencies whose procedures had been tested by usage and approved by the Courts. It strove to secure due process of law andThe maximum amount of fairness.
The first FEPC (June 25, 1941 to May 27, 1943) was limited to a small-staff in Washington and therefore had no occasion to establish rules for field procedures.
The second Committee published Procedural Rules and Regulations for the guidance of all parties. In brief, these provided for: bona fide complaints, informal investigation, the weighing by the Committee itself of complaints not adjustable in the field, and the conduct of a public hearing by the Committee in exceptionally stubborn cases. Parties requested to appear at a hearing were given adequate notice and afforded full opportunity to produce witnesses and to cross-examine. In the relatively rare cases where directives were issued, ordering an employer or a union to cease discrimination, a summary of findings of fact was presented as a basis for the Committee’s conclusions.
Within this rigid procedural framework FEPC constantly applied persuasion as its best working tool. The issuance of a “directive” was merely the most rigorous method of persuasion and not an act of compulsion.
FEPC never had power to fine or penalize a violator. The last recourse was citation of a recalcitrant to the President. This was done only twice during 5 years of FEPC.
EFFECTIVENESS OF FEPC
War production acted as a mightly magnet to draw low-paid and unemployed workers to industrial centers. However, Mexican-American field hands and miners, and Negro men and women workers were latecomers to war industry and were generally taken on at the low grade jobs vacated by upgraded white workers. Once hired, they still met difficulties in getting training and upgrading on a par with white workers.
Those barriers, if left standing, would have had serious effect on the speed and volume of production of ships, planes and weapons. Credit for keying minority group workers into war industry belongs primarily to the establishment of a strong national policy to which all Government services and all war contractors must give heed. Government agencies were committed against discrimination in their own personnel policies. The war labor recruiting services and war contractors were equally bound. Yet everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and there still was required an independent arm of Govern
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ment with the duty to deal with discrimination directly and not as a subordinate phase of other war endeavors. This was the role of FEPC. It picked up discrimination cases where other agencies confessed inability to settle them. It asked other agencies to make periodic reports on discrimination. It reminded other agencies of their duty to observe nondiscrimination within their own organizations.
It is possible to set this specialized job to one side of the over-all picture of war employment and to evaluate the effectiveness of machinery which FEPC established to implement Executive Order 9346.
FEPC gave recourse of appeal to all minority group war workers who had real or supposed grievances. The fact that the worker had the chance to present his story to his government was in itself a safety valve for bottled-up resentment. That FEPC carefully screened its cases was shown by the dismissal of two-thirds of all the cases brought to it. In this sifting process there were some 800 employers who never knew they had been charged with discrimination, since FEPC, without notice to them, persuaded the complainants that they did not have valid cases or that FEPC lacked jurisdiction.
During its most active 2 years, FEPC closed an average of 250 cases each month. In each of these months about 100 cases were closed as having been satisfactorily adjusted. Some war-plant gates were thereby opened to minorities hitherto refused admittance. Government and industry were persuaded to advance many minority workers to J their established skills. Members of religious sects were permitted to celebrate holy days under arrangements that they would make up the lost war work. A number of newspapers were persuaded to discontinue discriminatory want ads. Many worker groups withdrew their objections to working side by side with minority group members.
The effect of these cases on the morale of minority group workers is not precisely measurable. That it was far-reaching was shown during the war by the minimum of interracial friction. During the 18-month period covering the last 6 months of 1943 and all of 1944, strikes over racial issues cost only 1.7 percent of the total man-days lost through all strikes. FEPC aided directly in the settlement of 40 strikes, some of them in the most important war production plants in the country. War workers who struck usually did so in opposition either to a refusal to promote them or to discriminatory conditions of employment. FEPC had no mandate to intervene in strikes and it only did so when requested by the appropriate war agency. Its notable success in ending stoppages which threatened to cut off thousands of tons of vitally needed war steel was partly due to its experience with the issues over which the workers had struck. Confidence in the ability of I EPC to give a fair hearing played an important part in preventing strikes and in quickly ending many which had already begun.
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The thousands of cases which FEPC settled in the field were seldom known to the public, because FEPC itself refused to give to the press any charges which later might prove invalid or possible of settlement. l Because formal cases did go to public hearing and were fully reported, \the public, ignorant of the informal settlements, deduced from the few open hearings that FEPC invariably met with strong resistance /or open defiance. This was not the truth.
Hundreds of FEPC charges were satisfactorily adjusted to every one which reached the public hearing stage. Still preserving the anonymity of the parties charged, the following are a few typical illustrations of the great many peaceful settlements which brought economic justice to minority group war workers.
A small firm producing sulphur on war contract to the Government claimed that it had not promoted Mexican-American and Negro workers because of their “indifference”. The eight workers involved claimed that they were classified as “B” labor and could not advance beyond menial jobs. Class “A” labor at the plant consisted of all “Anglo” workers, either semiskilled or skilled. Local union officers told the FEPC that it had tried unsuccessfully to effect the promotion of Negro and Mexican-Americans. The union admitted all to membership but each of the three groups—Anglo, Negro, and Mexican-American—met separately. It developed that several complainants had worked for the company 15 years each, without advancement. Contrary to the charge of indifference, company records showed a lower absenteeismrate for Negro and Mexican-Americans than for Anglo. The company agreed to upgrade seven of the eight complainants to leadermen with a raise in pay. For the first time Mexican-Americans were placed in charge of working crews, and it was agreed that all workers would be eligible for promotion without discrimination.
A war firm in Cambridge, Mass., advertised for “experienced stenographer * * * must be Protestant”. Following FEPC representations the company regretted its discriminatory action and gave assurance it would not recur.
The commandant of a United States Navy yard, acting on knowledge received from FEPC took steps to make certain that Negro women workers were not barred from the jobs for which their training prepared them.
Officials of a large oil company stated that Mexican-American employees were not promoted because they could not pass an arithmetic test and because the union would not permit their promotion. Union officials confirmed the objection of Anglo workers to upgrade Mexican-Americans. It developed that bid notices for semiskilled and skilled jobs were posted where Negro and Mexican-Americans would not see them. After discussion the company agreed to promote Mexi
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can-American workers who could pass the arithmetic test. The l^EPC check-up made later showed that Mexican-Americans were being upgraded and that local union members had not, as predicted, opposed their advance.
Negroes scheduled to be trained as automatic screw-machine operators in a mid-Western war plant were transferred, to common labor because white operators refused to instruct them. With the cooperation of the War and Navy departments, FEPC was instrumental in getting the Negroes back into training, accomplishing this without incidents.
A skilled machinist, Italian by birth, but an American citizen, complained that a USES office would not refer him to his trade because of his national origin. FEF’C referred the complaint to the War Manpower Commission, whose subsequent report confirmed the charges. The Italian-American was given employment in a Navy yard as a first-class machinist.
At the request of FEPC, a Government agency included in its agreement with a foreign Government a provision that the latter’s nationals, when imported into this country for farm work, would be given the benefits of Executive Order 8802. '
THE DIFFICULT CASES
When cases did not yield to persuasion, FEPC called the parties to a public hearing. These were the situations where the agency met with opposition which in a few stubborn cases it was never able to overcome. The effectiveness of formal hearings, as well as lack of accomplishment in some instances, can best be illustrated by brief analysis of some representative cases.
Aircraft
The Lockheed Aircraft Corp, was summoned to a hearing conducted by the first FEPC at Los Angeles 2 months before Pearl Harbor. It appeared through witnesses that only 39 Negroes were employed on mechanical operations although the corporation’s workers numbered 48,000. The Lockheed management expressed the desire to live up to Executive Order 8802, and it subsequently accepted Committee recommendations on how best to go about it. By August 1944, Lockheed had 3,000 Negroes in nearly 100 occupations, and there had been practically no difficulty in integrating them.
Action by the first FEPC in the prewar months undoubtedly aided Lockheed in solving its later manpower problems. Further, it helped open the new war aircraft industry to minority workers, especially hi egroes and Mexican-Americans. The early intervention of Government certainly achieved a fuller use of minority workers in an industry
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responsible for a large share of war employment than the industry could have achieved by itself.
Railroads
The case against 23 railroads and 14 labor unions was the first one undertaken by FEPC after its reorganization under Executive Order 9346. It must be counted among the Committee’s outstanding failures.
For 6 months in 1942 the first FEPC investigated hundreds of complaints of refusal by more than 30 railroads to employ Negroes in certain jobs, and agreements between more than 20 railroads and several labor unions sanctioning such discrimination. The hearing on these issues was ordered postponed in January 1943 by Chairman McNutt of the War Manpower Commission, to which the Committee was then attached. The new Committee, then under the chairmanship of Msgr. Francis J. Haas, held 4 days of hearings in September 1943 against 20 railroads and 13 unions. Ten carriers and one union had made prior settlements.
The 20 carriers appeared at the hearing through counsel; the unions boycotted the hearings. Witnesses produced unrefuted evidence of discrimination practiced by the railroads and the unions. On the basis of this testimony the Committee issued findings of refusal to employ Negroes as locomotive firemen, trainmen, switchmen, yardmen, dining car stewards, mechanics, machinists, and helpers. Although at one time a maj'ority of the firemen on southern railroads had been Negroes, agreements between the carriers and the unions had set quotas on their employment, restricted their seniority rights, and denied them the right to fill new runs and vacancies, leading to ultimate elimination of Negro firemen on southern locomotives. Similar restrictions were found in the cases of Negro trainmen and shop and yard employees.
The Southeastern Carriers’ Conference Agreement, entered into February 18, 1941, between 20 southern railroad and terminal companies and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, was found to be a master agreement designed to restrict and eliminate Negro firemen and trainmen.
The Committee issued directives calling upon the carriers and unions to end discrimination and to abandon the Southeastern Carriers’ Conference Agreement. The Committee provided a 7-day period during which the railroad companies and the unions were invited to confer on compliance. Public issuance of directives was withheld in the case of some carriers who agreed to negotiate.
The self-elected division of the carriers and unions into two groups— one which agreed to negotiate and the other which defied the Commit
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tee—provides a revealing contrast between the two attitudes and resulting outcome of the hearings.
The first group of six carriers (one of them southern) and one,union spent several months with FEPCi’epresentatives ironing out the difficulties raised by the complaints. The results on . the whole were satisfactory. The parties were cleared of charges of discrimination and the Negroes and Mexican-Americans benefited by better employ-*ment opportunities.
The 14 southern railroads on December 13, 1943, made public a letter to the Committee denying its jurisdiction and stating that it was utterly unrealistic to suppose that problems of such delicacy can “be solved out-of-hand by the fiat of your Conimittee’s directives.” The unions involved remained silent. The cases of the 14 railroads and 7 unions were accordingly certified to the President.
Early in January 1944, the President appointed a special committee to deal with the issues. The committee consisted of Chief Justice Walter P. Stacy of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, Judge William H. Holly of the United States district court, Chicago, Ill., and Mayor Frank J. Lausche of Cleveland (now Governor of Ohio). This committee met several times with the railroads, the unions, and FEPC. It was not successful in bringing about compliance with the Committee’s directives, and no report of its progress was made other than an interim statement in May 1944. Thus the situation respecting the 14 railroads and 7 unions remains today what it was when the Committee referred the case to the President.
On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States decided the cases of Steele v. Z. &, N. Railroad et al., and Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. The Court held that the union, when acting as bargaining agent under the Railroad Act for an entire craft or class of railroad workers, could not use its bargaining right to negotiate an agreement which was preferential to union members and discriminated against other employees because of race.
The Supreme Court decisions in these cases coincided with the position taken by the Committee in its findings and directives, refuting the argument of the carriers in their letter of December 13, 1943, to the Committee.
Although the Court’s opinions left no doubt as to the illegality of the discriminatory agreements, the agreements are so numerous and apply to so many railroads that to invalidate them by litigation would require a multiplicity of suits and the expenditure of much time and money. Moreover, the Steele and Tunstall cases touch only on the rights of Negroes after they have been hired. They do not affect discrifnination which bars Negroes from employment in the first
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place. Hence it is fair to conclude that, as a practical ihatter, only an administrative agency with the necessary authority can deal successfully with the problems presented by such discriminatory agreements.
Street railways
Cases involving street-railway systems ran the gamut of FEPC experience from compliance after informal negotiation to outright refusal to obey the Executive order. The three cases which follow il-< lustrate, successively, compliance under Government seizure, compliance after an FEPC hearing, and opposition which effectively blocked coihpliance.
FEPC based its jurisdiction over street railways on the fact that the Executive order was occasioned by a shortage of manpower affecting all industries essential to the prosecution of the war, regardless of the existence of contracts for the production of war materials. A congressional hearing was conducted with regard to the Committee’s jurisdiction in this field, but no opinion contrary to FEPC’s was issued.
The Philadelphia Transportation Co. case was already 2 years old when, in August 1943, the FEPC Philadelphia regional office undertook to determine why previous requests to remove barriers against Negro streetcar platform workers had met with failure. The Unaffiliated Union of the company’s workers interpreted its agreement with the company as making it impossible to hire Negro platform Workers. The company expressed its own willingness to employ Negroes in these jobs, but stated that it would do so only pursuant to a directive from the Federal Government.
FEPC, after a full hearing, directed that all hiring be done on a basis of qualifications and not of race or color. The unaffiliated union thereupon contended FEPC was without jurisdiction; the company, which had previously accepted FEPC jurisdiction, stated the jurisdictional issue would have to be settled before it would comply.
In a State Labor Relations Board election held in March 1944 the unaffiliated union was defeated and bargaining rights were won by the Transport Workers Union of America, CIO. FEPC made ho further move in order that the company and the new union might work oUt the discrimination problem for themselves. The actual attempt to hire Negroes as operators was made in July, following a War Manpower Commission requirement that the company hire without regard to race. A work stoppage, contrived by operators, closed down all company lines. The President seized the properties and the Army commenced to operate them. The Negro motormen remained.
Once the barriers were down, Negro and white operators worked without incident, the public acceptance of Negro operators was ex
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cellent, and the continued hiring of capable Negro operators materially aided in supplying definitely needed manpower.
The entire case proves that the company and the unaffiliated union could have saved 2 years of racial friction, plus a million man-hours of war work lost during the strike, if they had taken a forthright position against discrimination when the issue first arose. It also illustrates the fact that strong third party intervention is necessary and effective where both workers and employers fail to meet their responsibilities.
The Los Angeles Railway Corp, case ran somewhat the same course as the PTC case, except that the former company and its union accepted the conclusions drawn from an FEPC hearing and succeeded in placing Negro operators on the streetcars and busses without the loss of an hour’s wartime work.
The Los Angeles company also had hesitated for 2 years to employ Negro operators on the supposition that its employees and the public were not ready for it. Union officials (Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway, and Motor Coach Employees of America, Division No. 127 AFL) doubted whether they, could control the members from walking out should Negroes be employed. In February 1943 an attempt to upgrade five Negro workers had resulted in a work stoppage and the abandonment of the project.
An FEPC hearing was held in Los Angeles on August 8, 1944 in an atmosphere the more tense because of the PTC strike in Philadelphia only a few days before. In Los Angeles the union testified that 87 percent of its white members might strike if any Negro were upgraded to a platform job. Nevertheless, a day of informal negotiation after the public hearing brought from both company and union officials a forthright promise to make the attempt. Both parties requested that an FEPC directive be issued at once. This the Committee did, coupling with it a request to WMC to restore the company’s top hiring priority. *
The company and the union effectively placed Negroes as drivers of trolleys and busses. By March 20, 1945, when the Committee ordered the case closed, the company had hired 74 Negroes as operators, and in the garages and shops qualified Negroes were being upgraded on the same basis as other employees.
The Capital Transit Co. case in Washington, D. C., involved public transportation in an area of intense war activity. The company persistently refused to hire qualified Negroes as platform personnel although it made one abortive effort in 1942. Throughout prolonged FEPC negotiations the company contended that it could not overcome objections of the white operators to the utilization of Negroes. It never conducted a real educational program among the white workers
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nor made any thorough-going effort to accomplish employment of Negro platform personnel.
Early in 1945, the shortage of platform personnel in Washington was so great that transportation had become seriously inadequate. FEPC, therefore, held a public hearing in the case at which the company relied mainly upon a survey which purported to show that its operators would strike if Negro operators were employed.
At various stages during 2 years of Capital Transit negotiation officers of the local union, the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway & Motor Coach Employees of America, A. F. L., made some efforts in the direction of the utilization of Negroes as operators. The international officers of the union did what they could to assist FEPC in overcoming the effects of local prejudice among the white workers.
Perhaps the inability of FEPC to achieve a satisfactory settlement in this case sprang from failure to hold the hearings at an earlier date. Many of the employees were vocal in their threats of striking if any Negro platform workers were hired. FEPC had previously faced such threats, and seen them vanish, in the case of the Los Angeles Railway Co., and had overriden them in the case of the Philadelphia Transportation Co. The Capital Transit case was not essentially different.
FEPC exercised extreme patience in the Capital Transit case. It sought to achieve results by a thorough exploration of the possibilities of adjustment both before and after the hearing. It spent much energy in advance preparation, such as arranging for the cooperation of WMC, ODT, the local police and other agencies so that any violent reactions of white operators could be handled without the transit system breaking down. Events intervened to cancel these plans.
A proposed decision, to which the company filed exceptions, was issued to the Capital Transit Co. in June 1945. The chances that FEPC could successfully enforce its Executive order began from that' time on to dwindle with the reduction in its staff, the end of the war and the general relaxation of wartime controls.
A strike by Capital Transit employees over a wage issue led the Government on November 21, 1945, to seize the lines under the War Labor Disputes Act. The Committee voted 2 days later to issue its directive to the company. It should be noted that the Committee, in view of possible disorders following issuance of the directive on Capital Transit, had committed itself 10 months earlier' to inform the White House when such a directive might be issued. When such notice was accordingly given on November 23 ,1945, the White House requested that the directive be postponed. Mr. Charles H. Houston, Committee member, tendered his resignation to President Truman.
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In a reply to Mr. Houston, the President based the White House action on a contradiction between the proposed FEPC order and the War Labor Disputes Act which required that a seized property “shall be operated under the terms and conditions of employment which were in effect at the time possession of such plant, mine, or facility was so taken.”
The similar Key System case in the bay area of San Francisco, also came to a head in the period when FEPC’s authority was on the wane, and no directive was issued in that case. In each community there was mass support for the integration of Negroes, particularly on the part of weary war workers who suffered from poor transportation.
Firm efforts of management to utilize Negroes as a means of lessening the manpower shortage were displayed by neither the Capital Transit Co. nor the Key System. The discriminatory policies of both companies are in existence today, with neither employing Negro platform personnel.
St. Louis
During the critical production days of 1945, FEPC held public hearings on charges filed against two groups of prime war contractors, one in St. Louis and the other in Cincinnati. Neither city was singled out for special attention. Both presented employment barriers to the utilization of their minority group workers. Negotiation had failed to mend discrimination. The Committee operated on a small travel budget, and for that additional reason it held multiple hearings in those two cities.
In 1941 a number of St. Louis industrialists limited Negro defense plant employment to 10 percent, roughly in proportion to the Negro population. The motive may have been to give Negroes a proportionate opportunity. But any quota is unfair to one group or the other. A plant with its 10 percent Negro quota filled cannot hire Negro workers, even if they are at the gates and badly needed. Conversely, if it is impossible to find enough white workers to fill a 90 percent quota, the employer would turn away available Negroes and watch his production go down for lack of full work benches. It is quite as unfair (and uneconomic) to turn away white workers because the 90 percent quota is filled as it is to turn away Negroes because their 10 percent quota is filled.
However, the unfairness is greater to Negroes when (as in St. Louis) their opportunities are limited to only a few industries willing to admit them. An employer able and willing to hire Negroes to man a third of his jobs cannot do so because of the quota. The rejected Negroes either encounter other quota blockades or meet flat discriminatory refusals to hire.
701290—47—--------3
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The FEPC at St. Louis heard seven war producers testify that they supported the national policy of nondiscrimination in general, but that the opposition of their white workers made its application impossible in their plants. Evidence showed that male Negro workers were hired only as janitors, porters and sweepers, and Negro women were refused work on production lines. In plants where Negro men were given semi-skilled jobs, the quota system limited their numbers. The usual defense was that the customs of St. Louis forbade integration.
In its directive FEPC set forth the loss to war manpower resulting from keeping Negro males at jobs below their acquired skills and from refusing to tap the last unused reservoir of local labor, the 5,000 Negro women then registered at USES.
Prewar St. Louis had indeed kept Negroes mostly at common labor, but the citing of a “social pattern” as excuse to fix quotas was artificial and went no further back than the Defense period when it was invented.
Most of the seven producers made timid attempts at compliance, such as hiring a few Negro women for work in a segregated annex. Such token performance might have stood for the limit to which the St. Louis “social pattern” could be stretched, were it not for notable examples which disprove that contention.
The General Cable Corporation’s St. Louis plant had all the problems with which other war producers in St. Louis were confronted. This employer, however, had laid an educational foundation for integrating Negroes. When a first attempt to utilize Negro women was met with threats of a strike, the Corporation’s President flew from New York and spent 24 hours presenting to white employees the reasons why the company was going to follow through with the hiring of Negro women. The strike threats faded. Two months later Negro women were integrated into all production departments of the plant.
A similar success was achieved by the U. S. Cartridge Co. It had adopted the quota system and also had placed Negroes in a separate building. At the time of the FEPC hearings, both these factors were making it difficult to hire enough workers. The company’s ammunition was desperately needed on both war fronts.
U. S. Cartridge accepted an FEPC directive and set about hiring more Negroes and integrating them in a building with white workers. Despite the defection of many rank and filers, the Union officials refused to retreat from a policy of nondiscrimination.
The reverse of the U. S. Cartridge Co. experience appears in the case of Western Cartridge Co. of East Alton, Ill. Western is the parent company of U. S. Cartridge, and is located across the river from
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St. Louis. FEPC held two hearings in East Alton, a town which has excluded Negroes for decades. Among the company’s 10,000 ammunition workers there was not a single Negro.
Three hundred Western Cartridge brass mill workers struck for an afternoon and attended the FEPC hearing with demands to be heard against Negroes. Their union leaders threatened to strike if any Negroes were hired. The Western Cartridge management deplored this display of their workers’ intolerance. Nevertheless, FEPC was unable to obtain any change of practice at the Western Cartridge plant.
Cincinnati
In Cincinnati FEPC also grouped charges against eight war producers into one hearing for the sake of convenience. These were war firms making shells, radar, airplane wings and army rations. The time, March 1945, was one of acute manpower shortage, and Cincinnati had large numbers of under-utilized Negro workers.
It was advanced that Cincinnati had its social pattern which barred Negro workers from skilled jobs, and that white workers would walk out rather than work with them. The unions involved, with minor exceptions, testified to their opposition to Negro workers. Despite a directive to the contrary by his own national organization, one local union President announced that he would be “first to walk out” if any Negro were hired in his plant.
Three of the producers offered to settle their cases on the first day of the hearing, and subsequently they proved the Cincinnati “pattern” was not dyed-in-the-wool. Through carefully planned programs these firms brought Negro workers into plants where it had been held impossible. The five recalcitrant firms either were unwilling to initiate such programs or capitulated to the bias of their workers. One food processor claimed it would hurt the firm’s trade reputation since customers might refuse to accept goods packaged by Negroes, this despite the prevailing Cincinnati custom of having Negroes prepare and serve food.
West coast shipyard cases
A group of west coast shipyard cases were notable as presenting labor union problems which rank with the FEPC railroad cases in complexity and difficulty. The union phase of these cases is presented in the following discussion.
Boilermakers
In the early days of the war emergency, the Pacific Coast shipyards experienced great demands for workers and it was necessary to recruit scores of thousands from other sections of the country
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Included were several thousand Negroes. About the time the hiring program started, most of the yards entered into what was known as a “Master agreement” with the metal trades department of the American Federation of Labor on behalf of certain AFL unions. Under this agreement the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Shipbuilders and Helpers of America was given exclusive bargaining rights for and representation of about 65 percent of the workers in most of the shipyards. The agreement instituted a closed shop in that it provided that the “employer agrees to hire all workmen it may require hereunder * * * through and from the unions and to continue in its employ * * * only workmen who are members in good standing of the respective unions signatory hereto.”
When Negroes were first hired, the boilermakers opposed their employment in any other capacity than that of laborer, threatening otherwise to invoke the closed shop provisions (which was possible because Negroes at the time could not become members of the boilermakers union under its ritual). After protests from Negroes, employers and Government agencies, the Boilermakers International set up, under provisions in its laws, auxiliary locals for Negro workers only. A large number of Negro workers, however, declined to join and maintain membership in the auxiliaries because members of these units, though they paid the same dues paid by regular union members, were denied equality of membership and rights relating to employment.
The disadvantages inherent in the auxiliary device included the supervision of the auxiliaries by regular union locals, denying to the auxiliaries the right to select business agents or grievance committees, denial of the right to receive apprentices, denial to the auxiliary members of the right to change their job classification without the consent of the supervising locals, the denial of any voice in the formulation of the policies of the supervising locals and other advantages enjoyed by members of such locals, including the right of universal transfer, and the right to elect delegates to the international convention. Further, under the laws of the international, an auxiliary, unlike a regular local, could be abolished at any time by international officials.
When Negro employees refused to join or remain auxiliary members, the union demanded their discharge on the ground that they were not “members in good standing.” Employers contended that they were bound to comply, even though they were aware of the auxiliary situation. They held that otherwise they would be breaking the labor contract and interfering in the internal affairs of the union, contrary to the National Labor Relations Act.
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After public hearing (which the International Brotherhood declined to attend) in November 1943, covering yards in the Portland, Oreg., and Los Angeles areas, the Committee labelled the auxiliary set-up as discrimination in union membership and contrary to the provisions of Executive Order 9346. As to employers, the Committee held that they, by assisting the union through complying with its discharge demands, were likewise guilty of discrimination. Both company and union were ordered to cease and desist from such practices.
Subsequently, two of the five companies involved in the hearing agreed to comply with the Committee’s directives and discontinued the practice of discharging Negroes because of their refusal to maintain membership in the auxiliaries.
Subsequently also, certain discharged Negroes commenced suits in the California courts against the boilermakers union and certain companies complying with the union’s discharge demands. The Supreme Court of California in two cases {James v. Marinship Corp., et al, and Williams v. International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, etc.) held (a) that the auxiliary set-up was discriminatory, (b) that a closed shop is illegal as contrary to public policy where the union arbitrarily denies to nonmembers the right to membership, (c) that a denial of union membership to Negroes on terms of equality with other members is tantamount to exclusion altogether, and (d) that an employer may be enjoined from “assisting a union in carrying out its discriminatory practices against Negroes through a closed shop contract.” It will be noted that the California Supreme Court’s conclusions were the same as those reached by the Committee.
After the California Supreme Court decisions, and following the FEPC post-hearing negotiations, the boilermakers union, in their quadrennial convention, abolished the auxiliary status of their Negro locals, but retained the separate organization of such locals. Conferences with union officials disclosed that under the proposed dissolution of the locals, discrimination against Negro members would not be ended. Under the new arrangement, it would still be possible to assign jobs on the basis of race instead of individual qualifications, thus creating competing interests along racial lines within the same shipyard. The right of universal transfer to other lodges, and hence to other jobs in other sections of the country, would also be governed by the race of the transferring member. That is to say, Negroes would be able to transfer only to Negro lodges and white members only to white lodges. The Committee, therefore, felt that the union’s new policy could not serve as a basis for its withdrawal of the order.
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Seafarers International Union (AFL)
The Seafarers International Union (AFL) which furnished unlicensed seamen to about a dozen steamship lines under war contract to the Government, refused over a long period even to confer on the numerous charges of discrimination filed against it. At a hearing in October 1944, union representatives appeared to make a statement and thereupon withdrew without seizing their opportunity to produce testimony in their own behalf.
FEPC found on evidence at the hearing that SIU maintained segregated hiring halls and that it referred Negroes only to the steward’s department. The wartime need for deckhands and seamen in the engineer’s department was acute. Thousands of Negroes had been trained in Government maritime schools for all three departments. The War Shipping Administration maintained a recruitment program based on a rotary hiring system under which the first available seaman on the list was the first referred. Before the war the sailing of mixed crews was not unusual, and during the war it became common procedure with cooperation of several unions.
FEPC members, before issuing a directive and in deference to SIU assertions that the sailing of mixed deck and engine room crews would be fraught with disaster, visited mixed and segregated crews in New York Harbor. Discussion with the seamen themselves persuaded Committee members that opposition to Negro seamen came largely from shore personnel and not from white seamen. The directive against SIU was the last issued by FEPC. The union never responded to it.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers (AFL)
Local 299 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen, and Helpers (AFL), Detroit, Mich., represented the “over-the-road” drivers of trucks. By virtue of its closed-shop provisions in its labor agreements with the major trucking companies of Detroit and its practices of refusing admission of Negro drivers to union membership, the union was able to bar the entry of qualified vital war industry. The employers furthered discrimination by barring Negroes from over-the-road jobs.
The FEPC hearing of June 2, 1945, achieved no positive results. The local union claim of membership opposition to working with Negroes on the long over-the-road hauls because of physical proximity ran counter to the accepted practice elsewhere. Moreover, in the light of the free use of Negro truck drivers in Detroit in the haulage of ashes, garbage, coal, and furniture, where the work was heavier and dirtier and the wages paid were lower, it is fair to assert that the opposition to
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Negro competition in the cartage of war materials was motivated by economic rather than racial considerations.
Shell Oil Co.
The Shell Oil case is worth noting as one of those instances, not rare in the Southwest, involving complex working relations between white, Negro, and Mexican-American employees. FEPC had investigated charges that a contract between the company and Local 367, Oil Workers Union (CIO), barred Negroes and Mexican-Americans from rising above the levels of laborers, janitors, and gardeners.
A public hearing at Houston was recessed in order that the parties might negotiate a settlement. This was embodied in a stipulation under which the company and the union agreed to correct the discriminatory contract and to submit to the War Labor Board the question of a nondiscriminatory wage pate for laborers. The upgrading of two Mexican-Americans occurred without incident some weeks later. The company then undertook to make craftsmen out of seven qualified Negroes and one Mexican-American. The white craftsmen said “no” to the company, and the company capitulated, removing the upgraded Negro and the two Mexican-Americans who were peacefully upgraded some weeks before.
Their success enabled the white craftsmen to oust local union officials who favored integration. The controversy grew and on April 27, 1945, the plant was struck. The workers returned upon agreement to hold a formal strike vote, which eventually resulted in an affirmative decision to strike against the upgrading of the Negroes and Mexican-Americans.
Later attempts at a settlement broke down when the Mexican-Americans refused a segregation proposal and the Negro workers refused the wage proposals as inadequate.
At various stages officials from the Conciliation Service, the War Labor Board, and the FEPC did their utmost to achieve a peaceable settlement and were given full support by the International officers of the union. Long months of patient effort finally came to an end during the period when FEPC was forced to close its regional office and when war controls in general were being relaxed.
GOVERNMENTAL SUPPORT OF THE NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY
The wartime Government was under instruction from the President to eliminate discrimination in employment wherever it might appear. Every department and every permanent or wartime agency was duty bound to see that its own personnel practices were exemplary. In addition, the recruiting agencies for war industries and the maritime service (the War Manpower Commission and the War
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Shipping Administration) were responsible for training, hiring, and promoting without respect to race, color, creed, or national origin.
The contracting agencies (War Department, Navy Department, and Maritime Commission) were obliged to insert a nondiscrimination clause in every war contract, and in theory, at least, a violation of this clause put the whole contract in jeopardy.
Government itself, in its role as employer, was committed by the Ramspeck Act of 1940 not to allow race to be a barrier to any applicant or employee in the civil service.
These obligations to assure equality of war-work opportunities, although legally air-tight, in practice had many leaks. One community offered more resistance than another.
Policing the nondiscrimination policy was an extra chore to agencies who already felt they had more than enough work to do in their own specialized war activities. Officials too often bypassed the issue, particularly when the obligation to employ minority workers raised threats of a work stoppage.
The significant fact, however, is not the amount of discrimination which persisted in wartime, but rather the degree to which policy filtered down through all Government levels. The war experience proved that Government action against discrimination can be effective. The sum of what was done worked to the great advantage of manpower utilization and to the morale of minority groups.
FEPC’s role was a dual one: to cooperate with all other agencies in their independent handling of discrimination problems, and to process charges which these other agencies could not themselves solve.
To avoid duplication of effort and to enlist the aid of other Government agencies, FEPC entered into procedural agreements with the War and Navy Departments, Maritime Commission, Civil Service Commission, War Production Board, War Manpower Commission, and others. These agreements provided, in general, that the operating agency should exhaust its own remedies in eliminating discrimination, that it would inform FEPC about the handling of its own cases, and that FEPC might enter the case at the stage where it appeared insoluble by the agency.
Brief summaries of these relationships follow.
War Department
The War Department was the largest Government employer of civilians during the war, and was outstanding in the opportunities it offered to Negro civilians. Nonwhites constituted 22 percent (37,012) of the War Department personnel in Washington and 15.4 percent of the 950,748 field workers.
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Ten months after the beginning of hostilities, the War Department enjoined all contractors not to discriminate against any worker— not only as a matter of contract obligation but also as a part of your contribution to the war effort.
On occasions, resistance to employment of minority group workers seemed to threaten production of vitally needed war products and placed Army personnel in the position of risking a race strike or of withdrawing active support of the Executive order. There were powerful reasons behind a policy of “production first.” While the Army adopted those reasons, its personnel officers worked hard at eliminating discrimination. FEPC through experience knew that most strike threats were bluff, and it differed with Army personnel on occasion. These exceptions aside, FEPC experienced a cooperative Army attitude and acknowledges the contribution of those officers who on many occasions effectively applied the Executive order as it was written.
The War Department in January of this year communicated to the commanding generals of the forces an admonition to retain the nondiscrimination policy during reconversion. In a letter to FEPC, dated March 16,1946, Secretary of War Patterson wrote:
Let me assure you that the War Department will be unrelaxing in its efforts to further the purposes and the objectives of FEPC, concern for which we share with you.
Navy Department
During the early defense period Navy shore establishments employed a considerable number of Negroes. After Executive Order 8802 was issued these establishments improved the qualitative employment of nonwhites. In the Philadelphia area, when private yards had not yet undertaken the employment of Negroes as welders, shipfitters, electricians, and machinists, the navy yard was already employing them in these capacities and served as the principal outlet for Negro trainees. Even in the establishments in Norfolk, Va. ; Charleston, S. C. ; and the naval air station at Jacksonville, Fla., the Navy’s employment policies were more nearly in full conformity with the national policy of nondiscrimination than were those of neighboring private employers. In July 1943, there were 65,136 Negroes employed in the major naval shore establishments. They were 13.2 percent of the total of 493,096.
In Government-owned, privately operated plants the Navy Department policy provided that :
Responsible naval officials shall instruct the contractor-operators * * * that their policies and procedures must conform to the principles of Executive Order 9346.
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An illustration of the worth of this policy is furnished by a large war contractor in Macon, Ga. Although this plant employed a considerable number of non whites in unskilled jobs, there was consistent refusal to admit Negro women to paid training courses. This issue was the subject of considerable discussion in the community and at one time 5,000 persons staged a protest mass meeting on the problem. Management and local school officials argued that qualified Negro women were not available. However, the Navy Department requested the company to comply with Executive Order 9346, and when the classes were opened, 55 Negro women enrolled in the first group.
The Navy Department also required that in privately owned and privately operated plants handling Navy work, all contracts carry a nondiscrimination clause.
Navy officers, as their Army counterparts, were inclined to be passive toward the day-by-day responsibility ofenforcing the letter of Executive Order 9346. However, its top officers were responsive when FEPC brought Navy discrimination problems to them. It is noteworthy that conferences with commanding officers on both the east and west coasts brought remedial action and improved procedures by which discrimination could be attacked within the Navy’s own grievance machinery. Throughout the war Navy shipyards and other establishments gave minorities a better chance to do skilled work than did . most private employers.
In a letter addressed to the Committee on April 10, 1946, Acting Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, wrote :
The Navy Department is extremely interested in eliminating discriminatory practices and was most happy to cooperate with your committee in developing procedures and policies designed for that end. It is difficult, in view of the intangible nature of the evidence, to evaluate the effectiveness of these procedures and policies but it is the studied opinion of the Department that they have had a salutary effect and that cases in which discrimination is alleged are decreasing in number * * * You may be assured that although your committee will go out of existence on this coming June 30, the Department will continue its efforts to eliminate all cases of discrimination within its confines.
Maritime Commission
Responsibility for implementing Executive Order 9346 in the Maritime Commission rested in the Office of the Director of Shipyard Labor Relations. On July 2, 1942, the Maritime Commission issued a joint statement with the War and Navy Departments indicating its working relationship with FEPC. Subsequently the Commission required a nondiscrimination clause in all of its contracts, and it evolved with FEPC working relationships for orderly procedure of the handling of complaints arising in Maritime Commission shipyards or filed originally with FEPC.
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An early opportunity for testing the effectiveness of the Maritime Commission’s policy came in May 1943, when a serious strike developed at the Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co. in Mobile, Ala. On November 19,1942, the Committee sent a directive to the company instructing it to cease discriminatory hiring practices against Negroes. The company made an effort to comply. On May 24, 1943,12 Negro welders were put on a night shift. The following day a group of whites attacked Negro employees and drove them from their jobs. However, the Negro welders reported for duty the following night and each working night thereafter until operations at the yard were again normal.
Conferences were held between management, the union (Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, CIO), FEPC, and the Maritime Commission. Capt. Walter Graham, who was representing the Commission, stated that the Maritime Commission in Washington had talked the situation over with the White House and that continued use of Negro welders would be required in any settlement reached. At the time, the company urgently needed 1,000 welders. Following the settlement, over 2,000 Negroes were upgraded or admitted to training programs at the company.
Another example may serve to illustrate the patient persistence exercised by both agencies in handling a difficult situation. Near the close of 1944 the employment needs of the Delta Shipbuilding Co. at New Orleans became acute. Negro welders, who were available, but were denied employment at full skill by company policy, were then utilized by order of the Maritime Commission. This company was cited for discriminatory practices at FEPC hearings in Birmingham, Ala., on June 20, 1942. Directives were issued by FEPC on October 8, 1942. In 1944, the company upgraded some Negroes to jobs as painters, and agreed, since welders were badly needed, that Negroes would be placed on these jobs also. Later, the company contended that the placing of Negroes on welding jobs would result in disturbance. FEPC-Maritime Commission reports on the situation failed to support the company s point of view. The company, at the insistence of the Maritime Commission, finally employed 100 Negro welders who were available. There was no trouble in connection with this action.
In general, the employment policies of Maritime yards in the Northeast and on the west coast were sufficiently flexible to permit a considerable utilization of nonwhites in a wide variety of skills. On the other hand, very little progress in upgrading Negroes was made in the southern and Gulf yards. With few exceptions, the yards south of Virginia utilized Negroes in a limited number of occupations, most of which Were unskilled.
In December 1944 Negro war workers were 19 percent of the ship
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workers employed in the Atlantic coast region, 14 percent in the Gulf region, one-half of 1 percent in the Great Lakes region, and 14 percent in the Pacific coast region. In a letter to FEPC dated March 29, 1946, Acting Chairman Edward Macauley stated that—
These employees [minority group workers] have adapted themselves readily to their work environments and have contributed most effectively to the Maritime Commission’s and the War Shipping Administration’s parts in the successful prosecution of the War, and they promise to continue their good work in the transition to a peacetime operation. * * * As a means of making available to critical war industries the utmost utilization of available manpower, Executive Orders 8802 and 9346 have served their purpose.
War Shipping Administration
Merchant marine seamen heroically undertook the most perilous war work of any Americans not in the Armed Forces. For a time the casualty rate among seamen was higher than that among uniformed American fighters. Recruitment of seamen in great numbers was necessary to keep apace of ship launchings.
The Recruitment and Manning Organization was the recruiting arm of the War Shipping Administration. Training was carried out with complete respect for equal opportunity. Whites and Negroes slept and ate together in the training centers. When it came to shipping, obstacles were raised by some shipping lines and some unions. WSA itself has thus stated the underlying facts:
On a merchant vessel, in addition to working very closely together, crew members eat and sleep together. During the war these quarters were, of necessity, very cramped due to the fact that each vesesl carried a United States Navy Gun Crew of 25 to 30 men. Therefore, a Vessel ordinarily certificated for 40 to 45 men had to accommodate 65 to 70 men without any appreciable alterations in living quarters.
Most merchant marine crews were crowded together on months-long voyages and, often under fire, experienced a degree of tension. Yet it was early demonstrated that mixed Negro and white crews could sail under these circumstances without disaster and to the good of the service. A mixed crew, recruited by the National Maritime Union on the Booker T. Washington, and including a Negro master, was notably successful. FEPC, with the cooperation of the Recruitment and Manning Organization, later persuaded some shippers to hire without discrimination in any department. In the face of these demonstrations some unions and shippers continued to the end of the war to advance disproved arguments and to reduce the efficiency of the service by refusing to admit trained Negro seamen into any except the steward’s department.
The Recruitment and Manning Organization had merely an auxiliary role in assigning seamen to merchant vessels. Union agreements
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with the shipping lines had been frozen as they were before the war. The supply of unlicensed personnel for the deck, engine room and steward’s departments was in the hands of the unions holding the right under agreement. The union hiring halls were thus the principal source of supply, with RMO called upon only after the unions could not supply full crews.
RMO applied a rotary dispatching system whereby the first available man on the department list, irrespective of race or color, was referred to the job. Under an agreement with FEPC, a discriminatory refusal to accept the man so referred was taken up with the violator by RMO. If persuasion failed, the case went to FEPC. In most instances this was academic, since the ship had already sailed. The prompt sailing of a ship, even though qualified seamen were left ashore through discrimination, was held by RMO to be paramount. At the same time, RMO officials publicly announced the practice to be both unlawful and inefficient.
The problem remains to be solved by the peacetime American Merchant Marine Service.
War Manpower Commission
The most important wartime recruiting agency was the War Manpower Commission. It had in hand the vital function to recruit, train, and allot workers to the war industries most needing them. It was armed with priority controls and other sanctions which permitted it to apply manpower flexibly to the changing requirements of war production. It met the challenge of the seemingly impossible qiiotas set by President Roosevelt in his program for airplane, tank, and ammunition production.
FEPC itself was for a time an adjunct of WMC. This was a confusion of two functions. WMC’s first duty was to supply war industries with needed workers and only incidentally to persuade them not to discriminate. One of the two functions—the rendering of employment service to a war producer and action against that same producer when he discriminated—was bound to suffer so long as both remained under the same roof. , .
A clearer division of responsibility was made in May 1943. WMC was still held primarily responsible for nondiscrimination in the training, recruitment and referral of war workers. FEPC, now given independent status, was free to exert what authority it could under the aegis of the President’s war power.
WMC had thousands of employees and served every war production center. FEPC at its peak had a staff of 117 persons scattered thinly over the country. In order that the large operating agency and the small enforcement agency might work in harmony, and without each
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tackling the same case at the same time, an operating agreement was signed between them in August 1943. Procedures were set up for handling cases and for reporting discriminatory orders placed by employers such as “white only” or “Gentiles.” Further, WMC made its own operating organ, the United States Employment Service, subject to charges if it referred workers on a discriminatory basis.
The Commission on its own initiative took many measures to support the national nondiscrimination policy. Its specialists in racial problems furnished employers with information on successful methods of integrating minority groups into the labor force. Through its labor market information, the Commission was able to forecast shortages of workers in certain occupation in certain areas and, on that basis, convinced employers that they must deal realistically with the problem of using all available workers. Communities with unutilized Negro workers were informed of the difficulties sure to occur through the importation of white workers in cities where local housing, transportation and other facilities were already overburdened.
The Commission’s wartime experience in opposing discrimination was reviewed by Robert C. Goodwin, WMC Director, in a statement to FEPC on April 17,1946. In part it says :
Success of the War Manpower Commission in removing discriminatory hiring practices was in a large measure due more to the pressure of worker scarcity than to any other single factor. * * *
Many employers had a favorable experience in the employment of workers from usually excluded groups. Some of these experiences were given limited circulation within the agency and assisted in demonstrating .the possibility of employment based solely on occupational qualifications. Wider attention to the gathering of this information and its general use could be an important contribution to the solution of problems occasioned by discrimination in employment. * * •
Many cases of discriminatory hiring practices, reported under terms of the operating agreement, were adjusted by the efforts of the War Manpower Commission and the activity of the President’s Committee.
The absence of a clearly defined legal basis for any activity other than persuasive effort and, in some instances, imposition of sanctions by agencies of the Government, spelled out the course followed by the War Manpower Commission in support of the nondiscriminatory orders.
Civil Service Commission
In 1940, before the issuance of Executive Order 8802, the Civil Service Commission acted to forbid discrimination, because of race, against any person in the Executive Civil Service, or any applicant, eligible or employee in the classified service. Previously the prohibition had run only against discrimination because of political or religious opinions. Also in 1940, the Commission discontinued the use
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of the photograph as a requirement for all applicants, and substituted, fingerprinting as a means of identification.
Negroes made large gains , in Government service during the war. In Washington in 1938 they were 8.4 percent of those employed in the Federal services; by March of 1944 they formed 19.2»percent of departmental personnel, most of whom were located in Washington. The gain was also qualitative. In 1938, 90 percent of all Negro Federal employment in Washington was custodial and only 10 percent in other categories. During the war only 40 percent of all Negro workers in departmental service were custodial and 60 percent were in the more desirable jobs.
This advance was due in part to the demands of the wartime labor market, but more importantly to the action of the Civil Service Commission, the Council of Personnel Administration, the President, and FEPC. Shortly after the issuance of Executive Order 8802, on September 3,1941, after a study by FEPC and the Council of Personnel Administration, President Roosevelt wrote a letter to the heads of departments requesting them to bring their employment activities in line with the national policy against discrimination, especially with regard to Negroes. He requested speedy action and immediate steps. On March 28,1942, President Roosevelt wrote FEPC referring to his letter of September 1941 and requesting it to ascertain from the departments directly the degree of progress each had achieved. From this date on the status of nonwhite workers in Govern men t showed marked and continuous improvement.
As early as October 1941 FEPC and the Commission entered into an agreement whereby the Commission investigated cases of discrimination coming to it and furnished FEPC with copies of the complaint and action taken. FEPC was at liberty to criticize these reports and to request further steps or to take over the investigation should the Commission exhaust its remedies.
When the Commission in 1942 undertook direct recruiting for the lower positions for the War and Navy Departments, the Office for Emergency Management, and the War Production Board, much non-discriminatory hiring resulted. The Commission in 1942 also invited all agencies to use its standard application form No. 57 and asked them not to request photographs. In 1943, after FEPC’s staff was increased, regional agreements between FEPC and Commission offices were developed. In 1944, after considerable experience, the Civil Service Commission began to supplement its rules on discrimination and to make them cover more situations.
Between October 1941 and March 1946, the Civil Service Commission itself handled 1,871 complaints of discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin. Of this number it made a finding of
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discrimination in only 58 cases. FEPC experience indicated that this did not reflect the degree of discrimination current in Government. The Commission found discrimination only when one of its rules had been violated. A conclusion may therefore be reached that some unrecorded discrimination was practiced within the field of discretionary action allowed a personnel officer by civil service rules.
Enforcement of nondiscrimination in the Federal services was not confined to questions involving race. From July 1943 through June 1945, FEPC handled 2,048 complaints against discrimination in the Federal government. Eight percent of these involved religion, 5 percent national origin, and 4 percent alienage. In 1943, FEPC, the Commission, and the Council of Personnel Administration were able jointly to persuade all Government agencies to grant leave without prejudice on Saturdays to Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists.
Since the end of the war there have been continuing steps to safeguard the rights of minority group workers. On December 18,1945, President Truman wrote the heads of all Federal agencies requesting them to see that all qualified workers in existing temporary war jobs were given fair consideration for transfer appointments without discrimination. Executive Order 9691, issued by the President on February 4,1946, providing for the transitional civil service rules, requires that there shall be no discrimination in the making of temporary appointments subject to the establishment of civil service registers. If there is discrimination, the person hired may be removed.
Much, nevertheless, remains to be done to insure the continuance of nondiscriminatory employment policies in the Federal service now that the wartime FEPC has ended. Congressional intention to prohibit discrimination in Federal employment is clear from the statutes of 1883 and 1940. The wartime experience of FEPC indicates that while the Civil Service Commission has an important role imthe prosecution of a nondiscrimination policy in Government, it is not logically the main enforcement agency. The Commission is primarily concerned with the administration of a merit system. The Federal civil service is large, and departmental personnel officers must necessarily have a large measure of discretion. FEPC experience indicates that this discretion is wide enough to permit much discrimination over and beyond that which the Commission defines as violation of its own rules.
At the present time under Civil Service Commission rules and regulations, there are few adequate remedies for the person who has suffered discrimination. The Commission cannot compel reinstatement of a person removed on a discriminatory basis. There is no remedy for discriminatory misassignment, transfer, or promotion. There
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are, in short, many things within the discretion of the departments which the Commission cannot reach.
Until such time as there are definite sanctions established by law against Federal officials who discriminate and definite remedies for the injured party, it would appear that best results can be achieved by promotional work with the various departments, agencies, and independent establishments.
The future of the Negro in Government will not compare well with his wartime employment, and continuing enforcement of anti-discrimination policies is therefore desirable. Approximately 70 percent of approximately 300,000 Negroes in the Federal services during the war were in the unclassified positions. They were heavily concentrated in the industrial activities of the Army Service Forces, the Army Air Forces, and the Navy shore establishments. The war agencies employed 85 percent of all colored workers; 73.1 percent of all Negro CAF workers and 69 percent of all Negro professionals. It was in the war agencies that they also had the best grade distribution. Practically all of these positions were held under war service appointments. This means that the Negro is going to suffer disproportionately, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the cutbacks of Federal personnel.
REGIONAL WARTIME EXPERIENCE
The South
In 1940 about three-fourths of the Negroes in the Nation lived in the South and wore about 30 percent of the southern population. For years Negroes have been employed in every type of southern industry, although restricted for the most part to unskilled and service tasks, with some employed in semiskilled jobs and a few in skilled classifications. Maximum use of Negro labor for war production in the South depended not upon the opening of jobs to Negroes in industries from which they had been excluded entirely, but upon the training and upgrading of Negroes at their highest skills. White workers in the South have long been accustomed to working in the same plants with Negroes where the latter occupied inferior jobs, or where, if performing the same types of work, they were subjected to discriminatory wage rates.
During the war years, there was an increase of 75,000 nonwhite employees in manufacturing throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as compared with the increased employment of about 200,000 whites. Similar employment gains were made in other Southern States, the largest gains occurring in ordnance, chemicals, iron and steel, shipbuilding, aircraft, nonferrous metals, and Government.
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In the latter part of 1943, FEPC established regional offices covering the Southern States and began to maintain a reasonably close contact with the problems of employment discrimination in the southern area.
In becoming established as integral parts of the Federal Government, the offices in Atlanta and Dallas were beset with difficulties from the outset. The Atlanta office was faced with opposition, even before it had moved into its offices and begun to operate. A resolution was passed by the Atlanta city council calling upon members of Congress to obtain the removal of the Atlanta office, and there was a later effort to require FEPC to establish separate offices in Atlanta for its two Negro and three white employees, notwithstanding its limited funds and the fact that its first employees could not work effectively if segregated in different parts of the city. These efforts failed, however, and the Negro personnel of FEPC quickly became accepted as Government employees by other employees in the building where its offices were located. There is no evidence that large numbers of the white citizens joined in the opposition to FEPC, and white members of labor organizations appear to have had little part in the movement.
Discrimination in employment against Negroes was widespread throughout the South during the war years. FEPC’s foremost problem in the South was the tendency of local WMC and USES personnel to disregard the obligation to refer workers without discrimination. USES offices had been under state control prior to the war. Their staffs in the South too generally fell in with the employers’ failure to live up to the nondiscrimination clause in his war production contract. A great portion of FEPC’s time in the South, therefore, had to be spent in endeavoring to bring about an end to discriminatory practices on the part of Government representatives themselves.
While the failure of WMC-USES to perform their obligations under Executive Order 9346 was most pronounced in the South, the situation there successively improved upon closer acquaintance with the objectives and with the local staffs of FEPC. Spokesmen in the southern press, and often the press itself through editorials, from the start were hostile to any intervention in the discrimination field. The representatives of FEPC were handicapped by the statements of influential persons which ascribed to the agency motives and authority it never possessed. The local personnel of WMC-USES lived in this atmosphere, and were by the very nature of their own jobs responsive to local employer attitudes. The sum of these factors resulted in the following types of conduct:
Applicants of different races seldom received equal opportunities for referral to war jobs. It was common USES practice to fill skilled and semiskilled job orders from applicants in white offices while un
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skilled and semiskilled job orders were filled by referrals from separate Negro offices.
There were numerous USES refusals to refer Negroes to local war plants for employment at their highest skills. Negro welders, trained at Government expense, for example, were referred to out-of-town employment notwithstanding an acute local need for welders, A training school for Negroes was established in one southern city in the face of the opposition of the local USES office which held that the demand for common labor was so great that Negroes should not be trained to perform skilled work. *
There was general failure of USES southern offices to report to FEPC the discriminatory practices of employers and unions.
Although these practices persisted in some places to the end of the war, much progress was made by WMC-USES in opening up skilled jobs to available Negroes. In two important Georgia industries WMC-USES changed its policy and worked successfully with FEPC to persuade the employers to begin a training program and eventually to employ many hundreds of Negroes. In each of these instances the employment of skilled Negroes' was accomplished without discord.
A sample of 1,108 cases handled by southern FEPC offices shows that 387 cases were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or other reasons. Of the remaining 753 eases, 227 (or 30.1 percent) were adjusted satisfactorily to the aid of the war effort. Although this percentage of adjustments is small, it should be taken into account that effective results flow only from personal discussions and these were largely impossible because of the few employees FEPC could station in the South to explore the facts.
There are reasons for the failure of Negroes in the South to file complaints in a ratio comparable to the number elsewhere. The South is not as highly industrialized as other sections. Southern Negroes, until recently, accepted limited job opportunities as a circumstance about which little or nothing could be done. Finally, the articles printed in the southern white press about FEPC were not calculated to inspire confidence that the agency could effectively protect the right of equal opportunity.
Discrimination in employment in Southern States is not overwhelmingly supported by white employers and employees. A number of unions are educating white workers against discrimination, and a number of employers have acted on their own initiative and without publicity to integrate Negros in skilled jobs. The operator of a large textile plant has employed Negro women to work side by side with white women. There is likelihood that textile mills in many Southern States will make an increasingly large use of Negro labor, a result
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probably flowing from the refusal of many white workers to return to the mills from higher paying jobs obtained during the war.
The Northeast
During the war about a million and a half Negroes lived in the New England States, plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. They comprised 4 percent of the total population. The Jewish population of the country is largely concentrated in the eastern area, with New York City’s 2,000,000 Jews representing almost half the Jews in America. Discrimination against Negros brought FEPC the greatest proportion of complaints in the East, with Jewish cases next.
, In proportion to the Negro population, many more complaints were received from the East than from the South. This is attributable to the fact that Negroes in the East are more conscious of their rights as citizens and are backed by organizations which have long sought to end'discrimination in industry.
FEPC nevertheless found difficulty in removing barriers to Negroes in expanding war industries. It experienced also considerable resistance to placing qualified Negroes in skilled jobs. The East also tended to relegate Negroes to the so-called H jobs—hot, heavy and hard.
FEPC received in the East a far greater cooperation from Government agencies , than in the South. The New York USES office in particular insisted that discriminating employers be denied manpower priorities until they had corrected their employment practices. Many cases of discrimination against both Negroes and Jews were settled by the New York USES office without FEPC being called into the picture.
The Middle West
An estimated 2,100,000 Negroes (or 6.6 percent of the total population) lived during the war in the eight States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. Here, too, the majority of complaints received were from Negroes.
Discrimination was rife in this area before the situation began to improve in 1942 under the double influence of a tightening labor market and the application of Executive Order 8802. Cooperation by USES officials in most parts of the Middle West was good. The problems were the usual ones of failure to upgrade because of race and a reluctance to admit Negro women to any participation in the war effort. In the St. Louis and Kansas City areas the pattern of segregation complicated efforts to remove discrimination. In southern Indiana and southern Illinois, the dominance of southern attitudes was reflected in industrial relationships. Although large numbers of Ne
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groes were employed, they rarely rose above common labor. The relatively few complaints in the area can be attributed to fear of discharge and reprisal.
Over the whole Middle West many employers displayed a genuine fear that the introduction of Negro workers into their plants would result in a work stoppage by the white workers, many of whom were war immigrants from the South. This fear, however, was more easily dissipated than in the South.
Although there were conspicuous failures, many large and small companies, through the effects of USES and FEPC, brought their practices into line with the Executive order.
The West
FEPC’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, staffed with a regional director, four examiners, and the minimum of stenographic aides, attempted to cover all the West Coast and Mountain States, a 1,600-mile stretch which mushroomed during the war with shipyards, aircraft plants, and other industries of primary importance. FEPC did no more than scratch the surface of the fair employment field on the west coast, yet its staff achieved a high rate of satisfactory adjustments, and helped pave the way for integration of minority group workers.
During the 2 years of FEPC’s west coast operations, the Negro population in Los Angeles increased by 100,000, in San Francisco by more than 70,000, and in the Portland-Vancouver area by 20,000. FEPC cases mostly involved Negroes, with some Mexican-American and Jewish cases.
The progressive effectiveness of the west coast offices is shown by the fact that satisfactory adjustments were 36.6 percent during the first year and 52.7 percent during the second year. The two offices became well integrated arms of the Federal Government and their work was sustained by large segments of their communities. In most cases where valid complaints were presented to private industry and to the Army and Navy, the establishments sought promptly to bring their employment practices into line with the national policy of nondiscrimination. In numerous instances white workers, including those from the Deep South, worked in harmony with minority group members and expressed themselves vigorously in behalf of fair employment practices.
The principal difficulty on the west coast arose from inability to settle finally a few large cases, such as the one involving various shipyards and the Boilermakers Union, discussed elsewhere in this report. An over-all handicap was the lack of sufficient personnel and travel funds to cover the region.
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MINORITY GROUPS
The 14,500,000 Negro citizens comprise America’s largest minority group. Four out of five FEPC cases were filed by Negroes. This report, therefore, deals largely with discrimination problems of Negroes, although the facts stated regarding Negroes, with some variations, apply equally to millions of other Americans of diverse race or religions. The other principal groups are Mexican-Americans, Jews, Japanese-Americans, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Indians, religious groups impelled by their creeds to digress from prevailing practices, and workers whose national origins are apparent through language and customs.
Mexican-Americans
Most Mexican-American citizens live in the Southwest, with large numbers following the West Coast and Mountain States crops. They are important urban groups in Illinois and New York.
FEPC did not touch the problems of the Mexican-American agricultural worker. In the Southwest industries, principally mining, it found Mexican-Americans were mostly relegated to arduous and low-paid jobs. This was due in some instances to management policy, in others to prejudice on the part of supervisors. It became important to the war effort that Mexican-American workers be utilized in the skilled jobs for which many of them were well able to qualify.
In the mining industry great wartime improvement was made in the proper use of Mexican-Americans. The exodus of white miners to better-paid war jobs on the west coast left places open for Mexican-Americans. They were also aided by the efforts of the War Labor Board to end discriminatory wage rates and by the cooperation of the unions concerned.
Representatives of three large western industries cited their find-ings on Mexican-American workers. One industry reported that members of this group did not perform as well as members of other groups, advancing as explanations the lack of opportunity and education. Two industries reported, however, that the Mexican-American performed as well as other employees, took advantage of training, and won promotions just as members of other groups, although they generally had lesser educational backgrounds than the average employee. The significance of the report by the latter two firms perhaps lies in the fact that they utilized a high proportion of skilled workers for whom training programs were maintained. Once confronted with the opportunity to receive training, the Mexican-American responds as favorably as others.
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If presented with equal opportunities in education and employment, the Mexican-American will avail himself of the opportunity for betterment. If he is denied them, the Nation loses a large potential source of skilled workers.
Religious cases
Eight'percent of FEPC’s docket involved complaints of discrimination because of creed. Of these, 70 percent were Jewish.
The jurisdiction of FEPC did not include financial institutions, the professions, and some other occupations in which discrimination often operates against Jewish applicants. The burden of eliminating discrimination in these fields fell during the war on civic organizations. The 2,000,000 Jewish residents of New York City represent about half the American Jews. Half of FEPC’s Jewish cases were processed in New York. One-quarter of all the Jewish cases involved the Federal Government.
Jewish cases were scattered on an individual basis rather than falling into a mass pattern. The most frequent allegation was a refusal to hire. Informal negotiations normally succeeded in clearing up valid cases of discrimination. Often an employer stated that his subordinate acted without authority. One large employer, reminded of his duty under the Executive order, posted this notice:
Let us not in this shipyard help the enemy by provoking incidents based on religious or racial prejudice.
Much success was had during the war in removing discriminatory advertisements calling for “Gentiles only” submitted to newspapers by industries under FEPC’s jurisdiction. Persuasion only was used; no directorates issued. Private organizations were primarily instrumental in barring such advertisements.
Seventh Day Adventists appealed to FEPC in cases where they were discharged because they would not adhere to routine work schedules on Saturdays, their Sabbath. FEPC was able to persuade many employers to rearrange work schedules to fit religious requirements.
Cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religious groups were relatively few in number but required a considerable amount of time in negotiations.
Japanese-Americans
FEPC based its jurisdiction over the cases of Japanese-Americans primarily on the consideration of race and did not intervene where security was involved. The withdrawal in 1942 of most Japanese-Americans to relocation centers resulted in the filing of only a few FEPC cases. As the war drew to a close a large number of Japanese-
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Americans returned to the west coast where some sought employment in industries. The numbers of complaints increased and in a few instances satisfactory adjustments were made, but the shut-down of FEPC California offices for lack of funds ended further efforts in the field.
Complaints filed by Italians, Germans, Chinese, and aliens were indicative of local prejudice but were relatively insignificant in numbers.
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PART II. AFTER VJ-DAY
PROBLEMS OF RECONVERSION
We have seen that during the war Negro workers made considerable progress in employment in Government and in industry. Given a fully operating economy, the job of developing fair employment practices in America can be accomplished. Important wartime advances were made everywhere in the United States. It remains to examine what the future holds. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has summarized the problem as follows:
(1) The Negro has made his greatest employment gains in those occupations (especially semiskilled factory jobs) which will suffer the severest cut-backs during the postwar period, (2) further, he has made his biggest advances in those industries (especially the metals, chemicals, and rubber groups) which will experience the greatest postwar declines.
It is clear, therefore, that Negro workers will suffer great hazards during the reconversion period because they were concentrated heavily in industries with comparatively small reconversion possibilities. These include aircraft, shipbuilding, ammunition explosives, fireworks, and small arms. The displaced Negro war worker, therefore, will have little chance to stay in the same plant and work on a machine producing tools of peace. He will have to change plants, localities, and industries. This means that he has a great stake in orderly reconversion, good labor market advice, adequate and equitable opportunities for training.
IMPACT OF RECONVERSION ON MINORITY WORKERS
Special reports submitted to FEPC by local USES offices for seven urban areas1 provide the most specific employment information currently available regarding the condition of minority workers for these areas. Although the reporting was not entirely uniform, many of the major changes in the labor market and in the labor force of each area were described, and certain general observations may be made.
All of the areas studied experienced a tremendous wartime population growth resulting from the in-migration of both white and Negro
1 For a more detailed analysis of this material, see pp. 48—83. These areas were chosen as representative of the various patterns of wartime expansion and reconversion and together provide the basis for a broad understanding and interpretation of the problems of minority workers.
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workers. In two of the cities, Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo., Negro in-migration is estimated to be about 10 percent of total in-migration and has resulted in no important change in the proportion of the white and Negro population. In four cities, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, and Indianapolis, the in-migration of Negroes has resulted in disproportionate increases in the ratio of the nonwhite to the white population. For example, Detroit experienced an influx of 83,000 Negroes, Chicago about 92,000.
Negro in-migration differs from that of white war workers in two respects: (1) it continued throughout the war period, although white in-migration began to decline in late 1943, and it is still considerable though diminished in rate; (2) it is of a more permanent nature and Negro workers in these and other localities have expressed an intention to remain in their new homes. Unfortunately, a special census for 1945 has been taken for only a limited number of cities and the population figures now in use are estimates only.
The USES labor market analysis also shows that Negro workers constituted a disproportionate share of persons on relief in 1940 and were late entering war production. However, Negro employment increased steadily throughout the war period, through midsummer in 1945, while total employment declined from peaks in late 1943 and early 1944. In spite of this development, the seniority of colored workers is inferior to that of white workers in those industries which have continued into the postwar period. Negroes stayed on until VJ-day in such industries as shipbuilding, aircraft, and ordnance which had no postwar prospects. They were unable, because; of racial barriers, to transfer to other employment. And their poor seniority, in those industries where they are still employed, subjects them to the risk of further displacement by returning veterans.
In every area studied, Negroes made important industrial gains, both as to industries and occupations entered. USES reports from each of the seven cities show that the employment of Negro workers in war industries rose from points considerably below the nonwhite representation in the population to peaks equal to or above their ratio to the total population. Occupationally, the greatest gains were made in the semiskilled category, but in no instance were the basic concentrations of the Negro labor force altered.
The evidence concerning the disproportion of post VJ-day unemployment among nonwhites in the seven areas is not as valid as the wartime employment data, for the reason that local USES offices were no longer required to collect nonwhite data. Nevertheless, some offices have continued nonwhite reporting, and the latest figures for Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Toledo, and Indianapolis indicate declines in nonwhite employment below the population ratio. Only
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in Chicago, of all the areas studied, have Negro workers held their own, and in Chicago nonwhite employment currently exceeds the population ratio by one fifth. Further evidence of the severity of Negro employment losses is shown by estimates of the number of unemployed, a figure which for some communities often matches one previously quoted to show wartime gains. The best evidence of nonwhite unemployment, however, is the disproportionate number of nonwhites in the applicant load of local USES offices and the excessive number of nonwhite placements being made by these offices.
A study of USES placements shows not only the disemployment but strong indications of a return to discriminatory hiring practices. In nonagricultural placements, there is a great difference between the opportunities available to Negro workers in January 1945, and in January 1946. For example, nonwhite placements in St. Louis were 69 percent of all nonagricultural placements for the earlier date, but only 22 percent 1 year later. For Kansas City, the comparable figures were 60 percent and 29 percent. In Detroit, nonwhites were but 7.2 percent of all manufacturing placements in February 1946 in contrast with an average of 25.7 percent during 1945. Downward trends were reported as well from Chicago and Indianapolis.
Another index to discrimination is shown by the occupational characteristics of USES placements. In Chicago, Negro workers fell from 23 percent to 14 percent of placements at the semiskilled level between November 1944, and December 1945. In Kansas City in January 1945,12 percent of all Negro placements were in semiskilled work; in January 1946, the local office could find such jobs for only five Negro workers during the whole month. In Chicago, in 1944, nonwhites constituted 18 percent of all semiskilled placements but only 5 percent in 1946. New York was the only one of seven cities studied in which there was no appreciable decline in the proportion of nonwhite placements in any of the occupational groups. Whereas, during the war, Negro workers had achieved new and significant representation in the skilled and professional and managerial categories, by 1946 they were obtaining either very few or no opportunities at these levels.
The placement of Negro workers reported by all the local USES offices, except Detroit,2 show a rapid increase in employment in unskilled and service occupations. As has been shown, these two categories constituted the bulk of Negro employment in 1940. All but 18 of 449 nonwhite placements by the Kansas City office for January 1946, were in service or unskilled jobs. Labor and service jobs were 89 percent of all nonwhite placements by the Indianapolis USES
a Detroit showed a severe decline in nonwhite placements despite the fact that unemployed Negroes constituted 21 percent of available labor.
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in November 1944, but in December 1945, were 95 percent of all jobs obtained by colored workers. For Detroit, the proportion rose from 70 percent in 1944 to 90 percent in January 1946. The New York office reported the lowest increase, namely, 87 percent to 89 percent between November 1944, and February 1946. Those areas which reported non white veteran placements told the same story for this group as for all Negro workers.
Other forms of discrimination suffered by Negro workers, as shown by reports from sources other than USES, include downgrading and wage losses. There has been a marked increase in the number of discriminatory advertisements for workers appearing in daily newspapers. One St. Louis study reports an average of almost 100 discriminatory ads a day for February 1946. One of the chief handicaps of the Negro worker is related to his inability to get industrial training. This is especially a burden to veterans and war workers having only single skills and in need of retraining. In areas which have segregated schools, it is reported that different and less useful courses are taught at Negro schools. Apprenticeship programs, financed in part by the Federal Government, are not available to Negro applicants because of the joint refusal of some unions and prospective employers to accept them.
An analysis of the special survey of job orders received by USES offices in 11 selected areas during the period February 1-15, 1946, revealed 24 percent of the orders to be discriminatory. Of the total 38,195 orders received, 9,171 included specifications with regard to race, citizenship, religion, or some combination of these factors, with racial specifications appearing on 97 percent of the total discriminatory orders received.
Of the 11 reporting areas, the St. Louis area reported the highest proportion of discriminatory orders, 2,676, or 83 percent, of the total orders were discriminatory—all with respect to race. The Chicago area followed second with 3,812, or 35 percent, of the total orders specifying rate, citizenship, or religion. Specifications with regard to race comprised the vast majority of discriminatory orders.
San Francisco, with relatively high level alien populations, showed the highest proportions of discriminatory orders specifying citizenship, with 95 of the 614 discriminatory orders including citizenship as a qualifying factor. In some instances, the confidential nature of the job to be filled was offered as the reason for citizenship specifications.
Milwaukee reported no discriminatory orders and Indianapolis but 2 out of the 2,314 orders received.
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Toledo report increases in racial discrimination in employment since VJ-day, as the
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removal of manpower controls and a looser labor market permit more latitude in hiring. In Los Angeles, Mexicans, and Japanese are often barred from employment although the bulk of discriminatory orders operate against Negro applicants.
Although all the areas surveyed report fewer women being employed, only Detroit and Toledo report more discrimination against nonwhite women than exists against women as a group.
Of the total orders for jobs in entry occupations, 30 percent were discriminatory in character—the highest percentage of all occupational groups. Although the small number of total orders in this group, 757, raises some question concerning the reliability of the percentage, more discrimination may enter into the selection of workers for on-the-job training and apprenticeship jobs.
Twenty-six percent of the orders for workers in service and in semiskilled jobs were discriminatory. The high proportion of racial specifications in orders for service jobs may be due to the fact that many types of service jobs are commonly held by more than one racial group so that employers with racial preferences believe it necessary to include “White” or “Negro” in the job specifications.
Orders for clerical and sales, and for professional and managerial jobs showed 22 and 24 percent discriminatory orders, respectively. The contact with the public required in many such jobs is given as one of the factors responsible for discriminatory specifications on job orders in these groups.
The frequency of discriminatory orders varied slightly more among industries than among occupational groups. Manufacturing showed the highest proportion, with 26 percent of the orders including discriminatory specifications. Race was the basis of discrimination in 3,655 of the 3,750 discriminatory orders for manufacturing jobs. Within the broad manufacturing field, proportions of discriminatory orders ranged from 13 percent in petroleum products to 40 percent in clothing.
The service industries followed second to manufacturing with 24 percent of the total orders including discriminatory specifications. With approximately one-half the USES placements in service jobs now being for nonwhites, it is clear that preference was granted to Negroes in these lower paid and less desirable jobs.
Of 835 orders for Government jobs, 81 included discriminatory specifications. Of these, 31 specified citizenship as a limiting factor to acceptance; the remaining 50 specified race.
A survey of employment discrimination against Jews since VJ-day, undertaken in 15 urban centers by local Jewish organizations,3
8 Sponsored by the Committee on Employment Discrimination of the National Community Relations Advisory Council. The study covers approximately 80 percent of the Jewish population of the United States.
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resulted in the following major conclusions:
1. There has been a marked rise in discriminatory practices against Jews since VJ-day which is likely to be further accelerated as manpower shortages are eased.
2. Discrimination against Jewish war veterans follows the same pattern and occurs with the same frequency as against nonveterans.
3. The amount of discrimination in cities with strong FEPC’s is far lower than in other cities and suggests that such legislation does succeed in reducing discrimination.
Because of the lack of objective data about the industrial and occupational discrimination of Jewish workers, this study concerned itself with discriminatory practices found in these four areas of investigation:
1. A comparison of discriminatory newspaper advertisements during corresponding periods in 1945 and 1946.
2. A comparison of the volume of complaints filed with Jewish agencies during comparable periods in 1945 and 1946.
3. A study of registration and referral practices of private employment agencies.
4. A study of the job-seeking experiences of workers registered with Jewish placement agencies, supplemented by a sample study of the experience of Jewish veterans in their efforts to secure employment.
Studies of help wanted ads during corresponding weeks in March 1946 and March 1945 were conducted in seven cities, namely, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Newark. In each of these cities, voluntary agreements made between the press and Jewish organizations before and during the war to abolish discriminatory advertising, continued in effect. During this period, there was an over-all increase of 145 percent in discriminatory ads.
Although complaints of discrimination received by Jewish agencies are only a fraction of the number of instances in which discrimination against Jews occur, the volume of such complaints is a valuable index. Agencies from seven cities, namely, Boston, Chicago.r Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, and Philadelphia, reported an over-all increase in complaints of 37 percent between March 1945 and March 1946. An analysis of these reports revealed, however, that New York, which has a State FEPC law, experienced 6 percent fewer complaints in the postwar period. Each of the others reported an increase of 77 percent or more and, excluding New York, the overall increase was 93 percent.
Two hundred and forty-one private employment agencies in 12 cities, namely, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and
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San Francisco, were visited between December. 1945 and March 1946 for the purpose of this report. Of these, 220 were commercial agencies charging fees; 107 were concentrated in New York and Newark where antidiscrimination laws are in effect and the remaining 134 were distributed among 10 cities. Only two of the New York and Newark agencies included any reference to religion on their registration forms and both asserted that these were to be removed in conformity with State law. On the other hand, 89 percent of the agencies outside of New York and Newark include questions about religion on their registration blanks. Two-thirds of these same agencies stated that it was more difficult to place Jewish workers.
In Chicago, an actual statistical count of discriminatory job orders was made by one of the largest agencies in the city. This survey showed that 60 percent of the executive jobs, 50 percent of the sales executive jobs, 41 percent of the male clerical openings and 24 percent of the female clerical openings were closed to Jews and fully 83 percent of all orders were discriminatory.
Statements made by all of the agency heads made clear, however, that employers do not need to issue discriminatory orders in order to practice discrimination. They need express their policy only once or reject all Jewish applicants to obtain the kind of referrals wanted.
Job-seeking experiences of Jewish applicants in 12 cities, in chi di ng Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, have been analyzed during the course of this survey. Appli-cants registering in March 1946, with Jewish guidance and placement agencies were questioned regarding their efforts to obtain work in the 6 months following VJ-day. Altogether, 1,251 job seekers were interviewed, 651 of whom were veterans. Their experience with discriminatory practices may be tabulated as follows:
New York 11 cities (excluding New York)
Job applicants asked religion by firms Percent 15 19 9 8 . 4 7 Percent 60 47 67 34 65 15
Veterans asked religion by firms
Job applicants asked religion by employment agencies .
Firms asking religion ____
Agencies asking religion
Applicants refused jobs by reason of religion
— ! —
“Private industry,” states the report, “is by far the major source of discriminatory practices against Jews.” “But,” it continues, “Statistics tell only half the story. Intolerance and injustice are not susceptible of quantitative analysis, nor can frustration or thwarted
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ambition be depicted on a chart.” Excerpts from a few of the stories told by Jewish job-seekers touched by this survey follow:
A Minneapolis woman: “The interviewer told me my experience was good and then asked my religion and said that I would be called if there was an opening. I was not called although ads are still running in the newspaper.”
A Los Angeles stenographer: “The ____________Insurance Company hired me and then noticed my religion and politely told me they couldn’t use me.”
A New York woman: “They were looking for insurance investigators. The interviewer asked if I take holidays other than the usual ones. When I said I observed Jewish holidays she said that the company would not allow that.”
The following statements are taken from reports by Jewish war veterans:
A veteran with overseas service in the Pacific, “I put an ad in the paper looking for a position and I got a response. The party asked me whether I was a gentile and when I said “no”, the party hung up”.
A reconnaissance pilot, “On several applications from airline and aircraft companies, the question of nationality and religion was clearly evident—and naturally this factor was more than infuriating since at the separation center, before discharge, representatives of the airline companies had spoken to all pilots of the availability of flying jobs.”
A veteran in Philadelphia: “I applied for office work at the______ Refining Company. I made the highest grade. They were hired and I was not.”
“I was interviewed and tested and found satisfactory and told so. I was to report the following week after my application, a formality, was mailed in. My application had four references, all of typical Jewish names. A letter answered my application and said my position was taken by someone else.”
* * * “I was recommended for a job with the_____________Plumbing Company by the Commander of the AMVETS. I was told my qualifications were satisfactory but there was no opening. Later the Commander phoned the company and was told they couldn’t use me because I was Jewish. All this took place in Brotherhood Week.”
RECONVERSION REPORTS ON STATUS OF MINORITY WORKERS FOR
TEN SELECTED COMMUNITIES
Introduction and acknowledgments
An adequate investigation of major urban communities now in process of reconversion, even for a limited number of areas and for
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selected groups within the area, has not been possible. By the time this study was begun, FEPC had closed most of its regional offices. The United States Employment Service, which, during the war, had been the chief source of employment information about nonwhite workers, curtailed its reporting services and turned its attention to other aspects of its program after VJ-day. The sort of survey of reconversion job changes undertaken by the Bureau of the Census in St. Louis, Mo.,4 for FEPC is a complicated process, universally desirable but not feasible under present agency budgets. There is, in fact, no adequate reporting either by state governments, by the Federal Government, or by private agencies on the employment and unemployment of Negro workers by industry, occupation, wages, or sex. Our knowledge, therefore, of the status of Negro workers is based upon either incomplete or noncomparable data.
FEPC has relied heavily upon local sources, both official and private, for information concerning the impact of reconversion upon minority workers. It was authorized by Executive Order 9346 to employ such voluntary and uncompensated services as it might need from time to time. As a result of negotiation initiated by FEPC at the national level, the USES agreed to provide information about labor-market conditions as they relate to the status of nonwhite workers for a selected group of cities. These were Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.; Detroit, Mich.; Toledo, Ohio; Chicago, Ill.; Indianapolis, Ind.; and New York, N. Y. In addition, USES made a special study of employer’s job orders received by local offices in 11 selected areas during the period from February 1 to 15, 1946. This list of cities included Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.; Detroit, Mich.; Toledo and Akron, Ohio; Chicago, Ill.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Portland, Oreg.; San Francisco and Los Angeles, Calif.
Many private organizations prepared special reports at FEPC’s request. A few released their personnel on projects considered by FEPC to be important for the gathering of new or unreported data. Emphasis was placed on those areas on which USES had agreed to supply information. The committee on employment discrimination of the National Community Relations Advisory Council of various local Jewish organizations prepared a special survey of employment discrimination against Jews since VJ-day. This report covered 15 cities, namely, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.; Detroit, Mich.; Cleveland, and Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wis.; Minneapolis, Minn.; New York, N. Y.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Newark, N. J.; Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; and Los Angeles and San Francisco, Calif.
4 See p. 83.
701290—47---------5
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The American Council on Race Relations was a valuable correspondent for the purpose of this study, often providing FEPC with the on-the-spot observations of its local representatives. In addition, FEPC utilized its own remaining regional office personnel in Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, and New York to coordinate and supplement the gathering of information. As was true throughout FEPC’s entire operation, the interest and assistance of such organizations as the National Urban League, the NAACP, and many local interracial groups were exceedingly helpful. Grateful acknowledgment is made to these and all other agencies and organizations which made this section of the report possible.
Kansas City
The Kansas City area represents the story of what has happened to most American industrial centers during the war. War production expanded the city beyond any previous development; VJ-day brought about contraction. Like many cities, Kansas City is hopeful of its future and its Committee for Economic Development believes that its citizens may expect by September 1946, a 40 percent increase in employment over 1940. Though Kansas City is one of the great market, distribution, and transportation centers of the world, it is currently experiencing the slack and uncertainty of reconversion.
In 19’40, the population for the labor market area totaled 690,700 persons, but by December 1945 it had increased to an estimated 760,000.® The extent of Negro immigration is believed to be around 10 percent of the total.6 For Kansas City, Mo., alone, the 1940 census reported 399,178 persons of whom 41,574 or 10.4 percent were Negro. During the decade between 1930 and 1940, the Negro population increased 7.8 percent and for the previous census period rose by 25.6 percent.
In 1940, 57 percent of Kansas City’s total population was in the labor force, while 65 percent of the city’s Negro population were workers. Negro workers represented 12 percent of the labor force and numbered some 22,472 persons, but 31 percent of them, a figure more than twice as high as for all workers, were unemployed or on public emergency work projects.7 At the same time, Negro relief cases were 37.4 percent of the total case load. For Negro workers, domestic and personal service, common labor, operatives in nonmanu
5 USES estimates in a special report to FEPC in February 1946. This figure is for the civilian population only. A November 1943 estimate, based upon U. S. Census Bureau figures, places the civilian population at 717,000 and armed forces withdrawals for that date at 70,000. The labor market area as defined by USES includes all or part of four counties in Missouri and two counties in Kansas.
8 Idem.
7 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States; Population vol. 11, table A-43, also from data supplied in a special report to FEPC from the Urban League of Kansas City, Mo., March 1946.
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facturing occupations were the leading types of employment. Only 35 in 100 women in the city were workers, whereas 47 Negro women were working or seeking work.8
During the war, qualitative and quantitative gains were made by colored workers in such secondary essential industries as meat packing, transportation, maintenance, trade and personal service, in which they were already represented. And, as elsewhere, they entered primary war industry and occupations from which they previously had been excluded. In these areas, their opportunities were restricted by early difficulties in obtaining war training. White workers were trained in welding, electricity, and radio; Negro workers, for whom the number of classes and trainees were limited, were given woodwork, auto-mechanics, and body and fender work which were not essential to defense preparation. Often Negroes were asked to produce letters guaranteeing employment before they could obtain training. Often they took jobs below the skills they possessed and then found it difficult to win upgrading or further training on the job. Negro construction workers faced two barriers in securing employment in the building of factories and cantonments for army camps: They were improperly classified at USES because they had been unable to work at their skills during the depression and they lacked the union membership that was a prerequisite to placement on construction jobs. Some war industries in the area delayed the employment of colored workers because of the lack of separate toilet facilities, lockers, and cafeteria service. Negro workers holding civil-service ratings were refused referral, or if referred, were denied employment or placed at work below their classification.
Despite these barriers, gains were made. In July 1943, the war industries of Kansas City, Mo., then reporting to the War Man-power Commission had a total of 3,405 Negro workers, representing 6.3 percent of total employment. By November 1943, 91 reporting firms had 9,671 Negro workers who were 8.7 percent of total employment. Peak employment was reached in July 1944 when 90 firms had 11,419 colored workers, forming 10.2 percent of the total. The highest percentage of non white representation occurred in January 1945 when 91 firms had 11,041 Negro workers who constituted 10.4 percent of total employment. By July 1945 the percent had dropped to 9.7.®
For the total labor market area, the War Manpower Commission estimated, in 1944, that there were 303,600 employed workers, 50
8 In Kansas City, Kans., there were 50,745 persons in the labor force, of whom 8,621 or 16.9 percent were Negroes. Negroes formed 17.3 percent of the total population.
9 It must be borne in mind that neither the same firms nor the same number of firms reported in different periods and that these, figures therefore are only indicative of trends not total employment in the area.
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percent of them being engaged in essential industry. In July 1945, just before VJ-day and when war industry already had begun io be cut back, WMC reported that 102,000 persons were employed in 108 firms engaged in war production or war-supporting activities. Negro workers constituted 11 percent or 12,701 of this number; 6,718 being employed in Kansas City, Mo., and 5,988 in Kansas City, Kans. At peak employment, 10 major war industries producing munitions, especially aircraft engines and parts, used a total of 92,093 workers of whom 8,202 or 8.9 percent were colored workers.
VJ-day closed these plants for the most part in Greater Kansas City, releasing 63,945 white and 5,286 Negro workers, who represented 8 percent of the total. The extent of total and Negro losses in the area'since VJ-day is unknown, but there are indications that unemployment among Negroes is disproportionate. The Kansas City, Mo., USES reports that Negroes constituted 21 percent of a total of 87,708 registrants routed through the main and branch offices in January 1946. Negro placements also exceed those of white workers in proportion to the population, but occur chiefly in common labor and domestic service.
A comparison of nonagricultural placements for January 1945 and for January 1946 for total and nonwhite workers, specially prepared for FEPC by the Kansas City, Mo., USES, reveals a return to discriminatory hiring practices. For January 1945, total placements numbered 8,448, of which 1,478 or 17 percent were non white. For all workers, 65 percent of these placements were in manufacturing industries, but for nonwhite workers only 60 percent were in such industries. In January 1946, total placements numbered 1,760 and nonwhite workers formed 449 or 22 percent of the total. The difference of placement in total manufacturing groups had grown. For all workers, the percentage was 39 percent, for nonwhites it was 29 percent.
Within the manufacturing groups, there were also differences. In January 1945, 19 percent of all workers were placed in aircraft and parts, but only 10 percent of nonwhite workers. With respect to all other industry classifications, wholesale and retail trade provided nearly 15 percent of nonwhite placements, but only 8 percent of the total. In January 1946, about one-half of nonwhite placements in manufacturing were made in food and kindred products, over 26 percent were in trade and over 18 percent in personal service other than domestic. The industry distribution for all workers, particularly within manufacturing groups, was more varied and less heavily concentrated in particular classifications.
The occupational distribution for nonwhite workers in January 1945, showed a few placements in professional and managerial work, more
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ill clerical and sales, at least 6 percent in skilled jobs and 12 percent in semiskilled jobs. But, in January 1946, the first two categories were not represented at all and only 5 nonwhite workers out of a total of 449 placements obtained skilled jobs, only 13 nonwhites were placed in semiskilled work. About one-half went into service, the other half into unskilled occupations. In the pending application file on January 31, 1946, in the Kansas City, Mo., local USES office, male Negro workers, while forming less than 14 percent of all male applicants, had filed over 33 percent of all requests for service occupations and nearly 30 percent of those for unskilled work. Negro women constituted slightly over 11 percent of all female applicants, but had made more than 54 percent of all the requests of women workers for service placements. The same trend was revealed for Negro veterans of World War II, who had filed 14 percent of the total of 8,466 applications by such veterans at the end of January 1946 but had made 37 percent of all service job applications and nearly 33 percent of all those for unskilled work.
This record reflects the basic concentrations characteristic of Negro employment in Kansas City in 1940. The figures also may indicate among other things, that Negro workers are realistically applying for the work which they believe is available to them and are being placed mainly in traditional, prewar occupations. In addition, such data may mean that Negro workers who hope to obtain professional, skilled or semiskilled work, do not use the services of the USES, depending rather upon their own efforts and upon private agencies such as the Urban League. Of a total of 2,095 job orders received by the Kansas City USES between February 1 and 15, 119 were dis-criminatory, all having specifications as to race. The job market is further affected by the return of about one-half of the 50,000 military personnel from Kansas City. Nearly 3,000 Negro veterans are included and add to the serious and increasing labor surplus of the area. Unemployment is, in fact,. especially high among veterans and women.10
A spot check11 on the current employment status of 88 Negro former war workers in the Kansas City area reveals that they have experienced both downgrading and salary decreases. One of the groups interviewed was composed of 39 women workers; 32 had held skilled jobs, but only one. continued to work at this level and 27 were unemployed. Another group made up of 49 workers, both men and women, had lost an average of $420 a week in salaries. In this same group only 4 out of 13 who had held supervisory positions continued to have such jobs.
10 USES Labor Market Information Area Series, March 1946, Department of Labor.
11 Made by the Kansas City, Mo., Urban League for FEPC.
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Another special study12 reports an increase in the number of discriminatory advertisements appearing in Kansas City newspapers. Four papers were analyzed for January 1946 and two leading dailies were checked between February 1 and 16. In the later period, specifications for “white only” male help were made by 81 employers for such occupations as janitors, porters, cleaners, bus boys, dishwashers, and housemen and 145 employers wanted “white only” female workers as cooks, house workers, janitresses, laundresses, bus girls, dishwashers, maids, and elevator operators. This would seem to indicate that Negro workers are being displaced even in the jobs which they have held traditionally.
This same source reports the following examples of downgrading and refusal of employment which have affected Negro workers in Kansas City:
In an automobile plant which made shells during the war, some 30 Negroes including a number of veterans, with seniority, who did skilled work during the war have been offered the maintenance jobs they held in peacetime. White workers without seniority and not previously employed by the plant have been upgraded over Negro workers with seniority. No Negro workers have been given a production job since reconversion. The local union officials have refused to act for fear of racial conflict. The matter has been in the hands of regional and international union officers for almost 6 months without results.
Two Negro veterans qualified by merit examinations for municipal jobs in the work in a traffic department, but were told by the department head the jobs they wanted were white men’s jobs.
In several railroad companies Negro workers in common labor jobs, though having seniority and proper qualifications, are refused the right to bid for jobs in a higher classification. They are advised that, in addition, they are required to have experience. Whites without seniority and often without previous employment in the plant are placed on jobs for a “breaking-in period” of 30 days. After 30 days a notice of the vacancy is posted and employees bid for jobs. The white worker, during the 30-day breaking-in period, is qualified to bid for the job because he has acquired experience. Negroes are never given a chance to “break-in” and they never gain “experience.”
One Negro civil-service eligible for employment in the Women’s Army Corps with a rating of 93 was told the particular agency preferred single women as clerks. They later claimed the use of toilets by Negroes was a problem.
12 Also prepared by the Kansas City, Mo., Urban League for FEPC.
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Negro boiler workers with a particular railroad were given their choice of remaining upgraded and losing their seniority (in which case someone else could replace them in a few days) or to keep their seniority and be downgraded. Ten machinists, blacksmith helpers, boilermakers and helpers have already been down-graded.and expect to be discharged soon.
Meat inspectors, clerks in a Government installation, who are qualified eligibles*for municipal, State, and Federal positions report either outright refusal of employment or employment under their classification and refusal to upgrade after being hired lower than their classification.
One of the most serious difficulties facing Negro workers in Kansas City in their attempts to find postwar employment concerns their inability to obtain adequate industrial training. There is only one vocational high school for Negroes. Its classes are overcrowded and nearly a hundred veterans are in attendance with the regular teenage students. The white vocational high school offers courses in aviation mechanics, radio, commercial arts, drafting, machine shop, pattern making, sheet metal, sign painting, and welding, all of which are not given at the Negro school. On the other hand, the latter provides training in building maintenance, home management, cookery, masonry, shoe repair, and tailoring which are not taught at the white school. A few courses such as auto mechanics and carpentry are taught at both. A cooperative occupational education plan, partly financed by Federal funds, is offered by five white schools in Kansas City, Mo. This is an extension of the standard high school curriculum to include on-the-job occupational training for the students. So far, the promise to institute the plan in the Negro schools has not been carried out. Very little placement of students is accomplished by the Negro vocational school, which lacks a placement officer although there is one on the faculty of the white school. Local private schools which have courses in engineering, photography, refrigeration, and watchmaking bar Negroes. Training within industry on an apprenticeship basis, also partly financed by Federal funds, is not available to Negroes, except in Negro businesses, because of the resistance of both employers and unions.
Nearly 13,000 Negroes in the Kansas City labor market area are members of CIO and AFL unions, being about equally divided between the two. The CIO affiliates having the largest Negro membership are the United Packing House Workers, the Wholesale and Retail Workers, and the Steel Workers. About 500 Mexican-American workers are also in CIO locals, chiefly the Packing House Workers., A few Negroes have entered the mass production locals of the Brother
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hood of Electrical Workers, AFL, and a few have been admitted to the skilled craft locals of the building and garment trades. In some instances the AFL maintains separate locals. One of the major difficulties of Negro workers concerns the discriminatory policies of some labor unions in the area.
Local opinion13 is unanimous, however, that the most serious problem facing colored workers is the failure of management to take a stand in favor of their employment. In addition, the Missouri merit system breaks down in orderly placement according to rank when Negro workers head the civil-service lists.
St. Louis
In St. Louis, which is larger, and in which there is both more community concern for the Negro minority and an active Negro leadership, the experience of Negro workers has been, nevertheless, very similar. Available information sketches a picture that is an even sharper illustration of the manner in which wartime gains have been nullified.
A member of the housing committee of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce estimates that the Negro population of St. Louis has increased by nine or ten thousand persons over the 1940 figure of 108,000. In 1940 Negroes represented 13.3 percent of the total population of 706,794 persons. A comparative occupational distribution of white and Negro employed persons in 1940, shows that about 41 percent of Negro workers were in domestic and other service jobs, 25 percent at common labor, but only 16 percent were semiskilled operatives and less than 4 percent were skilled craftsmen. Among white workers, however, nearly 19 percent were skilled craftsmen, over 23 percent were semiskilled operatives and more than 19 percent were in clerical and sales occupations. Only 20 percent of all white workers were in service and labor jobs combined.
A 4-year survey conducted by the St. Louis Urban League demonstrates the pattern of gains and losses by Negro workers during the defense and war periods. At the end of 1941, 40 major industrial plants in St. Louis had 26,210 white and 4,470 colored workers who represented 14 percent of total employment. At peak employment these same industries had 102,235 white and 18,500 Negro employees. The study reveals that about 82 percent of the 14,000 increase in Negro employment occurred during the last year of war production. By November 1945, the cancellation of war contracts had brought unemployment to 35,435 white workers and 11,675 Negro workers in these plants. Thus, at the end of 4 years, though Negro workers had a
M Statement, Race Relations Clinic, held in Kansas City, Mo., February 25, 26, 1946, and sponsored by a group of 31 labor, civic and religious organizations.
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quantitative gain of 2,355 over the 1941 level, they represented but 9 percent of total employment, a percentage decrease of 5 points.
This type of disproportionate loss is shown by the following industry examples:
Aircraft, which employed 8,000 Negro workers at the wartime peak, dismissed 85 percent of them.
Ordnance, which had 7,000 Negroes, discharged all of them at the end of the war.
Electrical machinery, employing 1,500 Negroes, cut their numbers by 80 percent.
Steel cut Negro employment from 5,200 to 4,400.
Chemicals hired only 200 additional Negro workers during the war, fired 10 percent of them after VJ-day.
The shoe industry cut back 50 percent of its 600 new Negro employees.
Meat-packing, which increased Negro employment 40 percent over prewar levels, liquidated one-half of the gain.
Except in the garment and needle trades industries, Negro women in St. Louis have lost practically all of their restricted wartime em-ployment. In 1940 the garment trades employed no Negro women as power-machine operators, but as of January 1, 1946, 29 plants had 1,015 such operators, many of whom can expect relatively stable employment. All of these workers have been in segregated plants or departments, but a few recent efforts at integration have been undertaken spontaneously by the employers.
The Urban League estimates that among other gains of colored workers in St. Louis was a rise in the proportion engaged in clerical occupations from 3.6 to 5.9 percent. The percentage employed as semiskilled craftsmen, following the national pattern, almost doubled. This latter gain was based on the fact that the bulk of the 7,000 Negro workers in ordnance were employed at semiskilled levels. The basic concentration of colored workers in common labor was not altered, however, but was enhanced by an estimated increase from 24.5 to 32.7 percent of total Negro employment.
The War Manpower Commission’s figures on total and non white employment in reporting war industries in St. Louis show the trend of Negro gains to be gradual and never exceptional. In November 1943, 306 reporting industries had 26,690 Negro workers who were exactly 10 percent of the total employment. By July 1944, 267 firms had 22,970 nonwhites, representing 10.8 percent of the total. In January 1945, colored workers had increased to 11.8 percent of employment in 262 reporting industries. Peak employment of 27,284 nonwhites, or 12.4 percent of the total in 265 firms, was reached in March 1945.
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Highest representation or 12.6 percent of total was reported in May 1945 when 125 firms had 22,828 Negro workers. This decreased to 11.9 percent in July 1945 at which time 122 firms reported 20,155 nonwhites. Never did colored workers reach their proportion in the labor force.
A special study by the St. Louis USES, covering total and nonwhite employment for January 1945 and January 1946 in a selected group of industries in the St. Louis labor market, reveals something of the area in which Negro losses have taken place. In a total of 465 firms, nonwhites totalled 27,537 or 11.6 percent of all workers in January 1945. But by January 1946, their numbers had fallen to 21,320 and they were but 10.7 percent of total employment. The burden of this loss occurred in 218 manufacturing firms which alone accounted for a 5,537 decrease or all but 680 of the total loss by Negro workers. In trade and service occupations, involving 228 firms, colored workers held their own in numbers and proportion. In the remaining 19 firms, covering all other industries, their representation decreased from 7.4 to 5.2 percent.
The same study contrasts total and non white placements by USES for January 1945 and January 1946. For the earlier period 75 percent of all placements were in the various manufacturing groups, while 69 percent of non white placements were in these categories. In January 1946 the difference was greater, for while 48 percent of all placements were in total manufacturing, only 22 percent of non whites were in these groups. Wholesale and retail trade, domestic and other service occupations accounted for over 67 percent of all Negro placements in January 1946; such placements had been less than 25 percent in January 1945. Occupationally, the Negro worker suffered also in obtaining placements at professional, skilled, and semiskilled levels.
Most telling of all the special reports from 11 selected labor market areas on the incident of discriminatory employer orders received in USES offices was the one from St. Louis. For the 2-week period, February 1-15, 1946, 83 percent of a total of 3,213 job orders were discriminatory. All 2,676 of these discriminatory orders contained specifications as to race.
A survey15 of the advertisements for workers in the St. Louis Post Dispatch for February 1946 discloses that a total of 2,577 discriminatory want ads, or almost 100 daily, appeared in this one newspaper. Only 24 specified the religion preferred, but 2,205 of the offers were for “white male” or “white female” only and frequently concerned jobs or occupations looked upon as “Negro” jobs.
One of the postwar hazards of the Negro worker in St. Louis, as in Kansas City, is his inability to obtain vocational training. The
“ Made by the St. Louis Branch of the NAACP.
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local Veterans’ Administration representative for educational rehabilitation, the placement bureau of the USES, and the local Negro vocational high school reported at the beginning of January 1946 that a total of 1,000 Negro veterans were waiting for training opportunities. But both for veterans and nonveterans the locally responsible people have failed to act to provide facilities on the ground, they contend, that many local labor unions continue to foster an all-white membership policy. In a special report to FEPC, the district director of the CIO’s United Steel Workers’ St. Louis local states that the factors which will affect the future utilization of colored workers are (1) lack of seniority, as additional lay-offs are scheduled, (2) displacement by returning veterans, (3) wage increases which bring labor jobs to the pay level of semiskilled work and result in close and discriminatory screening of job applicants by employers. He believes the first two factors alone are sufficient to reduce steel industry gains by Negro workers to the former peacetime level.
The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce asserts that the job prospects of all workers in the area are extremely bright. At present, however, a substantial labor surplus exists16 and four-fifths of present unemployment consists of semiskilled male workers. In such a loose labor market, lacking any sort of manpower controls, minority workers cannot expect to obtain fair interim employment. St. Louis has been described by one report as a “closed town” to Negro workers.
This same report, prepared for FEPC by the St. Louis Council of the American Jewish Community Relations Council, is based on a survey of anti-Jewish discriminatory employment practices in the area. Interviews were conducted in 24 employment agencies, consisting of 12 fee-charging agencies, nine agencies run by business, secretarial and trade schools, two free agencies and one university placement office. Twenty agencies stated unequivocally that Jewish applicants for employment are more difficult to place than non-Jews and the other four so qualified their statements that Jews are about the same as other applicants as to render the assertion valueless. All 24 admitted receiving discriminatory orders specifying non-Jews, both during the war and since VJ-day, and all admit that they service these orders. Only three stated that they had a definite policy to attempt to “sell” qualified Jewish applicants to employers who specify non-Jews. All 24 said that they did not maintain any employment services for Negro workers.
The survey describes anti-Jewish discrimination in the St. Louis area as being less intense than for colored workers, but much more severe than discrimination against Catholics. Twenty of the agencies and schools interviewed used application blanks referring to race,
18 U. S. Department of Labor, USES Labor Market Information Series, March 1946.
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religion or nationality. Such information they consider necessary to enable them to meet employer demands. Only four of the agency heads thought that employers had any “right” to refuse employment -to a person on any basis other than qualifications, yet all 24 agreed that they are constantly able to place less qualified non-Jews after Jewish applicants have been turned down.
Discrimination in employment, stated most of the agencies, is a normal situation for which they have little apology and no solution. Discrimination works best, observed the report, “when it is not exposed to the light of thinking or understanding.” Three of the training schools said that they screened all prospective students rigidly in order to rule out all Negroes as well as all Jews who have “distinctly” Jewish faces, voices or mannerisms. Ten of the agencies thought that discrimination against Jews has decreased, all of the others believe it is about the same as before the war, or has increased and will continue to increase with mounting job competition.
Officials of the two leading labor organizations in the area were interviewed during the course of the survey. Both executives agreed on the totality of anti-Negro discrimination, but had different views about discrimination against Jews. One union has an antidiscrimination committee and stated clearly that anti-Jewish employer attitudes were a problem which required its constant attention. The second union showed less awareness and interest and a tendency to accept existing patterns.
In ^addition, the executives of six chemical companies in the St. Louis area were interviewed with regard to their employment of Jews, since the industry is one in which Jewish workers are poorly represented. The majority admitted a percentage of less than 1 to 3 percent in an area whose population is 6 percent Jewish. Traditional answers concerning the failure of Jews to apply, prejudices of company supervisors and workers, and outside social pressures operating against Jews in sales and other capacities were given as reasons for their low number of Jewish workers. The blame, concludes the report, always is laid by training schools, employment agencies and employers alike at the door of some one else. None feels any responsibility ; none takes any corrective measures.
Detroit
A similar study of anti-Jewish discrimination was conducted for FEPC by the Jewish Community Council of Detroit. The statistical findings, which have been merged with those of the overall survey of 15 cities, reveal that J ewish workers in the Detroit area experience comparable difficulties in obtaining jobs. The many employment agency heads interviewed admitted freely their own attitudes re
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garding the placement of Jewish applicants, and said as elsewhere, that employers’ demands governed their action.
Detroit had extensively organized interracial activity during the war period, largely as an aftermath of the June 1943 riot. Before the war, the main forces for better race relations were the all-Negro organizations, the CIO unions, the limited educational effort of the YMCA, the YWCA, and of some churches, and the Detroit Round Table of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. During the war, the many new organizations included the Metropolitan Detroit Fair Employment Practices Council (a civic agency with war chest support) the Greater Detroit Interracial Intercultural Fellowship, the Detroit Citizens’ Committee (which arose out of the Sojourner Truth Housing Project episode) the mayor’s interracial peace committee (later the City of Detroit Interracial Committee, supported by the city government) and an interracial committee of the Detroit Council of Churches. In addition, the board of education established an Administrative Committee for Intercultural Education in the schools whose activity was stimulated by a citizen’s pressure group. The Catholic men and women of the diocese established interracial councils, and a citizen housing and planning council of metropolitan Detroit promoted nonrestricted housing programs.
The Wayne County Council of the CIO set up a Fair Practices Committee, as did the UAW-CIO, the latter with a full time staff and budget. These local and independent activities were supplemented by the program of the Federal Government, which included a regional office of FEPC and a minority group services program under WMC.
Community-wide interest and services were essential for dealing with the complex problems faced by Detroit during the war period. It is estimated that nearly 400,000 immigrants poured into the city between April 1940 and June 1944.17 The same estimate gives an 83,000 increase in the nonwhite population by the same date. After November 1943, a substantial number of inmigrants left the area and the total population is currently below the 1944 figure. It is higher by nearly 40,000, however, for January 1946 than for June 1945, a circumstance which reflects the return of veterans. There has been a steady increase in the nonwhite population since 1940 and it is now nearly 133,000 higher than the last regular census count.
In 1940, Negroes were 7.7 percent of the total population and 7.8 percent of the labor force. In June 1945 they had become 12.7
” Based on USES and Census Bureau figures. USES places total in inmigration at one-Half million and nonwhite inmigration at 75,000 to 90,000. The special Census of Detroit in June 1944 as a congested area puts total inmigration at one quarter million and the nonwhite figure at 40,000. These low figures, according to USES, would not account for the expansion in the labor force.
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percent of the population and 14 percent of the labor force, or almost twice their earlier representation. For January 1946, slight changes are estimated, leaving the figures at 12.9 percent and 13.8 percent respectively. The 1940 distribution of employed Negro workers indicates that they constituted over 36 percent of all domestic service workers, 20 percent of all other service workers and more than 21 percent of all laborers. Only 6 percent of total* operatives and kindred workers1 were Negroes and but 4 percent of craftsmen, foremen, and kindred workers were colored.
Though there is no available data to show the occupational distribution of nonwhite workers since 1940, there is evidence to indicate that over-all gains were made during the war period. Consistent with the increase in Negro representation in the total population, the percentage of employed Negro workers to total employment rose from 6.2 percent in 1940 to 13.3 percent in June 1945, but had decreased to 12.3 percent in J anuary 1946.18 Trends in non white employment as shown by industries reporting to WMC reveal that it continued upward until the end of the war while total employment dropped off after the November 1943 peak. Beginning with 6.5 percent representation in November 1942, in 333 reporting establishments, nonwhite employment rose to a peak of 13.8 percent by November 1944 in 263 establishments. It remained at 13 percent or over, until July 1945, declined sharply to 10.1 percent in November 1945, rose by 1 percent in February 1946. Although the coverage of plants varied from month to month and often did not include the Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler companies, the figures probably show general development in minority employment. Prior to July 1945, most of the reporting establishments were engaged in manufacturing; since then a number of nonmanufacturing plants have been added to the program.19
Most of the expansion in nonwhite employment in Detroit ocurred in aircraft, ordnance, iron and steel, and nonferrous metals. Most of the decline since VJ-day has taken place in aircraft and ordnance. Total employment fell from 983,000 in July 1945 to 892,400 in January 1946, a loss of 90,600 jobs. Negro losses for this period are estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000. Nearly all the loss has been in manufacturing in which nonwhite employment has fallen off from 13.2 percent to 10.7 percent. Negro women particularly have not retained their gains in manufacturing because of their lack of competitive seniority.
Of the 110,000 employed Negro workers in Detroit in January 1946,
18 Slightly under their representation in the labor force, given above as 13.8 percent for January 1946.
19 Unlike many local USES offices, the Detroit USES has continued to gather nonwhite data on ES 270 reports.
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about 47,000 were in manufacturing, in contrast to the 20,000 so employed in April 1940. This gain of 135 percent over the prewar level for total Negro employment is not equalled by the increase for Negro women only, who were but 59 percent over the 1940 level in January 1946. In the interim, their peak employment had risen to two and one-half times the 1940 figure.
In contrast to trends shown in many other urban areas, there has been a decline in the proportion of placements of colored workers by USES in Detroit. In 1940, Negro workers constituted 17 percent of the unemployed20 and were 13 percent of all USES placements. The proportion of non white placements grew to 21 percent in 1944 21 and to 26 percent of the total in 1945?2 By February 1946, the placement of Negro workers was down to 16 percent, although the 30,000 unemployed Negroes comprised over 21 percent of available labor. In manufacturing establishments in February 1946, only 7.2 percent of those hired were non whites, in contrast to 17.2 percent in January 1946 and an average of 25.7 percent for the year 1945.
In 1944, over 70 percent of all Negro workers recruited through USES were placed in service or unskilled occupations. In 1945, nearly 77 percent were so placed and by January 1946, 90 percent were in these two categories. In February 1946, the total figure dropped to 86 percent, but during the same month the proportion of placements in the service occupations doubled. Whereas 72 percent of all nonwhites were placed in manufacturing in 1945, in February 1946 less than 25 percent were so placed.
As far as placements only would indicate, the basic concentrations of Negro workers remained fairly constant throughout the war period. It has been shown that they were 78 percent of all service workers and laborers in 1940. In 1944, they were 70 percent, in 1945 nearly 84 percent and in February 1946, over 72 percent of all such placements. With respect to semiskilled placements, colored workers, have experienced a severe loss. In 1944, they were 18 percent of all such placements but only 5 percent in 1946.
A special study of employer orders in the Detroit labor market area for the first 2 weeks of February 1946 indicates that 541 discriminatory job orders, representing nearly 32 percent of all job orders, were received. Of 15 local office managers in the area, all but four stated that the placement of minority workers had grown more difficult since VJ-day.
20 Though but 7.8 percent of the labor force.
21 When Negroes were 10 percent of the labor force and 26 percent of the unemployed.
29 At which time they were 14 percent of the labor force and 30 percent of unemployed workers.
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Toledo
A small amount of information was made available to FEPC by the local Toledo USES. The most significant information submitted was derived from the ES 270 reports. These reports illustrate a trend in Negro employment from a point below nonwhite representation in the population to one proportionately higher during the war, followed by a post VJ-day decline. However, this was far from being a drop in the prewar level by January 1946.
Toledo’s Negro population, according to the 1940 Census, was 5.2 percent of the total, or 14,597 of a total population of 282,349. Estimates for 1945 indicate an increase in non whites to 17,000 representing 6.4 percent of the total. In 1940, nearly 66 percent of all Negro workers in Toledo were in service occupations and over 19 percent were unskilled. Their chief employment consisted of labor jobs on Federal work projects and at the same time, Negroes constituted 36.5 percent of the relief population. As late as 1942, only 773 Negro workers, or 1.5 of total employment, were engaged in war industry.
Despite gains in over-all employment, Toledo’s Negro workers were not able to obtain much skilled employment during the war, largely because they were barred from membership in AFL electricians, plumbers, painters, carpenters, and similar craft unions. New jobs which were opened to them were as personnel counselors, foremen, die casting machine operators, drill press, and punch press operators, welders, clerk-typists, and stenographers. Six months after VJ-day, 70 percent of construction labor in Toledo was nonwhite.
In January 1944, of 1,961 firms included in a survey of Toledo labor market conditions, Negro employment was 5,707 or 5.2 percent of the total. This figure increased to 6,279 or 5.6 percent by June 1944, then dropped off to 5,952 in January 1945. Similar trends are shown by the previously mentioned ES 270 reports by war industries reporting to USES. From May 1942, nonwhite employment rose from 1.5 percent of a total of 51,684 workers in 112 firms to a peak of 6.8 percent of 66,484 workers in 40 firms by October 1944. A decline begun in July 1945 has continued down to 4.3 percent in January 1946. Between December and January, however, actual nonwhite employment rose by 400 workers.
By industries, in January 1945, Negro employment represented 5.1 percent of total construction; 5 percent of manufacturing, 11.1 percent of transportation and utilities; 4.3 percent of wholesale and retail trade; 13.5 percent of service industries. During 1945, about 10 percent of all USES placements were nonwhite. Over 70 percent of these placements were unskilled jobs, 15 percent semiskilled, 2.5 percent skilled, 12 percent service occupations.
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At the beginning of 1946, approximately 11 percent, or between 1,700 and 2,000 of the unemployed, were minority-group workers. A similar ratio existed in pending unemployment compensation claims. Nonwhite placements for January 1946 were around 9 percent for total as well as for veterans’ placements. Nonwhite pending applications in the same month were 8.4 percent of the total applications.
Wartime gains did not bring employment in public utilities nor in wholesale and retail trade to Negro workers. It is expected that 2,500 Negro veterans will return to Toledo, most of them needing new jobs. As of March 1946,23 Toledo was considered an area of substantial labor surplus. Most of the job openings were for skilled male workers. For the first 2 weeks in February 1946, according to the special study of employer orders, only 22 of a total of 854 orders were reported to be discriminatory. All 22 specified race, but the local USES manager admitted that discrimination against Negro women has grown since VJ-day.
Chicago
Of all ofx the communities about which information was received for the purpose of this report, either from USES, FEPC field offices, or other sources, Chicago showed the least severe post-VJ-day losses for Negro workers. This is not to say that employment discrimination is not a serious problem in the Chicago area, but it appears to be isolated at certain occupational levels and in certain industries, while many of the broad gains made by Negro workers during the war have persisted through the early declines.
In 1940, the Negro population of Cook and Du Page Counties was 294,407 or 7.1 percent of the total. Negro employment was 80,347 or but 4.9 percent of total employment.24 Some idea of the condition of the colored worker is provided by the relief-roll picture for Chicago, which reveals that in November 1939, nearly 42 percent of the relief load was Negro. By November 1940, this percentage had increased to 46.6 percent, when over 90,000 Negroes were the recipients of direct relief.
Within the year, the white caseload had decreased by 22.5 percent and the number of Negro cases only 5 percent, an indication that white workers were being given jobs in expanding industries while Negroes remained on relief.25
Various estimates of population increase in the city of Chicago between 1940 and 1946 have been made, though no valid figure is available, as yet, as to the extent to which immigration is responsible for
23 Department of Labor, USES Labor Market Information Series.
USES figures based on U. S. Census Bureau labor force data.
28 Report of the Illinois State Commission on the Urban Colored Population.
701290—47---------6
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the growth. One estimate28 places the approximate increase in total population at 103,192. Over 89 percent or 92,269 is attributed to the increase in the Negro population, which rose from 277,731 to 370,000. For Cook and Du Page Counties, the Negro population is estimated by USES to have reached 385,000 in 1944, or 9.5 percent of the total.27
The same source estimates that in January 1945 Negro employment exceeded the population ratio by one-fifth, having risen to 222,600, representing 11.7 percent of total employment.28 Thus, of a net increase of 257,200 in total employment, over 55 percent was accomplished through the increased employment of Negroes.
With the exception of the unimportant fields of agriculture and mining and quarrying, there were gains in the absolute numbers of Negroes employed in every industrial field. And with the exception of these fields, the relative importance of Negroes employed also increased between March 1940 and January 1945. The sharpest relative gains took place in the chemical and petroleum products, nonferrous metals, transportation equipment, electrical and other machinery, other munitions, food and tobacco and leather categories.
In January 1945, the employment of Negroes remained proportionately low in construction, ordnance, electrical machinery, communication, public utilities, wholesale and retail trade, and finance. Of the 222,600 Negroes employed in January 1945, 22.5 percent were in service occupations; 12 percent in food and tobacco; 8.1 percent in transportation; 7.5 percent in wholesale and retail trades; 6.9 percent in iron and steel; 6.7 percent in Government; and 5.3 percent in both printing and publishing, and transportation equipment. These eight industrial fields together accounted for about three out of every four Negroes employed. This was in sharp contrast with March 1940 when two out of every five Negroes were employed in the service trades and nearly 18 percent in the wholesale and retail trades.
Reversing the situation of 1940, by January 1945, Negroes were finding proportionately more jobs in manufacturing than were white workers, especially in newly entered industries, while they were outstanding in the categories covering the service trades, Government, and transportation.
These tendencies are expressed also in ES-270 reports. A special study of 71 identical firms reveals that, for 50 firms, which in May 1942 employed only 711 Negroes out of a total of 110,000 or 0.6 percent, employment in May 1945 consisted of 11,811 Negroes out of a total employment of 129,377, amounting to 9.1 percent. On the other
29 Mayor’s committee on race relations based on USES data, ration board reports and other sources.
2r An increase of 2.3 percentage points over the 1940 figure.
28 Compared with 4.9 percent in 1940.
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hand, for 21 firms which in May 1942 employed 13,309 Negroes, or 22.9 percent of the total, Negro employment in May 1945 was only 13,200 or 26.9 percent. Thus firms not typically employing Negroes in 1942, showed the greatest tendency to increase their employment of this group by May 1945.
Spectacular gains were made in the radio-radar industry and in aircraft as well. The variety of jobs held by Negroes and the skill levels attained were outstanding in many instances. Hundreds of Negro mechanics were employed in skilled and semiskilled capacities for the first time. They also held scientific, technical, and research positions, and jobs as foremen, subforemen, and leadermen. A number were employed in inspection, office work, and in personnel jobs. The employment manager of one firm, having only 33 percent Negro workers, was colored.
Negroes were heavily concentrated in Chicago industries which were not seriously affected by the end of the war. In many respects, Negro losses do not appear as yet to be great. The USES reports from its ES 270 data for 526 establishments in the Chicago area, show that nonwhite employment which stood at 11.4 percent in November 1944 had fallen only to 11.2 percent in September 1945 and 11 percent in November 1945. Early trends revealed by ES 270 reports, for July and September 1945, for a selected group of firms caused USES to state that, relatively, Negro employment had remained stable or had increased. It admitted, however, that employers were not placing job orders with the employment service for Negroes commensurate with their skills. Recognition must be given to the fact that the aircraft industry which was completely abandoned in Chicago at the end of the war, had employed 10,000 Negroes. This was an industry in which Negroes had obtained their highest wages and qualitative advancement.
By January 1946, the USES reported 101,500 unemployed in the Chicago area, one-fifth of whom were nonwhites. This was more than twice the expected proportion of Negroes among the unemployed, yet their losses since VJ-day are not as great as in many other parts of the country.
The Urban League of Chicago confirms this over-all view and stresses the fact that full utilization of Negro skills is currently the major employment problem of the area. The league asserts that 60 percent of the 10,000 firms in the manufacturing and mechanical industries in Chicago do not hire Negroes as production workers.
The steel industry, for example, employs thousands of Negroes, but no major firm employs Negro women in a clerical capacity. Neither quantitive nor qualitative gains were made by Negroes in Chicago’s commercial life, the league points out.
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A special study of nonagricultural placements, by month, from November 1944, through December 1945, made by USES for FEPC, indicates a downward trend in job opportunities for Negro workers through the employment service. In November 1944, when total placements were 13,254 nonwhites received 35 percent of the total. For the period studied, the highest number of placements was made in .March 1945, after which steady declines were registered through December, when only 8,711 placements in the included industry groups were made. Negro placements dropped to 32 percent in March 1945 and 29 percent in December.
Manufacturing represented 78 percent of all nonagricultural placements in November 1944, dropped to 76 percent in March 1945 and 59 percent in December. Within manufacturing, nonwhites represented 37 percent of all placements in November 1944, 34 percent in March and but 31 percent in December 1945.
Occupationally, Negro workers rose from 38 percent of all placements in the service categories in November 1944 to 50 percent in December 1945. At the semiskilled level they fell from 23 to 14 percent for the same respective dates. At the unskilled level, they declined from 64 percent of the total for the earlier period to 42 percent for the December date.
Together the unskilled and service groups constituted 67 percent of all Negro placements in 1944 and were 72 percent a year later.
Nonagricultural placements of Negro veterans fell off during the period studied. For November 1944 they were 32 percent of 1,309 placements, but in December were but 21 percent of a total of 4,082 veteran placements. This seems to confirm an Urban League statement that for the first quarter of 1946, that office had interviewed over 1,000 Negro veterans, all of whom had sought service previously through one or more of the agencies handling veterans problems and job placements.
In an examination of employer orders for the Chicago area between February 1 and 15,1946, USES found discriminatory specifications in 35 percent, or in 3,812 out of a total of 10,854 orders. Race was the restriction in 3,762, citizenship in 7, religion in 7, and, in 36 instances, more than one specification was made.
These figures tend to understate the extent of discrimination by Chicago employers because of the concentration typical of the Negro population. In areas where Negroes do not reside, the question does not arise. In the others, a marked rise in the number of discriminatory orders since VJ-day was noted. In the Loop district this was true even for such occupations as chambermaids, charwomen, cooks, porters, and various other service occupations. It was admitted that orders for professional, sales, and clerical workers are generally discrimi
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natory. Employers do not always state their preferences, but they reject all non white applicants. In factory work, Negro men and women are experiencing a similar degree of discrimination.
The extent of anti-Jewish discrimination in the Chicago area was specially studied for FEPC by the Bureau of Jewish Employment Problems. In general its experience, states the Bureau “has demonstrated that employment discrimination is directly related to unemployment, increasing as the tide of unemployment rises.” It reports that the number of complaints received by it, the number of discriminatory help-wanted ads in newspapers, and discriminatory job orders in employment agencies were at a high level from 1938 through 1941. In 1942, with the development of labor shortages, a decline in discrimination against Jewish workers began. Until 3 months after VJ-day, no increase was noted, but now in Chicago’s loosening labor market, it is on a sharp upward trend.
Thirty-three of the leading employment agencies in Chicago, three of them noncommercial, were visited by the Bureau between February 25 and March 26, 1946, to determine their current policies regarding the registration and referral of Jewish applicants. The Bureau believes that the “unbridled” competition among commercial employment agencies compels them to be vital sources of employment discrimination.
The survey indicated that: 32 out of 33 employment agencies required that applicants state their religion and lineage; 27 of the agencies stated that it was more difficult to place Jews than non-Jews ,• on at least 16 percent of all job-orders religious specifications were frankly stated; 60 percent of the agencies ask employers to state their religious preferences.
The Bureau’s study of discriminatory specifications in the help wanted ad sections of four Chicago daily papers revealed the following: The Bureau’s 8 years of study of help-wanted ads indicated a high rate—1.4 percent—of religious specifications in ads up to 1941, an accelerated decrease to almost virtual disappearance during the war years followed by a sharp rise since VJ-day. In 1946 the four Chicago papers increased religious specifications in help-wanted ads an average 144 percent over 1945. The Chicago Daily News alone increased direct expression of religious preferences 400 percent over 1945.
During March 1946, all Jewish workers applying for employment at the Jewish Vocational and Employment Center in Chicago were asked to fill out a questionnaire which explored their job seeking experiences for the previous 6 months. Out of a total of 547 persons, 260 or 47.5 percent had such experience. The Bureau discovered that: 52 percent of Jewish applicants, almost two-thirds of them veterans,
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were required to state their religion in interviews with one or more employers; 15 percent of individuals experienced besides questions on religion, other additional concrete evidence of employment discrimination, for the most part in either the “We do not employ Jews” category, or a rapid evasive termination of the interview after the question on religion was reached.
The Bureau also analyzed the complaints handled by it and reported thus:-
The incidence of complaints averaged 315 annually from 1938 through 1941, dropping to an average 87 for the war years, followed by an increase in 1946 of 93 percent over 1945, and 49.5 percent over 1944.
In the past 8 years the Bureau has docketed cases on 1,573 separate firms and received a total of 2,046 complaints, a subsequent complaint having been received on one out of every four cases.
The most frequently discriminating industries have been accounting, advertising, banks, insurance, real estate, railroads, -and public utilities in the office, mercantile, and managerial occupations, and chemical, electrical, machine tool, and metal products in the manufacturing occupations.
Qualitative differences in discriminatory attitudes have been sharply demonstrated, a large part of current complaints based on statements such as “This firm does not employ Jews” instead • of the evasive techniques previously employed. Thirty-five percent of business firms approached by Jewish applicants were previously known to the Bureau for discriminatory practices.
Surveys indicate that as a result of discriminatory practices documented above less than 10 percent of Jewish workers are employed in non-Jewish firms.
Indianapolis
Less information has been provided FEPC about the employment situation of minority workers in this community, but the USES special survey and one other special field report indicate that the gains of Negro workers were not as great as in many other war production centers. Nor does either their current or future job status seem hopeful. A survey made by the Indianapolis Committee for Economic Development predicts a 53 percent increase in industrial employment over 1940. The CED admits, however, that this gain will not provide jobs in industry for some 27,000 persons who will be available and seeking such work.
In 1940, the Negro population of Indianapolis numbered 51,142,
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comprising 13 percent of a total population of 386,972. No reliable estimates on in-migration are available, but current figures on population growth put the total population for 1946 at 415,700, and the Negro representation at 14 percent or 60,000. In 1940 Negroes formed 13 percent of the labor force, but only 10 percent of employed workers. At the same time they were 28 percent of all persons employed in public emergency work.
The USES labor market area figures, which are for the wider metropolitan area and are based on Census Bureau statistics, place the non white area population at 8.6 percent and non white employment in 1940 at 7.4 percent. According to ES 270 data, Negro employment rose to a peak of 13.9 in July 1945, declined to 12.5 by December and in January 1946 had dropped to 11.0 percent. About 100 major manufacturing and nonmanufacturing firms contributed to these figures. According to the USES analysis of these data, the sharper decline in nonwhite employment is based on the general reductions in war plants and government establishments, employing a high ratio of Negroes, the withdrawal of foreign (that is Barbadian and Jamaican workers), and the elimination of a Negro department in a large war plant.
Area placements in manufacturing were 77 percent of total placements in November 1944, rose to 85 percent in January 1945, dropped to 68 percent in. December 1945. Non white placements in the manufacturing groups were 14 percent of all such placements in November 1944, 21 percent in January 1945, and declined gradually to 18 percent by December.
The nonwhite workers comprised 57 percent of all service and 16 percent of all unskilled job placements in November 1944. For January 1945, the respective figures were 52 percent and 23 percent and for December 1945, they were 69 percent and 20 percent.
Together, labor and service jobs made up 89 percent of all Negro placements in November 1944. In January 1945, these two categories totaled 93 percent and in December 1945 were 95 percent of all jobs obtained by colored workers.
The Indianapolis USES report, as a result of its special study of employer orders for the first two weeks in February, 1946, that not one of the 2,314 job orders received by it was discriminatory.
The local office reports that “no change” in the nondiscriminatory wartime character of employer orders “has occurred since VJ-day.” The marked difference in orders is not in discrimination, but in “a return to greater selectivity and a raising of hiring specifications.”
Since September 1945, about 25,000 veterans have returned to Indianapolis, which now has a large labor surplus that is expected to continue into summer. In February 1946, there were 19,000 unem
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ployed.29 Job openings existed for women in clerical, sales, and service positions and for men in low-paid unskilled labor. Altogether, the picture was not promising for the Negro worker.
New York
USES data for both the city and the State reveal that the employment of nonwhite workers increased heavily during the war period. Information obtained from the ES 270 reports of 1,100 firms in the State engaged in war production and in essential civilian activities show that in July 1942 Negro employment was but 2 percent of the total, but rose to 4.5 percent by May 1945. On this date the number of Negro workers in war production was approximately 45,000-50,000 as compared with less than 20,000 in July 1942.
Although total employment in war industry began to decline in the last 2 months of 1943, non white employment continued to increase. During 1944 it grew more than 25 percent while total employment in war industry dropped more than 6 percent. In fact, by May 1945 the proportion of nonwhite workers in the then 500 reporting firms compared favorably to the nonwhite population proportion shown in the 1940 census. This was true for the State, as well as for the most important labor market areas within it.
For example, in New York City, whose Negro population was 6.4 percent of the 1940 total, and about four-fifths of the State’s nonwhite population, Negro workers were less than 3 percent of employment in war industry in July 1942. In May 1945 their proportion had risen to almost 8 percent. Nor did this include the textile and apparel plants which make up the city’s largest manufacturing groups.
In the Buffalo area, where the Negro population was 2.5 percent for the area and 3.2 percent of the total for the city, nonwhite employment doubled between July 1942 and May 1945, on which date it stood at 10 percent of war employment.
In May 1945 Negro workers had achieved their greatest employment in iron and steel, electrical machinery, ordnance, shipbuilding, and professional and scientific instruments, in the order named. By October 1945 shipbuilding had moved to first place,30 ordnance was at the bottom of a list of ten industries, while chemicals was among the first five industries.
Early declines in war employment following VE-day were not experienced as sharply by New York’s non white workers as for all workers. In New York City, in the first 2 months, only 60 out of 11,800 workers lost were Negro. Between April and August 1945
29 Report of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, “Six Months After VJ-Day.”
80 This was true for all workers. The highest ratio of nonwhite workers to total employment also shifted from iron and steel to shipbuilding.
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over-all placements dropped but the drop was less for nonwhites than for all workers. However, as measured by placements, the opportunities for Negro workers in manufacturing employment was less favorable.
Following VJ-day statistical information on the employment of nonwhite workers became very limited. Less than 15 percent of the 500 plants reporting to the War Manpower Commission in September , 1945 supplied figures on their non white personnel. Other labor market areas in the State, except for Albany and Buffalo, sent little or no information. From the reports that were received, however, it was observed that employment declined considerably in former essential plants and more sharply among Negro workers than others. In New York City there were only three nonwhite workers in September for every five employed in August. In Buffalo total employment fell off 5 percent, but nonwhite employment dropped nearly 10 percent.
The USES report to FEPC does not show any racial break-down of placements by industry beyond August. However, information has been supplied showing an analysis of nonagricultural placements according to major occupational groups for total and non white workers. Figures are given for selected months from September 1942 until February 1946. For New York State as a whole, non white placements were never less than 72 percent of all service placements during the entire period, and the proportion rises steadily from May 1945 on, reaching 80 percent in February 1946. For New York City, the proportion is never lower than 80 percent and rises to a peak of over 90 percent for January. For both the professional and managerial and clerical and sales categories, a high point was reached in October 1945, and the February figure continues at a very great gain over 1942 representation. Semiskilled placements gained steadily, increasing by 10 percent between May and September 1945, when they were over 30 percent, declining to 25 percent in February 1945. The peak in unskilled placements, 21 percent, was reached in January 1945, dropped to less than 9 percent in October of the same year and then rose again to over 19 percent in February. Despite the gains in other categories, service and unskilled jobs represented the bulk of Negro placements. Together they formed 87 percent of the total nonwhite placements for the State in November 1944, the same for September 1945,89 percent for February 1946.
For the city of New York, nonwhite placements at the professional and managerial level increased from less than 1 percent to nearly 9 percent in September 1945 and were still nearly 7 percent in February 1946. Clerical and sales grew from less than 3 percent to a peak of 14 percent in November 1944 and stood at more than 10 percent in
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February. Semiskilled representation almost doubled between September 1942 and September 1945, when it was over 44 percent. At the unskilled level, the peak figure is 52 percent of the total placements in January 1946, representing a steady rise from 20 percent in September 1942. Here again, the service and unskilled categories account for the bulk of Negro employment. These two groups constituted 87 percent of all Negro placements in November 1944, 86 percent in September 1945, 89 percent (the same as for the State) in February 1946. It should be noted that there has been little, if any decline in the proportion of nonwhite placements in the postwar period in any of the occupational groups. USES estimated in January 1946, that nonwhites constituted over 14 percent of the current total applicant load, and this figure excluded household employment.
No information is available on the extent of discriminatory job orders for New York since August 1945. Obviously, under the New York antidiscrimination law they are not permitted. However, between June 1942 and August 12,1945, a total of 1,057 discriminatory orders was reported. Relaxation of the specifications as to race, creed, color, national origin or alienage was obtained by the USES in 734 cases. Referred to FEPC were 217 cases, of which 126 were settled. In the remaining 106 cases, neither agency had jurisdiction.
Various USES in New York City have reported their post-VJ-day experiences with Negro workers to FEPC’s regional representative.-The Queen’s office stated that nonwhite applicants comprise 3 percent of the total load, but 13 percent of January 1946 placement. There was no difficulty in placing colored workers in any occupational group. The Brooklyn office, while reporting the same placement ease, reported that non whites were more amenable to job offers on the unskilled level. Economic necessity and more limited experience were thought to be factors as well as an inadequate supply of skilled applicants. Thus, Negro workers were about 1 percent of the serviced load, but 45 percent of all January placements.
The Manhattan office suggested that rigid hiring specifications for training and experience now being requested by employers may be a device to circumvent State nondiscriminatory regulations. Nonwhite placements were twice the nonwhite caseload representation of this office. The office reported further that there appears to be resistance to the placement of nonwhite in the jewelry manufacturing industry, in retail establishments, radio and refrigerator service and repair occupations, and other fields which require the handling of funds or which require public contact. For example, a large department store employees’ union reported in December 1945 that management representatives had told its officers that if the union did not approve of discriminatory practices against Negroes in clerical and sales jobs,
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it could file a complaint with, the State Committee Against Discrimination, and, in the same month, the USES Labor Market Development Report stressed the shortage of female department store clerks.
The needle trades still hold the record for being the least discriminatory industry in New York City.
The west coast
The entire west coast area is characterized by problems which in newness and intensity distinguish it from the rest of the country. Information commenting on the major war and post-war developments in employment, has been supplied to FEPC by various organizations operating in the area.31 Notably, these include the American Council on Race Relations, the Department of Race Relations of the Portland Council of Churches, the Urban League of Seattle, members of the Departments of Sociology of the Universities of Washington and Utah, the San Francisco Council for Civic Unity, the Los Angeles Council for Civic Unity, the Los Angeles Branch and the San Diego Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as well as the statements of various interested individuals working in the race-relations field. Taken together, these reports provide a useful picture of the employment problems of minority workers in the region.
Portland, Oreg., and Seattle, Wash.
Historically the attitudes toward Negroes in Washington and Oregon have followed basically different patterns. As early as 1844 an Oregon law which prohibited the holding of people in bondage was changed to exclude free Negroes from the territory. In 1857 by constitutional provision, Negroes were prevented from entering the State, holding real estate or negotiating contracts in it. However, a Negro was one of the first settlers in the State of Washington, on Puget Sound, across the Columbia River from Oregon. Into this area, then, a wartime in-migration of some 30,000 Negroes, mostly from the South increased the Negro population from its low 1940 figure.
In 1940 the Negro population of the Portland area, including Vanport and Vancouver, Wash., was 1,934, while Seattle had 3,789 Negroes and nearby Bremerton 77. Five years later 22,000 Negro in-migrants had come to the Portland area, some 10,000 new arrivals came to Seattle, while Bremerton’s Negro population jumped from 77 to 4,617. One source estimates the current Negro population of Portland at 16,000, having dropped from a peak of 24,000 because of out-migration.
81 No special USES labor market studies of the industrial centers of the area were made for the purpose of this report, although an analysis of employer job orders was completed for Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
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This same source believes that in-migration continues in the area, chiefly as the result of incoming white, Negro, and oriental veterans. There is little white civilian in-migration and many Negro job seekers have come in lately from Colorado, Missouri, and Texas.
The USES has reported that in 1940 only one person in 250 seeking work in the Portland area was a Negro. In August 1945, the proportion was one in six job seekers. Non white representation in war plants in the Portland metropolitan area reporting to WMC showed an increase from 1.9 percent of the total in September 1943 to 7.1 percent in November 1944. By March 1945, nonwhite employment had fallen to 6.0 percent of the total. The February 1946 USES Oregon Labor Market Bulletin noted that Negro employment in reporting establishments continues to decrease. In January 1946, 757 establishments with a total of 79,833 workers had but 770 non whites, or less than 1 percent of the total working force.
The special USES survey of employer orders for the first 2 weeks in February for Portland revealed 240 discriminatory orders or 27 percent of a total of 882 orders. All but two had specifications as to race.
Reports from the area admit that employment for Negroes is its most critical problem. Very few find employment in the skilled trades. Professional workers such as stenographers are in an ever less favorable position. Negro in-migrants have not settled in the farming areas. Indeed the mass production farms offer them no opportunity and the increasing availability of farm machinery will cut down farm employment even more drastically. Negroes can expect to find seasonal employment in food processing at its peak, but this is only temporary. Shipbuilding and repair, which provided maximum wartime employment, is at its lowest point since VJ-day. At the end of January, total employment was less than 15,000, repair jobs were nearly finished, and the industry held out small prospects for Negro workers.
Employment in the pulp and paper industry, which is not large, is probably at its postwar peak of a 3,000 total. USES records show that logging and lumbering is the most rapidly expanding industry in the Portland area at the present time. It is not expected that the increased job requirements in this field will affect non white workers as few are qualified. Iron and steel is comparatively small in the area, is affected by other material shortages, and has provided unskilled jobs only to a few Negroes. In transportation, Negroes hold customary jobs as porters and waiters, and are excluded from communications and public utilities. The construction industry is expected to provide a boom, but Negroes will share only the unskilled and little of the skilled
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work. In wholesale and retail trade a few Negroes have jobs as janitors, maids, and stock but not sales clerks.
In this gloomy situation, Negro workers appear to be “waging a game of waiting.” The Vancouver, Wash., area is more critical than Portland and officials there are said to be carrying out their wartime threat to force Negroes out by denying them jobs and housing. Many are coming into Portland. Local observers believe that if there is to be job relief in the area, it must come from new industries. These have not been encouraged on the basis of the theory that conditions must not be made attractive for the newcomers so that they will leave.
It is estimated that nearly 10,000 Negroes have lost employment in war industries since VJ-day in the State of Washington. The decrease in the ratio of non whites employed from July to December 1945 was 6.5 percent to 4.7 percent. In December 19'44, the Vancouver USES was able to place 454 Negroes. A year later it could place only 316 workers altogether of whom only 33 were Negroes. In 1944, 10 percent of colored workers were placed in wholesale and retail trade; in 1945, the only employment of Negro workers through USES, other than in shipbuilding, was in domestic service. The Pasco USES placed 150 nonwhites in December 1944; a year later it had jobs for only 5. Despite the employment situation, local observers report that a significant Negro in-migration into the Seattle area continues.
Seattle has been the one public housing authority on the Pacific Coast which has consistently refused to set up either segregated housing for Negro workers or to place Negro in-migrant workers in racial islands of segregation within the existing projects. The percentage of nonwhite residents was 1 percent in 1942, 3.1 percent in 1943, 9.8 percent in 1944, and 12.0 percent in 1945. Negro personnel is employed by the authority at various technical and professional levels.
A number of minorities comprise the west coast’s nonwhite population. American Indians around Seattle have serious employment problems, while Chinese-Americans are largely self-employed. Discrimination against Japanese-Americans is widespread, despite their superior training. In March 1946, there were about 6,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in Seattle. A special study by the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington of Nisei in Seattle revealed the general.feeling of this group of social and economic ostracism.
San Francisco
By March 1946, 8 months after VJ-day, there was no real unemployment in the San Francisco Bay area, and reconversion had just begun. Nevertheless, a job shortage is predicted and the director of the State bureau of public administration estimates that there will be a million unemployed persons in California by the end of 1947.
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During the war years, two industries absorbed half the total labor force of the region: Shipbuilding tripled manufacturing, and Government employment rose to 100,000 because of concentrations in the navy yards, army depots, and offices. The former is out and Government is slowly disbanding. On VJ-day nine-tenths of the Negro labor force held one-tenth of all the jobs in the Bay area. Negroes make up only 3 percent of the population. September 1945, more than 26 percent of the Negro working force was engaged in shipbuilding or ship repair. Another 25 percent was employed in servicing water transportation, which was largely Government work. In these two industries alone there were 12,000 Negro workers, all of whom have been laid off or will be soon.
The seriousness of job losses is evident when it is realized that the Negro population has increased almost 700 percent since 1940. The figures for the city of San Francisco tabulated in the 1940 census and the special census of 1945 are as follows:
1940 1946
Total _ 634,636 827,400
Negro. 4,486 32,001
Other races : 26,989 23,045
For the entire bay area, population figures have been estimated for 1945 and are compared with 1946 census figures as follows:
1940 1945
Total 1,461,804 2,004,799
Negro 19^759 64,680
Other races 44; 972 37i 345
More than 66 percent of the Negroes who came to San Francisco during the war came from Southern States; another 20 percent came from rural California and about 7 percent from the Middle West. Most of them came to stay. One 1944 survey in a Northern California essential industry shows that 33 percent of white workers but only 15 percent of colored workers expected to return home. Actually, inmigration to California has only begun. Governor Warren has estimated that approximately one million veterans will go there to live and work during 1946. According to Army surveys, nine-tenths of all the veterans who are not returning to their homes are going to California. At least 17 percent more Negro veterans wish to settle on the west coast than have withdrawn from the section.
San Francisco has experienced a series of drastic industrial changes. Total manufacturing employment was less in 1939 and 1940 than it had been in 1919 or 1929. Factory jobs fell from 93,000 in 1919 to
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84,000 in 1940, while the population increased 50 percent. The wartime increases in manufacturing jobs were proportionately greater in San Francisco than in almost any other industrial region in the United States. The number of workers in manufacturing increased nearly 250 percent. Thus, the end of war production precipitated heavy losses.
In 1940, in San Francisco, 34 percent of the Negro labor force was unemployed or on relief. Only 14 percent of the white working population was so situated. For Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, the percentages were nearly 42 percent and 15 percent. If these same rates of unemployment were to obtain once more, there would be between 18,000 to 30,000 unemployed Negroes in the bay region. The San Francisco Bay Area Council has reported recently that the area “lags considerably” behind other industrial areas, although its future is believed to be promising. The economy of the region has been described as being lopsided, with emphasis on commerce rather than manufacturing. The largest bloc of State and Federal Government workers in the West, over 100,000, is to be found in the Bay area.
San Francisco’s wartime employment reached the peak in September 1943, after which it declined without interruption. However, nonwhite employment increased all through the war until the month be-for VJ-day July 1945. In that month there were 44,809 nonwhite workers as compared with 23,527 in May 1943, the earliest date for which comparable data is available. Thus it was that the ratio of nonwhite to total employment rose from 7.7 percent in November 1943 to 13.1 percent in 1945.
Negro workers stayed at their war jobs until the end, while many white workers transferred to more permanent work. Consequently the sudden shut down of war industries brought about a much sharper drop in nonwhite than in white employment. In 250 of the largest industrial plants in the San Francisco Bay area, the employment of white workers decreased about 20 percent between July 1945 and January 1946, while nonwhite employed declined 35 percent for the same period. As of March 1946, there were-approximately 27,000 nonwhites employed in the bay area and 20,000 of them were in steadily curtailing Federal establishments.
Further indication of the striking disproportion of nonwhite unemployment is to be found in the fact that although nonwhites constitute but 5 percent of the population of the bay area, they were 20 percent of all persons receiving unemployment insurance.
The special study of employer orders by the local USES office frankly admits the return to discriminatory hiring. A total of 6,097 job orders was on hand on February 7,1946. Of these 613 or 10 percent carried discriminatory specifications; 502 of the 613 were in writ
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ing, 500 indicating race and the other 2 religious limitations, the first two written notes discriminating against Jewish workers ever received in the San Francisco office of the USES. Another postwar trend is the extent of discrimination against Negro workers in the service jobs which they previously held.
Since it is estimated that about 25 percent only of total employment referrals and 50 percent of all discharged veterans in San Francisco pass through the local USES, a survey of the 11 largest private employment agencies was made. All were primarily clerical and when asked if they placed minority workers, were quick to explain that they were not domestic agencies. All 11 agencies used application forms with inquiries as to color and religion.
Although employers of the bay area are quoted as saying that they cannot use Negro workers because the latter are neither as well trained nor as skilled as whites, the wartime record refutes these statements. One survey made in 1943 revealed that 34 percent of 15,000 Negro workers in 30 large industrial plants in San Francisco were engaged in skilled work and 30 percent in semiskilled occupations. Yet, these are some examples of what happens when trained Negroes apply for jobs.
(1) A Negro dietician, a lieutenant in the WAC, was discharged from the Army. She had been born and brought up in California. On leaving the Army she applied to the Veterans’ Administration in San Francisco which was asking for a trained dietician. Though her qualifications were admittedly satisfactory, she was refused the job. She then applied for a job through the Washington Bureau of the Veterans’ Administration. After a long wait, the Administration did find her a position as a dietician—in a Negro hospital in North Carolina.
(2) Two Negro women checkers worked in an Oakland warehouse, where they had been trained for more than a year in their particular work. Right after VJ-day they were fired. No reason was given. The next day the warehouse hired four white clerks. These new clerks were told that they would be trained as checkers.
(3) A private hospital in Oakland needed trained dieticians’ aides to work in the diet kitchen. When the United States Employment Service sent experienced Negro girls to fill the job openings, the applicants were turned away. The hospital telephoned the United States Employment Service to explain that it couldn’t hire Negroes because, “Negroes couldn’t pass Wasserman tests.” This general statement was made as if it were a well-known scientific fact.
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(4) The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. in San Francisco has been advertising for skilled workers, including framesmen. A Negro worker, a framesman who had recent experience in a telephone company in Illinois, applied to the San Francisco telephone company in answer to its ads. He was told that the company only hired Negroes as janitors (though it had no Negro janitors at the time). While this framesman was turned down, the telephone company is still advertising for skilled workers.
Another reason frequently used by employers as a basis for denying work to Negro applicants is the prejudiced attitudes of their white employees. Yet throughout the 27 months of its operation in the area, the FEPC regional office did not handle a single case involving walk-outs for. racial reasons.
Perhaps the chief job handicap of the Negro worker in the region has been his inability to obtain membership in the craft locals which controlled the bulk of wartime employment.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles has a diverse population, greatly and perhaps permanently augmented by wartime and continuing in-migration. The most widely used and reliable estimate of the Negro population put it in August 1945 at 205,000 for Los Angeles County, in which the total population was around 3,500,000. The same source estimates the Mexican population at 225,000 to 235,000. This includes an unknown number of “wet Mexicans,” that is, Mexicans who originally crossed the Rio Grande illegally. The number of Japanese returnees is approximately 20,000, a figure that is a compromise of varying estimates from 16,000 to 25,000. Jewish sources state that there are about 168,000 Jews in Los Angeles.
The proportion of nonwhite employment to the total, as shown by ES 270 reports, rose from 4.4 percent in the fall of 1943, when total employment was at the peak, to 6 percent in 1944. In July 1945, it had declined only to 5.9 percent and in February 1946, had returned to 6 percent. Actually, total employment as of this date was less than one-half of what it was in November 1944. These changes in the ratio of nonwhite to total employment took place between July 1945 and February 1946, by industry: Food industry, from 7.8 to 11.0 percent; Government establishments, from 8.1 to 15.4 percent; rubber from 10.8 percent down to 6.8 percent; iron and steel, from 9.7 percent down to 6.9 percent; nonferrous metals from 17.8 to 14.4 percent; and oil refineries, from 3.5 to 0.15 percent. In all industries listed, except oil refineries, the totals are down. There seems to be no doubt,
701290—47--------7 8 ]
according to the reporting source, that the industries showing a decline have turned discriminatory.
In shipbuilding and aircraft, Negroes have held their own, not because of equal opportunity in hiring and rehiring, but because they have stuck to their jobs and the cutting down has been gradual and largely nondiscriminatory.
Knowledge of discriminatory hiring in Los Angeles since August 1945 is based as in other areas, upon such indexes as employer orders and upon placements. The special employer job-order study shows a total of 8,376 pending orders bn February 8,1946, of which 1,079 or 12 percent were discriminatory. Of these, 1,018 carried specifications as to race, 40 as to citizenship, 15 religion, and 6 a combination. By industry, recorded discrimination runs over 30 percent in manufactur-Aig as a whole, over 40 percent in construction, 17 percent in service establishments, 40 percent in furniture, and 40 percent in the garment trades.
Conditions vary in Los Angeles a great deal from one local USES to another. For example, non white placements for January 1946, in the most heavily populated Negro districts, were 20 percent of the total. About one-third of nonwhites went into manufacturing, but in unskilled jobs, and another third went into service jobs. The applicant load of this same local office ranges from 50 to 80 percent Negro in a city whose Negro population is less than 10 percent. The AFL locals in the Los Angeles area vary on the question of minority membership. The plumbers, steamfitters, and electricians exclude Negroes. The boilermakers have changed, only recently after a long legal battle. In the CIO, the United Electrical Workers and the Furniture locals are aggressively nondiscriminatory. The Auto, Steel, and Shipbuilding locals are behind their International unions, but have lost some of their former leadership on the issue and are working to regain it.
One source reports that the known facts concerning the condition of Negro workers leads to the conclusion that they have returned to their prewar states in terms of the industrial opportunities now available to them. Clerical and commercial jobs, or any work in contact with the public, are nonexistent. The chief opportunities will have to come from new industries and boom trades.
Opinion is divided regarding the Mexican-American. One source states that these minority workers did not make as great advances during the war as Negroes, chiefly because they did not protest against discrimination as vigorously and lacked leadership. Their wartime advances are said by this authority to have resulted from their filling the vacuum created by the Japanese. Actually, thousands did obtain war work in aircraft, oil refineries, shipbuilding and other industries.
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Another source states that Mexican-Americans have achieved “occupational acceptance,” which means, of course, that they are often frozen at levels below their training, experience, and ambition.
All sources agree that the return of the Japanese-Americans has been far more successful than many people believed possible. This “success” is admittedly the result of their own initiative, rather than the interest of the community. As a matter of fact, the return of the Japanese has not occasioned as much tension, especially of an overt nature as may have been anticipated by some, but the stereotypes in employment have been reestablished. The Japanese relief case load is now well over a thousand and at least 4,000 returnees are stranded as to housing. The chief source of racial tension in Los Angeles is not employment, but housing. The main difficulties are chargeable to restrictive covenants which cause overcrowding.
UNEMPLOYMENT AND JOB CHANGES OF NEGROES IN ST. LOUIS DURING RECONVERSION
In February of this year the Bureau of the Census made a survey of job changes during reconversion in St. Louis, Mo. The study included information broken down for whites and nonwhites, the latter being almost entirely Negroes. In estimating what happened to the Negro during reconversion, St. Louis is a particularly typical city. It is neither north nor south, east nor west, but center. With regard to the Negro its employment patterns are mixed, including fairly equally the behavior traits of the North and the South. Negro employment in St. Louis during the war was heavy in the purely wartime industries such as small arms ammunition, but at the same time employment for the Negro before and during the war was available in industries with important peacetime activity, such as electrical equipment, meat-packing, car and foundry works, etc. Hence, while St. Louis does not present the boom possibilities of Detroit, it does not offer the blighted prospects for Negroes of those cities where only wartime activity existed or where Negroes were concentrated only in war work.
The census sample survey, which covered 4,200 households and 251,400 persons, asked questions regarding two separate weeks. Each person was asked questions on employment status, hours worked, current job, and wages or salary, with reference to the week of February 10-16, 1946 (6 months after the end of the war with Japan). The same questions were repeated with reference to the week of April 29-May 5, 1945, (the calendar week preceding VE-day). The survey included only civilians 14 years of age or over living in St. Louis as of February 16,1946.
The study revealed that of all the white males in St. Louis in
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February 1946, only 5 percent were unemployed as compared with 12 percent of all Negro males. Similarly only 1.1 percent of all white females were unemployed as compared with roughly 5 percent of nonwhite females. Moreover, of the white males employed in May 1945, roughly 4 percent were unemployed in February 1946, while 10 percent of the Negro males working on the former date were unemployed on the latter. For females the same percentage is 2.3 percent for whites and roughly 9 percent for Negroes.
In considering these figures it should be remembered that by the census definition of the employed a person is classified as employed if during the census week he was at work at all for pay or profit, or for no pay providing he worked 15 hours or more on a family farm or in a family business. If a person had a job or business, but during the census week he was on a vacation, temporarily ill, or expected to return to a job within 30 days, from which he had been laid off temporarily, he is counted as employed. A person is classified as unemployed if he was not at work, but was looking for it during the census week, or would have been seeking it if he had not been ill.
In addition, indefinite lay-offs are classified as constituting unemployment. It can be seen that a man may be classified as employed even though he worked such a small number of hours as to be underemployed. For the census weeks in February 1946, 8.3 percent of the Negro males counted as employed did not work at all for some reason. Almost 12 percent more of those employed worked less than 40 hours. The corresponding figures for May 1945, were only 1.8 percent and 6.1 percent.
It is significant to note that Negro unemployment in February 1946 fell heavily in the most employable age group. Thus, 25 percent of those Negro males between the ages of 20-24 who were employed in May 1945 were unemployed in February 1946; while practically none of the white males employed on the former date were out of work on the latter. .The comparative percentages for Negro and white males in the 25-44 age group is 10.3 percent and 3;8 percent. The comparative percentages for Negro and white females for the 20-24 age group is 21.5 percent and 2.9 percent. Thus Negro unemployment for this group is concentrating on the very ages where all socially desirable aims indicate the employment of at least the male.
The census study also shows that the Negro veteran is not finding adequate employment during reconversion. Of those Negro soldiers in the armed forces in May 1945, 22 percent were unemployed in February 1946. The corresponding percentage for the white veteran was 8.3 percent.
Data on the occupational distribution of those persons employed
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during both weeks under survey, indicate that no significant occupational shifts occurred among this group. But of those Negro males who were operative and kindred workers in May of 1945, 15 percent were unemployed in February of this year. This is the class of work in which the Negro found most of his wartime employment. The corresponding percentage for white workers was 5.4 percent. Negro females who were clerical, sales, and kindred workers in May 1945 were 18 percent unemployed in February 1946, and those who were operative and kindred workers were 15 percent unemployed. The comparable, percentages for white women were 1 percent and 4 percent.
The industry distribution of those persons employed in both of the census weeks did not change appreciably. But of all Negro males employed in manufacturing in May 1945, 15 percent were unemployed in February. For Negroes in the metals, chemicals, and rubber subgroup, and the food, clothing, textiles and leather subgroup, the percentages were respectively 19 percent and 9 percent. The comparative percentages for white males for manufacturing and the two subgroups were 5.3 percent, 7.1 percent, and 1.8 percent. The story is the same for Negro women where the corresponding percentages were 13.2 percent, 22.3 percent, and 4 percent in comparison with 3 percent, 5 percent, and 1 percent. Wholesale and retail trade now that the war is over, is on the upturn, yet Negro women employed in this industry group in May 1945 were 12 percent unemployed in February 1946 as compared with a percentage for white women of 2.3 percent.
The comparative data on wages earned for the two periods revealed that for persons who worked both weeks the median salary for white males was $47 for May 1945 and for February 1946; for Negro males $35 and $32; for white females, $30 and $28 and for Negro women $21 in both periods. It is significant to note that for February, 1946, the Negro male earned 29 percent less than the white male and the Negro female 25 percent less than the white female. For the same group 20 percent of the white males as compared with 25 percent of the Negro males earned less money in February 1946 than in May 1945; and 15 percent of the white females as compared with 9 percent of the Negro females. In regard to this it should be noted the Negro women were heavily concentrated in domestic service and that only 12 percent worked less hours in February 1946 as compared with 20 percent of the white women. These comparisons were made on the basis of eleven class intervals and not merely single dollar amounts. Negro males lost ground most heavily in the $40-$49 class interval, the percent of their total in all classes dropping here from 17.4 percent to 9.5 percent. White males in this group continued constant.
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An arithmetic average would more quickly reflect this loss of wages in the higher brackets than the median. This same story is reemphasized when it is noted that for persons employed in both weeks the average earnings of Negro male craftsmen, foremen, and kindred workers dropped from $46 to $37 while those for white males dropped from $50 to $47.
In conclusion, it can be said that in St. Louis the Negro is suffering a disproportionate burden of reconversion in terms of unemployment, wages in the higher income brackets, veterans’ employment, chances to hold on to war expanded occupational and industrial opportunities and the unemployment of the most employable of its workers.
RECONVERSION PROBLEMS OF MINORITY GROUP VETERANS
To many returning minority group veterans, civilian life presents a dismal picture. The things he looked forward to most—a job and a decent place in which to live—are hardest to find. Wartime restrictions against discrimination in training and employment are being relaxed. Housing—old or new—is almost completely unobtainable. And frequently the type of guidance and counsel he needs to help him orient himself is either not available at all, or of low caliber.
A survey made by the Army Service Forces, Postwar Plans of the Soldier, reveals that most members of the armed forces gave a great deal of thought to their postwar prospects, and many had definite plans for careers after discharge. Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Jewish and Negro GI’s looked forward to a future in which it would not be as difficult as before to get an education, move to a better community, find a job, or go into business. They did not expect this to come easily, but they had faith and the hope that America would live up to its promise of equal opportunity for all.
The Negro serviceman set high goals for himself.
The proportion of Negro soldiers who wanted to find a new—preferably a better—place to live after discharge was double that of white soldiers, according to the Army Service Forces survey. Over half of these men wanted to leave the low wage and poor working conditions of the South. About a half of all these planning to move said they would head north, and about a third favored the west. Only about one-fifth thought of leaving their present homes to go south.
At each educational level, more Negro GI’s had definite plans for full-time schooling than white enlisted men of similar educational background. The number of Negro college graduates planning to return to the campus was almost three times that of white college graduates, reflecting the frequently undue demands for training made upon Negroes seeking to earn a living.
Negro servicemen wanted to go into business for themselves just
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as much as white enlistees. But for most of the Negroes it was a new field; for a majority of the whites it was not. This urge toward self-employment on the part of Negroes perhaps had its roots in previous experience with job discrimination.
Negro and white soldiers also wanted to own farms in about the same proportion.
Fewer Negro than white GI’s said they were satisfied to return to their old employment. Many hoped for something different and better. Over a third expressed the desire to work for the Government, perhaps because of the relative freedom from job discrimination in civil service, while only about a sixth of the white soldiers had such a hope.
America has made certain guarantees to all Americans alike, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin. Each veteran is advised of these rights as he goes through the separation center. But in his practical ability to take advantage of these guarantees, there is great inequality.
A year’s free education for every honorably discharged veteran who served 90 days or more is a basic provision of the GI Bill of Rights. He can, theoretically, choose any approved school and select any course he would like to take, with practically all expenses paid. If he was under 25 when he entered service and makes a good scholastic record, he can get up to 3 additional years in school. If he prefers on-the-job training, he can take it and receive the same allowances for tuition and living expenses.
The minority veteran discovers that even these advantages do not assure him training. First, he must be acceptable to the school. This requirement alone bars all but a small quota of Jewish, Nisei, and Mexican-American veterans from major institutions, and relegates colored veteran-students to already overcrowded Negro colleges. Then, although the school itself must be approved by the Veterans’ Administration, many institutions so approved fall below minimum standards. Negro colleges suffered heavy faculty losses, depleted finances and overtaxed facilities and equipment during the war. Each one has waiting lists of veterans who cannot be admitted because of overcrowded classrooms and lack of housing.
The veteran cannot postpone his education indefinitely. Consequently many now are seeking on-the-job training instead of formal classroom study. Here again opportunities are limited for the minority veterans. Major industries and their affiliated unions jointly sponsor apprenticeships in such fields as engineering, industrial chemistry, machine-shop work, and electricity. If either or both discrimi-nate, the veteran is shunted into such less desirable work as auto
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mechanics, building maintenance, shoe repairing, and “industrial cookery.”
A job is guaranteed the veteran who held one before he entered the armed forces provided he can perform the work, and it is not “impossible or unreasonable” to expect his former employer to hire him. However, a majority of veterans—and nearly three-fourths of Negro veterans—do not try to get their old jobs back. Instead, they seek work in line with new skills they have acquired in the services.
Usually their first stop is at the office of the veterans’ employment representative of the United States Employment Service. His job is to give vocational counsel and guidance, to refer qualified persons to training and employment opportunities, and if necessary to make special placement efforts on behalf of disabled or handicapped men.
In many veterans’ employment offices there is a marked deficiency in the treatment accorded minority veterans. In the South separate and unequal services are provided Negroes and Mexican-Americans. Elsewhere the tendency is to refer Negroes, Jews, and Nisei only to menial jobs, to advise them to file for unemployment insurance instead of skilled work, and to refer them to community organizations— unequipped to deal with their problems—if they insist upon proper consideration for training and placement.
For the most part these offices reflect the practices prevailing in the hiring halls of industry. About one-fifth of all firms question veteran applicants as to their religion. A fourth of the commercial employment agencies require religious identification. And one-tenth of all Jewish veterans who apply for jobs feel that they do not get proper consideration, even where vacancies exist, because of their religion.
Given the alternative of accepting a menial job requiring no skill or training, or of shifting for themselves, many former GI’s have selected the latter. In so doing some have discovered that barriers to employment can be broken down through adequate preparation and persistent effort. Others sign up for their $20 weekly readjustment pay allowance.
Efforts to support himself through self-employment—farming or going into business—likewise have proved difficult for the minority veteran. The principal barrier has been the difficulty of securing an adequate loan, although credit is Government-guaranteed. Farm loans must come through county extension agents and an advisory committee composed chiefly of farmers. Business loans are made by local banks. Economic discrimination against the Negro and the Mexican-American as a farm owner or businessman makes it hard for either to negotiate such a loan.
The remaining possibility for a decent livelihood—service in Fed
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eral, State, or Municipal Government agencies—has attracted many former servicemen because of the security afforded and the opportunities for advancement. But this field is already overcrowded, and in view of the severe postwar contraction of most agencies, will continue to be so for some time.
POSTWAR OPPORTUNITIES BY INDUSTRY
The outlook for the Negro worker is not all bad. There are industries where the Negro has made progress in employment and skill utilization and where the prospects are good. There are other industries which have a good future but where colored employment is limited to the lowest jobs. The Negro worker has long been an im-portant part of the construction industry although his full utilization has been spotty in terms of trades and localities. The skills many Negroes have learned in shipbuilding and aircraft can perhaps be best transferred to the construction industry. It is estimated that in the next 2 years construction in the United States, including the veterans’ housing program, will require 2,100,000 workers at the peak. It is of vital importance to the successful employment of Negro workers during reconversion that steps be taken to insure their utilization in the construction program. The main problem Negroes must face is the racially restrictive patterns in several trades, of which plumbing is a notable example. As things stand now, Negroes will find their building trades employment mainly as cement finishers, plasterers, carpenters, painters, paperhangers, bricklayers, hod carriers and common laborers.
The iron and steel industry has a long tradition of employing Negro workers. The war provided some new opportunities for upgrading and increased utilization. The industry’s future is good, its manpower needs are acute, and the Negroes’ position is generally backed by union policy. The same situation exists in the slaughtering and meat-packing industry. This is less true of the automobile industry. There the seniority system will tend to put all workers back into their prewar jobs, but for the Negro worker this will mean much downgrading to the hot, heavy, and lower paid work.
The Negro entered the telephone and telegraph industry and the communications instrument manufacturing industry in significant numbers for the first time during the war. His prospects here are improved, for both the managements and unions involved are generally attempting to be fair.
In coal mining the Negroes’ utilization is good and the policy of the union is excellent.
In the local transit industry, it would appear that Negro workers will continue to hold their wartime advances, but without a Federal
agency dealing with fair employment practices he can expect no new cities with privately operated lines to open opportunities to him.
Negroes can be expected to hold most of the employment they gained in the agricultural implement industry during the war. The same is true for the better employment they found in the clothing and apparel industry, where they had long been an important worker.
Most other industries offer Negroes only declining opportunities or assignment only to hard and often unfairly paid jobs.
Considering the best of these first, the tobacco industry will con-tinue.to offer a good volume of employment, although it has rigid bars on the occupations which Negroes may hold. The lumber industries in the South offer Negroes employment, but here they face not only the worst jobs but wage differentials. Much the same is true of fertilizer manufacturing.
The railroads also offer the Negro a huge volume of employment, but restricted as to the type of work. In the North, the only thing a Negro can be on a train is a waiter, porter, or maid. FEPC was able to help place stewards on northern trains, but they will lose these jobs as the present seniority provisions take effect. In the South, Negroes have served as firemen, hostlers, and porter-brakemen; but the railroads and unions have fought a successful war to reduce the number of Negroes in these positions. The Steele and Tunstall decisions of the Supreme Court will not suffice to stem this process.
Airlines employ Negroes mainly as plane washers and in service jobs.
Wholesale and retail trade is already in the process of expanding to the highest levels it has ever known. Negroes have always found a large volume of employment in this field, although at a low skill utilization.
In November 1944, aircraft and shipbuilding employed 297,000 of the 1,282,000 Negroes in manufacturing. In shipbuilding, Negroes experienced their highest wartime skill utilization. The same was true in the last World War, yet all the gains were gone by the 1930 census. According to present prospects, only ten to twelve thousand Negroes can expect employment in shipbuilding and repair when the industry gets back to normal, which it is rapidly doing. Some 182,000 Negroes must eventually seek work elsewhere. Approximately the same number, from ten to twelve thousand, will find employment in peacetime aircraft manufacture.
Negroes in the Federal Government can also expect sharp declines. About 70 percent of all Negroes employed by the Government during the war were industrial workers and laborers serving the Army Service Forces, the Army Air Forces, and naval shore establishments. The better Negro government employment was in the temporary
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war agencies and also involved, for the most part, war service appointments. These white collar workers cannot expect business to absorb them if existing patterns continue.
Negroes’ advances in the maritime service during the war were limited by the degree of union acceptance of Negroes. Their future in shipping depends on union policies and the continued good health of the industry.
In the rubber industry, Negro war gains will be severely curtailed because of low seniority and the return of many veterans with prior rights.
Many expanding industries offer virtually no employment opportunities for Negroes, except in New York. Banking, insurance, and financial services hold opportunities for Negroes only in the Negro institutions.
In some sections of the country, over-the-road trucking bans colored truck drivers.
The cotton textile industry, in general, employs Negroes only as laborers. A few millp employed Negroes on production during the war, but the future policy for these few is very uncertain.
Negroes will find employment, as long as times are relatively good, in domestic and personal service.
DISCRIMINATORY WAGE RATES
Discrimination on the job against minority workers has long persisted in American industry. The Negro worker, especially in the South, and the worker of Mexican origin in the Southwest, have not only had their job opportunities restricted, but have also been subjected to wage discrimination and have found few opportunities for advancement on the job.
In July 1942, hourly entrance rates of adult male common laborers averaged 47.4 cents per hour for Negro workers, as compared with 65.3 cents per hour for white workers. For the country as a whole, the white common laborer was paid at an average rate 37.8 percent higher than that received by the Negro worker. This discrimination was not limited to unskilled workers alone. To take a typical example, in a cotton oil plant in Memphis, Tenn., semiskilled work-, ers performing the same work in the pulp mill of the plant «were* paid a differential rate; 48.2 cents an hour for the Negroes, 69.2 cents for the whites. The white workers were receiving a rate 43.6 percent higher than the Negro workers.
Sample studies made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and scattered over a variety of industries in different parts of the country show that Negro workers are often denied promotion to higher paying jobs solely because of their race. In a Houston, Tex., ordnance plant
in 1945, for example, “although the beginning rate was identical for all employees (60 cents), white men attained a top figure of $1.57 and white women $1.29 per hour. This compares with 85 cents and 72^ cents, respectively, for Negroes.” The Bureau adds that “although work records indicated extensive upgrading from unskilled to semiskilled and often, in time, from semiskilled to skilled jobs, it appears that promotions involving such revisions in grade were confined primarily to white workers.” While most wage reporting does not include differentiation in the pay-roll reports by race or color, evidence of discrimination on the job in recent years is supported by the evidence available for iron and steel, meat packing, fertilizer manufacturing, leather, lumber, and other manufacturing industries.
MIGRATIONS
During the war the South represented the largest reservoir of available white and Negro labor. As might be expected, the great migration of this war, of both white and colored workers, was from the South to the east and west coast and to the Great Lakes region.
The over-all urge of Negroes to seek war jobs, for example, is indicated by the accelerated rate of nonwhite migration in the war years as compared to the rate during the 5-year period before defense activities began. Statistics of the Census Bureau reveal that the nonwhite migration rate which was much lower than that for whites before 1940, caught up with the white rate during the war.
All observers agree that the main part of southern Negro migration is from rural areas to southern cities and thence out of the South. At the height of war production in 1944, several congested production areas in the South were examined for the purpose of discovering the source of in-migrants. Among other things, this Census survey showed that a much larger proportion of whites than of nonwhites living in these southern war industry centers were in-migrants. Yet the reverse was true for the Detroit-Willow Run area.
In the Detroit-Willow Run area it was found that of 43,000 Negroes who were not living there in 1940, all but 1,000 came from outside the . State of Michigan.
From Pearl Harbor to March 1945,1,260,000 nonwhites of working age are known to have migrated across their county lines. The figure, estimated by the Census Bureau, applies to the end of the period, so that intermediate moves outside the county and back again do not appear.
Migrations from one county to another within the same State account for 520,000 of these moves. The other 740,000 migrations were between States.
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It is the common experience in cities of great Negro in-migration, whether on the west coast or in other regions outside the South, that a majority of the wartime Negro arrivals wish to remain in their new homes. The South, it can be concluded, has lost large numbers of Negroes whose skill and initiative led them to seek war work and permanent homes in other regions.
The migration of the Negro out of the South has been a steady process. The war merely accelerated slightly what has been going on continuously since 1915 when limitations on immigration and the first World War set in motion the forces to draw Negroes northward. Negroes did not go home after the last war; instead they sent for their relatives. The great depression caused only a slight and temporary interruption in the continued movement. The migration to the west coast actually gained in volume during this period.
On the basis of the best available data, FEPC has made rough estimates of Negro population changes between April 1, 1940, and April 1,1945, in 32 cities. By April 1945, Baltimore, Md., experienced an increase of 40,000 Negroes, representing roughly a 21 percent increase over ,April of 1940. During the same 5-year period Negroes in the Chicago-Gary industrial area increased 60,000 or 18.5 percent, in Cincinnati, 8,000, or 11.6 percent; in Cleveland, 15,000, or 17.2 percent; in the Detroit-Willow Run area, 83,000, or 47 percent; in Los Angeles, 59,000, or 78.2 percent; in Philadelphia, Pa., 36,000, or 11.3 percent; in the Portland-Vancouver area, 9,200, or 437.5 percent; in St. Louis, Mo., 15,000, or 9.9 percent; in San Francisco, 45,000, or 227.3 percent; and in Seattle, 4,600, or 86.8 percent. In March 1946, the USES classified all of these cities either as loose or surplus^ labor markets, the two classifications which denote the highest degree of unemployment.
Everywhere the Negro’s concentration in aircraft, shipbuilding, ammunition, explosives and the like will mean postwar difficulties, since he will often have to. change both city and industry in order to find employment. There are many cities where only aircraft or ship-building offered significant industrial employment to the Negro and where his postwar employment opportunities, along with those of other workers, look bleak unless he migrates. Some of these cities are Mobile, Ala., Wilmington, N. C., Brunswick, Ga., New Orleans, La., and Pascagoula, Miss. There are other cities and areas in which aircraft and shipbuilding gave Negroes most of their employment, where studies show that 50 to 60 percent of in-migrant Negroes intend to remain, and where other available industries follow highly restrictive racial policies. High on this list are Portland, Oreg., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Serious problems face the Government and the citizenry of these cities in integrating the newcomers into the life of the community. No satisfactory solution is possible without the
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coordination of public and private agencies dealing with race relations in education, civic rights, housing, employment, health, recreation and general relief. In terms of the national Government, the solution requires the promotion of training opportunities on a nondiscrimina-tory basis; the promotion of nondiscrimination in.employment; the development of a national labor exchange which emphasizes careful counseling and the intelligent movement of workers in an organized national labor market. Finally, regional economic development is needed for those areas of America which were only temporarily industrialized by war plants. Without such action race relations in America will deteriorate and another generation will face an unsolved problem.
THE RELATION OF NEGRO EMPLOYMENT TO THE GENERAL ECONOMY
During the war, Negroes achieved, for the first time, reasonably full and fair employment in the United States. Failing a Federal guarantee of equal opportunity, it will take a fully operated economy in order to create that tightness in the labor market which will make employers seek Negro workers and will stimulate white workers to accept them freely as fellow employees.
In 1940, when we had the highest prewar employment in the history of this country, when 50.5 million persons were employed, and when Congress was appropriating $15,000,000,000 for defense contracts, Negroes still were suffering acute unemployment and job discrimination. • At this time they comprised from 25 percent to 38 percent of relief rolls, and Negro organizations called upon Congress and the President to end discrimination in defense employment.
During the war, including those in the armed forces, as many as 66,000,000 persons were employed. Counting persons who leave the labor market, various estimates give from 57,000,000 to 60,000,000 persons as the labor force necessary to achieve full employment. In view of Negroes’ experience from 1940 to 1942, it is clear that full employment will be necessary to achieve fair employment, unless, as has been said, the barriers to Negro employment and skills are lowered.
The future of Negroes in the United States is undoubtedly tied up with the economy of the South. According to the 1940 Census, of the 12,865,518 Negroes in the United States, 9,904,614 resided in the 16 Southern States and the District of Columbia. During the war, for the first time the South had a significant number of industrial contracts, and Negroes found good industrial employment and relatively good skill utilization in shipbuilding, aircraft, meat packing, shellloading, ammunition, manufacturing, mining, and in the steel and rolling mills of the South. Now that the war is over, there is little
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hope for the continued productive use of such wartime plants in the South, as aircraft plants and shipyards. Some shipbuilding and ship repair work will continue, but comparatively speaking it will be negligible.
It is not sufficient to suggest that the Negro return to the farm after the war. The South’s main crop, cotton, is in no condition to absorb these returning workers. Today American cotton is only 33 percent instead of its normal 55 percent of the world’s cotton, and it faces increased competition by synthetic fabrics at home and abroad. In addition to these factors, the increased mechanization of cotton picking and cotton cultivation and the tendency of competition to force the production of cotton only on the best land will inevitably reduce the number of workers who can make their living in cotton. It has been estimated that one-third of the people normally on farms in the South must find work elsewhere, and that the nonfarm employment of the South must go up to 60 percent if the region is not to lag seriously behind the rest of the Nation.
The present program of the Department of Agriculture aims to help the South furnish employment for its people and become a consumer market capable of taking its share of the goods this country must produce at present price levels if a fully working economy and full employment are to be achieved.
The South, because of its present purchasing power, can expand such industries as bakeries, milk bottling plants, brick, tile, and concrete plants, box factories, printing shops, and construction. It can also stimulate its material-based industries such as sawmills, pulp and paper mills, iron and steel, food packing, canning, preserves, prefabricated furniture parts, finishing of lumber, and production of ceramics, glass, terrazzo, slate, iron and steel products, coal and chemical products, etc. Once these industries are established, it will be possible to develop more fully the South’s trade and service industries.
The future welfare of America requires full employment, fair employment, intelligent management of the labor market, and regional economic developments. The welfare of minority groups and of Negroes in particular requires exactly the same program, with the accent upon fair employment.
RACIAL TENSION
A series of field reports from widely divergent areas across the Nation dispel any confidence that the lack of overt racial tension since v J-day is proof that friction does not exist. The continuing uncer-tamty of the job picture throughout the first winter and spring of reconversion has delayed the working out of the pattern of Negro employment and hence the pattern of interracial feeling over job
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opportunities. It is now clear that Negro workers have lost large parts of their wartime employment gains and are finding that peacetime industry offers only the traditional openings of the years before 1940. City after city is reported as a loose labor market. The job competition which has been feared and which a few have sought to avoid, is here. It would be foolish to deny that the employment situation of minority workers is not desperate or that it does not contain the seeds of trouble.
Second on every list of interracial problems, second only to employment, is the lack of adequate housing. From Detroit, FEPC received the solemn assurance of competent experts that the problem of housing in Detroit cannot be met without racial friction unless Negro citizens, who so far have been without representation on the mayor’s emergency housing committee, are permitted to take a part in the planning and to share equitably in whatever units are provided. In Milwaukee, Wis., which is not ordinarily an area of tension, “a band of steel has been riveted around the Negro community, making it impossible for Negroes to rent, lease, or buy outside of the area.” Since VJ-day, Milwaukee has had open clashes between a police officer and a Negro mob and between Negro and white youths over the use of playground facilities .
The Gary-Hammond-East Chicago area, the scene of high-school strikes in the fall of 1945, is confronted with most serious housing needs. “All existing housing for Mexicans and at least half of that occupied by Negroes is so bad that it cannot be made fit for human beings,” states the area correspondent. Youngstown, Ohio, which was an area of critical and unrelieved labor shortage throughout the war period because it had no housing for immigrants, has had several racial incidents since last summer. In September 1945, there were four days of sporadic fighting and a near riot following a clash between Negro and white youths after a football game.
Minneapolis, Minn., is a city that saw little wartime immigration. Despite its small Negro population and its northern location, it was not without discriminatory attitudes before the war. In 1940, 68 percent of the Negroes of Minneapolis were on relief. A survey made by the Governor’s commission in 1945 revealed that employers who utilized minority labor for the first time during the war would not be willing to continue this practice in the postwar period. “Nevertheless,” reports the field letter to FEPC, “the major problems in the field of human relations in Minneapolis are not heavily reflected in Negro-white relations, but are essentially of an anti-Semitic nature * * *. In 1945, anti-Semitic activities broke out into the open * * *. There were assaults on individual Jews and particularly Jewish children in the parks. Other evidences of anti-Semitism
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were to be found in the distribution of scurrilous literature and in the expressions of teachers in classrooms.”
There were events on the west coast last Fall, such as the stoning of a synagogue, which made clear that anti-Jewish feeling was high in those areas. Most *of the reports from northern Washington to southern California express surprised relief that the return of the Japanese has been accomplished without widespread bloodshed. West coast communities have not begun to think realistically about the permanent nature of their new Negro populations.
Inadequacy and competition go hand in hand not only in employment and housing, but in recreation, transportation, and health facilities. The established pattern of the community is reflected in every area of its life and the tensions over each human need compound and threaten to erupt in the months ahead, just as they did in more than 20 American cities after the first World War. As essential as local action is, as vital as changes in community attitudes may be, neither appears to develop without a strongly expressed and Federally administered policy around which such action and opinion may be oriented and given sanction.
701290—47----3
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Appendix A. Executive Orders
No. 8802. June 25, 1941.
No. 9346. May 27, 1943.
No. 9664. December 20, 1945.
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 8802
REAFFIRMING POLICY OF FULL PARTICIPATION IN THE DEFENSE PROGRAM BY ALL PERSONS, REGARDLESS OF RACE, CREED, COLOR, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN, AND DIRECTING CERTAIN ACTION IN FURTHERANCE OF SAID POLICY
Whereas it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, coter, or. national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders ; and
Whereas there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in defense production solely because of consideration of race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of workers’ morale and of national unity:
Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national Origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin ;
And it is hereby ordered as follows :
1. All departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for defense production shall take special measures appropriate to assure1 that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin ;
2. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin ;
3. There is established in the Office of Production Management a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which shall consist of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the President. The chairman and members of the Committee shall serve as such without compensation but shall be entitled to actual and necessary transportation, subsistence and other expenses incidental to performance of their duties. Thé Committee shall receive and investigate com
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plaints of discrimination in violation of the provisions of this order and shall take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid. The Committee shall also recommend to the several departments and agencies of the Government of the United States and to the President all measures which may be deemed by it necessary or proper to effectuate the provisions of this order.
Franklin D. Roosevelt. The White House,
June 25, 1941-
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9346
FURTHER AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 8802 BY ESTABLISHING A NEW COMMITTEE ON FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE AND DEFINING ITS POWERS AND DUTIES
In order to establish a new Committee on Fair Employment Practice, to promote the fullest utilization of all available manpower, and to eliminate discriminatory employment practices, Executive Order No. 8802 of June 25,1941, as amended by Executive Order No. 8823 of July 18, 1941, is hereby further amended to read as follows :
“Whereas the successful prosecution of the war demands the maximum employment of all available workers regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin ; and
“Whereas it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the war effort by all persons in the United States regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders ; and
“Whereas there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in war production solely by reason of their race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of the prosecution of the war, the workers’ morale, and national unity :
“Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in.me by the Constitution and statutes, and as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of any person in war industries or in Government by reason of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of all employers, including the several Federal departments and agencies, and all labor organizations, in furtherance of this policy and of this Order, to eliminate discrimination in regard to hire, tenure, terms or conditions of employment, or union membership because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
“It is hereby ordered as follows :
“1. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all contracts hereafter negotiated or renegotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin and requiring him to include a similar provision in all subcontracts.
“2. AH departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for war production shall take all measures appropriate to assure that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
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“3. There is hereby established in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, hereinafter referred to as the Committee, which shall consist of a Chairman and not more than six other members to be appointed by the President. The Chairman shall receive such salary as shall be fixed by the President not exceeding $10,000 per year. The other members of the Committee shall receive necessary traveling expenses and, unless their compensation is otherwise prescribed by the President, a per diem allowance not exceeding twenty-five dollars per day and subsistence expenses on such days as they are actually engaged in the performance of duties pursuant to this Order.
“4. The Committee shall formulate policies to achieve the purposes of this Order and shall make recommendations to the various Federal departments and agencies and to the President which it deems necessary and proper to make effective the provisions of this Order. The Committee shall also recommend to the Chairman of the War Manpower Co.mmission appropriate measures for bringing about the full utilization and training of manpower in and for war production without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
“5. The Committee shall receive and investigate complaints of discrimination forbidden by this Order. It may conduct hearings, make findings of fact, and take appropriate steps to obtain elimination of such discrimination.
“6. Upon the appointment of the Committee and the designation of its Chairman, the Fair Employment Practice Committee established by Executive Order No. 8802 of June 25, 1941, hereinafter referred to as the old Committee, shall cease to exist. All records and property of the old Committee and such unexpended balances of allocations or other funds available for its use as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine shall be transferred to the Committee. The Committee shall assume jurisdiction over all complaints and matters pending before the old Committee and shall conduct such investigations and hearings as may be necessary in the performance of its duties under this Order.
“7. Within the limits of the funds which may be made available for that purpose, the Chairman shall appoint and fix the compensation of such personnel and make provision for such supplies, facilities, and services as may be necessary to carry out this Order. The Committee may "utilize the services and facilities of other Federal departments and agencies and such voluntary and uncompensated services as may from time to time be needed. The Committee may accept the services of State and local authorities and officials, and may perform the functions and duties and exercise the powers conferred upon it by this Order through such officials and agencies and in such manner as it may determine.
“8. The Committee shall have the power to promulgate such rules and regulations as may be appropriate or necessary to carry out the provisions of this Order.
“9. The provisions of any other pertinent Executive order inconsistent with this Order are hereby superseded.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The White House,
May 27, 1943.
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EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9664
CONTINUING THE WORK OF THE FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE COMMITTEE
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes, it is hereby ordered as follows :
The duties and responsibilities injposed upon the Committee on Fair Employment Practice by Executive Order 8802, dated June 25, 1941, as amended by Executive Order 8823 of July 18, 1941, and by Executive Order 9346 of May 27, 1943, shall be continued thereunder for the period and subject to the conditions stated in the National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1946 (Public Law 156, 79th Congress, 1st Session, approved July 17, 1945).
As a part of its duties the Committee shall investigate, make findings and recommendations, and report to the President, with respect to discrimination in industries engaged in work contributing to the production of military supplies or to the effective transition to a peacetime economy.
Harry S. Truman.
The White House,
December 20, 19Ji5.
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Appendix B
The White House, Washington, December 18,19.^5.
To Heads of All Government Departments, Agencies, and Independent Establishments:
Cut-backs in government employment have resulted in a considerable displacement of wartime workers in Washington and the field. The Civil Service Commission, in the interest of retaining capable and efficient employees wherever possible, has established a set of principles governing reduction in force and transfer of employees to peacetime activity. It has come to my attention that a considerable number of loyal and qualified employees have been refused transfer and reemployment by employing agencies solely because of race and creed. This condition is a violation of civil service rules which have been issued by the President and in violation of existing law.
I am writing to request that you make careful analysis of your personnel policies, procedures, and practices in order that you can assure me that they are in accord with national iaw and policy, and in order that all qualified workers in existing temporary war jobs will be considered fairly for appointments without distinction because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
In addition, your full cooperation with FEPC in all matters affecting the employment of minorities in government is requested.
Harry S. Truman.
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Appendix C
Letters From Heads of Departments Summarizing Their Wartime Experience With the Nondiscrimination Policy as Expressed in Executive Orders 8802, 9346, and 9664
United States Civil Service Commission,
Washington 25, D. C., April 1, 1946. Hon. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 261 Constitution Avenue, Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : I have your letter of March 7, addressed to President Mitchell, requesting that the Commission submit a brief summation and evaluation of its efforts to prevent discrimination as defined in Executive Orders 8802 and 9346. In his absence, I am furnishing the report herewith.
As the central personnel agency of the Federal Government, the Commission’s responsibility under the Civil Service Act and Rules regarding nondiscrimination in connection with employment in the Federal Government antedates these Executive orders and the activities of your Committee.
The attached Report “A,” therefore, contains a general introductory statement outlining briefly a history of the Commission’s most significant activities in this connection, as well as a record and summation of its efforts and wartime experience in connection with the provisions of the Executive orders mentioned above. At the same time, as an operating agency, the Commission has certain responsibilities for the prevention of discrimination in its internal personnel procedures and operations within the Commission. Therefore, the attached Report “B” covers this phase of the Commission’s nondiscrimination activities. I hope that these statements will be of assistance to the Committee in preparing its final report to the President.
I would like to take this opportunity to express the Commission’s deep appreciation for the cooperation which we have received from your Committee at all times in connection with the handling of our mutual problems.
By direction of the Commission:
Very sincerely yours,
Arthur S. Flemming,
Acting President. Inclosure 180602.
REPORT “A”
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The Civil Service Act provides for open competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service and provides further that vacancies in the service shall be filled from among those graded highest as a result of such
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examinations. The examinations are open to all citizens of the United States and to those owing allegiance to the United States. Under the law, therefore, the Commission has operated on the basis of non-discrimination on the grounds of race, color or creed in its own proceedings. Also within the limits of its authority and jurisdiction it has considered and taken appropriate action in connection with allegations of discrimination on the basis of race, color, or creed on the part of appointing officials in the various Federal establishments.
For example, in order to eliminate a possible basis for discriminatory action against eligibles on its registers, the Commission, in 1940, prior to Executive Order 8802, adopted the use of fingerprints for purposes of identification of appointees. For many years prior to that time, applicants had been required to furnish photographs at the time of participation in the examination or filing of application. The photograph requirement had caused some feeling among certain citizens that they might be discriminated against in the making of appointments, and the substitution of fingerprints for photographs was considered by various organizations throughout the country as being of great value in preventing discrimination in the Federal service on the grounds of race. Steps were also taken at this time to eliminate from examination and appointment forms used by the Civil Service Commission any reference to race.
At approximately the same time, the Commission recommended an Executive Order, which was issued on November 7, 1940, amending the language of Section 2, Civil Service Rule I, to include a provisiop with respect to non-discrimination because of race. The revised sentence reads as follows:
“No discrimination shall be exercised, threatened, or promised by any person in the executive civil service against or in favor of any applicant, eligible, or employee in the classified service because of race, or his political or religious opinions or affiliations, except as may be authorized or required by law.” [Italics supplied.]
More recently, under authority of Executive Order 9691 of February 4, 1946, the Commission promulgated temporary civil service regulations to provide for the transitional period until such time as the Civil Service Rules are revised. Regulation XII on removals and reductions has been amended to include the following: ’
“Section 2. Like penalties for like offenses.—In making removals or reductions, and in other punishment, like penalties shall be imposed for like offenses, and no discrimination shall be exercised for political or religious reasons, or because of marital status, race, creed, color, or national origin.” [Italics supplied.]
“Section 4. Power to investigate.—Except for cases referred to in Section 1 (b) of this regulation, the Commission shall have no jurisdiction to review the findings of a removing officer upon the charges and answer provided for in Section 1 of this regulation, nor shall the Commission have authority to investigate any removal or reduction, unless it is alleged, with offer of proof, that the procedure required by Section 1 of this regulation has not been followed, or that the removal was made because of marital status, race, or for religious or political reasons. * ♦ *”
Executive Order 9691 provides for the making of temporary appointments by Federal establishments pending the establishment of registers for probational appointment and definitely states that “In making such temporary appointments there shall be no discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” In addition, the Executive order also provides that when the order of
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selection has not been followed in any case, the person appointed may be removed. The term “order of selection” as used in the Executive order includes the clause on nondiscrimination.
This Executive order also provides that the Commission, not later than July 1, 1946, shall submit to the President recommendations for a general revision of the civil service rules. In connection with this study, appropriate consideration is being given to pertinent changes regarding nondiscrimination.
The Commission, as the central personnel agency for the Federal Government, in line with its general responsibilty for the enforcement of civil service rules and regulations prohibiting discriminatory practices on the part of Federal officials, early in 1941 asked the Council of Personnel Administration to give consideration to this problem. The Council, which is composed of the personnel directors of the various departments and agencies in Washington, appointed a committee to consider the matter.
Special Procedures Adopted For Handling Allegations of Discrimination
However, before any specific policies had been formulated on this matter, the President issued Executive Order 8802, dated June 25, 1941, reaffirming “the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” The Executive order also established the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice.
Soon after this, in October 1941, in order to make certain that allegations of discrimination were handled most effectively, promptly, and uniformly, the Commission placed central responsibility in the Office of the Chief, Field Operations, for handling such complaints. In line with this policy, the Commission also advised all of its own employees, both in the field and in the central office, that all written complaints in which discriminaton because of race, creed, color, or national origin in the employment of workers in the Federal service was alleged, should be referred immediately to the Office of the Chief, Field Operations, for appropriate action and notification to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice. Regional offices were advised that in the case of any complaints received by them, a full report of the specific facts surrounding the complaint and other pertinent information should also be submitted with the written complaint in order to avoid unnecessary correspondence between the Commission and the regional offices. Employees of the Commission were also informed that complaints involving matters not under the Commission’s jurisdiction would be forwarded by the Office of the Chief, Field Operations, to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, advising the Committee that the complaint concerned a matter not coming within the Commission’s jurisdiction.
In January of 1943, the Commission delegated additional authority to its regional offices in the handling of complaints of discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin. Up to that time, the regional offices had submitted such complaints to the Commission with all pertinent information regarding the matter. At that time the Commission authorized regional offices, in those cases where inquiry or investigation clearly and definitely disproved the alleged discrimination, to make final reply to the complainant, with a full explanation of the Commission’s findings. Copies of the complaint and the reply were then forwarded to the Commission’s central office in order that an appropriate report could be submitted to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice. In all cases where the alleged discrimination was not clearly and definitely disproved, the regional office transmitted the entire file to the central office for final action.
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On May 27,1943, the President issued Executive Order 9346, which established a new Committee on Fair Employment Practice and further defined and enlarged its powers and duties. However, this new order had no additional effect upon the civil service procedures for investigating complaints of discrimination.
In the fall of 1943, the Fair Employment Practice Committee decided to decentralize its work by the establishment of regional offices, and the regional director of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice at Chicago was one of the first appointed. The Commission’s regional director at Chicago, as the result of several conferences with the Committee’s regional director in that city, submitted to the Commission a proposed procedure for the handling of complaints of alleged discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, color, or national origin referred to the Commission’s regional office by the regional director of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice. This proposed procedure differed from that then in effect by authorizing the Commission’s regional director, in those cases where the original complaint was referred by the regional director of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice to the Commission’s regional director, to make reports on closed out complaints directly to the Committee’s regional director, rather than to the central office of the Commission for subsequent transmittal to the central office of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice. The central office of the Commission, however, continued to be furnished with copies of the complaints and the replies thereto in order that the cases could, be reviewed for adequacy of handling and action taken.
In April of 1944, the Commission’s regional offices were advised of the agreement entered into between the Commission’s regional director at Chicago and the Committee’s regional director in that city for handling discrimination complaints. The Commission’s regional offices were also informed that they could enter into similar agreements with regional directors of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice without the prior approval of the Commission. However, if there was any substantial variance between the proposed agreement and that authorized for the Commission’s Seventh Region, it was necessary for them to submit such agreement to the central office of the Commission for prior approval. The Commission was also furnished with a copy of any such agreement entered into by a regional director.
Also at this time, because of the increasing responsibility placed on regional offices for the closing out of complaints of discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin, the central office of the Commission advised its regional offices that the handling of these complaints should so far as possible, be centralized in one high grade person in each region.
In view of the responsibility vested in the Commission’s regional offices for closing out finally complaints of discrimination forwarded to them directly by regional offices of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, it was decided to permit one region to close out all complaints received in the regional office from any source, forwarding copies of the complaint and reply to the regional office of the Committee. This authority was granted the region in question for a period of three months only on a trial basis. As a result of this experiment, it was decided in January of 1945 to delegate to all regional offices full authority to handle and finally close out all complaints of discrimination received in the regional office regarding matters under regional office jurisdiction. No copies of the correspondence, under this delegation of authority, are furnished the central office of the Commission.
In order to further insure effective and uniform handling of these complaints throughout the Commission’s organization, it has been necessary from time to
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time to adopt certain standards. Among these is a pattern for the regional directors of the Commission to follow in formulating agreements with the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice for handling at the regional level all complaints based on race, creed, color, or national origin. It was also found desirable to establish definite procedures for the handling of these complaints and for the conduct of any necessary investigations. Very recently, a detailed analysis was prepared defining (1) the circumstances under which the Commission will assume jurisdiction in the event written complaint of discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, color, or national origin, with supporting evidence is received, and (2) the action taken by the Commission in each type of case when it makes a finding of discrimination. This analysis and the other instructions and procedures were incorporated in the Commission’s Manual of Instructions, for the guidance of all Commission employees who handle such complaints, and were also furnished currently to the central-office of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice.
The Commission has maintained very close and cooperative working relationships with the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice. In order to make certain that both agencies were fully informed regarding each other’s procedures and instructions both in Washington and in the Field, arrangements were made whereby the central office of the Committee has been furnished copies of the Commission’s instructions to its field offices with regard to the procedure in handling complaints of discrimination. likewise, the Committee has furnished the Commission with copies of its current field instructions, which have in turn been transmitted by the Commission to its regional directors.
Since October 1941, the date of the special procedures adopted by the Commission in line with the original Executive order establishing the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, the Commission’s central and regional offices have handled a total of 1,871 complaints of discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin. Of this number, the Commission was able to make a finding of actual discrimination in only fifty-eight cases. In the remaining cases discrimination was not definitely proved, or the case did not come under the Commission’s jurisdiction, or further information was requested from the complainant and no reply was received.
During this same period, we made a total of more than eight million placements in the Federal service. These eight million placements did hot include, of course, a number of other personnel transactions concerning which complaints are received, such as classification, reassignment, removal, etc. It will be seen, therefore, that the total volume of complaints on discrimination in the Federal service is exceedingly small compared with the volume of personnel transactions. We believe that these figures and our general experience in this field indicate that, in general, the Federal service has had an excellent record even under the stress of wartime conditions with rapidly changing appointing officers, many of whom were not previously in the Federal service and needed to be informed regarding Federal personnel policies, practices, and procedures.
Other Special Procedures for Special Wartime Situations
During the war years, the Commission was delegated authority by a number of agencies to make actual appointments for them on a direct recruiting basis for certain positions at specific field establishments. One of the criteria by which the acceptability of a direct recruiting order was determined was 'the availability of housing. Only in those cases where the agency agreed to place such persons on duty and house them on the day they reported for duty, were such direct recruiting orders accepted. In this connection, the Commission
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emphasized that there must be housing for both white and colored alike and that it could not undertake such recruitment for any agency under any agreement or arrangement which prohibits or denies consideration and appointment of eligibles without regard to race, creed, or color.
Because of the War Department’s need for a spot check on the loyalty of all of its new employees during the war, that agency was granted authority to make its own inquiry as to the character and suitability of appointees to positions in its organization. It was found that a private investigative agency whose services were being used by that department was making inquiry concerning the religious affiliations of the persons whom they were investigating. When this matter was taken up with the War Department and the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, the private agency was advised of the provisions of civil-service rule I and instructed to delete all reference to religious affiliation from forms used by that agency in securing information.
Also in several instances where pre-employment forms used by specific Federal agencies contained questions regarding the race or political or religious affiliations of the applicant, the matter has been taken up with the agency involved and the forms have been revised to eliminate such questions.
During the recent war, many American citizens of Japanese origin were confined to war relocation centers. The. Commission worked very closely with officials of the War Relocation Authority in the working out of security procedures in connection with the appointment to Federal positions of such citizens, as well as persons of Japanese origin not confined to the centers, with full regard for the rights of such citizens.
Since the end of the war, these special security procedures have, of course, been rescinded, and persons of Japanese origin are now handled in the same manner as any other case.
REPORT “B”
REPORT ON NONDISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION AS AN OPERATING AGENCY, MARCH 1946
The Commission in its own internal personnel program is also guided by the Civil Service Act and rules and those Executive orders which provide that there shall be no discrimination against or in favor of any employee of the Federal Government because of race, color, sex, religion, creed, marital status, national origin, or political affiliations except as may be required by law.
In every aspect of its internal personnel program, it is the Commission’s policy to afford equal opportunity and equal participation to all on a non-discriminatory basis. For example, the terms of the promotion policy call for a consideration of such factors as previous pertinent experience and training, performance on the job, attitude, and aptitude, regardless of race, color, and the other elements already mentioned. In order to afford employees opportunities for advancement on the job, promotion examinations are held at intervals. To increase employees’ efficiency on the job, and incidentally improve their chances for advancement, an in-service training; program is conducted. Both the promotion examinations and the in-service training program are open to all employees alike.
All employees are encouraged to make suggestions for improving their work. Suggestions of employees are measured against the same standards as to merit, and awards are made solely on the basis of the worth to the Commission of the employee suggestion.
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In matters of employee grievances, identical channels are open to all employees. All employees are made aware of these channels by their supervisors, in orientation courses, in official manuals, handbooks, reports, etc. Employees are encouraged to make use of such channels as appeals procedure, open-door policy, and the conciliation committee whenever they feel that they have a need for them. Appeal boards and conciliation committees are pledged to a policy of nondiscrimination.
Employee services are designed to assist all employees, as the employees have a desire or need to use them. The services of the employee counselor are easily and equally available to all colors and creeds. Likewise, financial assistance facilities are available to employees through the welfare association, credit union, and emergency welfare fund.
Leave laws are administered in accordance with governing regulations, without discrimination for or against any individuals or groups of employees.
As part of the Commission’s program, employee participation is requested before major personnel policy statements are adopted. Invitations to contribute to their formulation are extended to all employees irrespective of color or creed.
Prior to July 1943, the Commission did not maintain information as to race of personnel. However, since that time,‘at the request of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, these figures have been kept to furnish the basis of periodic reports to the Committee.
Employment figures from our reports furnished to the Committee are as follows, converted to percentages :
Percentage Date • ^egro
. personnel
July 31, 1943____________________________________________________________ 8.2
November 30, 1943________________________________________________________10. 5
March 31, 1944___________________________________________________________11. 3
July 31, 1944____________________________________________________________11.4
November 30, 1944________________________________________________________12.1
March 31, 1945______________________________________________________12.6
July 31, 1945_______________________________________________________11. 5
September 30, 1945__________________________________________________12.3
January 31, 1946____________________________________________________15. 2
It will be noted from these data that since July 31, 1943, the percentage of Negro personnel in the Commission has increased by 7 percent. The most significant increase is shown as of January 31, 1946, subsequent to two major reductions in force of Commission personnel. As in the administration of all of its internal personnel policies and practices, the Commission conducted the reductions in force without regard to color, race, and creed. In spite of the two major reductions in force between August 1945 and January 1946, the percentage Of Negro employees actually increased from 11.5 percent as of July 31,1945, to 15.2 percent on January 31,1946.
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Department of Labor,
United States Employment Service,
Washington 25, D. C., April 17, 19^6.
Mr. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President's Committee on Fai/r Employment Practice, Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : We want to thank you for the considerations extended to us by you and your associates on many occasions in the past. Your request for a brief summation of the Commission’s essential activities on behalf of nondiscrimination is attached. Information provided is in the nature of a general statement and if any specific details will be helpful, we will be pleased to make them available to you.
Sincerely,
Robert O. Goodwin, Director. Enclosure.
Generat, Statement of War Manpower Commission Activities Regarding Discrimination in Employment
The War Manpower Commission in its role of administering wartime regulation of the labor force was concerned with factors preventing training or employment of occupationally qualified workers. Discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, or citizenship was prominent among factors preventing training or employment of qualified workers and as a consequence was a concern of the War Manpower Commission.
Under the aegis of national policy regarding discrimination in employment, as reaffirmed in Executive Order 8802 and amendments, WMC established four major instruments intended to aid in carrying out the national policy of nondiscrimination in employment.
1. It established an agency policy, which among other things—
(a) provided for cooperation with the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice;
(b) stipulated that referral to training dr employment of workers by the United States Employment Service be made without discrimination because of race, creed, color or national origin ;
(e) established procedures for dealing with cases of discrimination in hiring practices.
2. Within several states and at headquarters the War Manpower Commission developed personnel training programs to clarify policy and procedure regarding discrimination in employment.
3. Within the organizational structure of the agency, included a section for service to minority groups whose function was to plan programs for effective placement and counseling services to members of minority groups; recommend policies and standards and prepare necessary instructions for the establishment of administrative machinery in regional, State and local offices for securing the fullest possible placement and counseling service to minority group applicants; advise with other Federal agencies and national organizations concerned with services to these groups ; and provide technical assistance to field offices in connection with these activities.
4. Provided for inclusion of procedures to be followed in all agencies programs where discrimination against workers could occur. Examples of such programs were employment stabilization ; manpower utilization ; preemployment training, and supplementary training.
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Success of the War Manpower Commission in removing discriminatory hiring practices was in a large measure due more to the pressure of worker scarcity than to any other single factor. Through its program of manpower utilization, the Commission was able, in some instances, to assist employers who had decided to use all available workers without regard to race, creed, color or national origin, by furnishing information on successful methods of integrating minority groups into the labor force.
Through its labor market information, the Commission was able to forecast shortages of workers in certain occupations and in certain areas and, on that basis, convince employers that they must deal realistically with the matter of using all available workers.
The Commission did an interpretative job in pointing out to specific employers and communities the conditions which would occur through the importation of workers ; i. e. overburdening of housing, transportation, community facilities such as schools, playgrounds, parks and the like, and food supplies. Through this interpretation many employers were prevailed upon to use available local labor that it was their normal practice to reject.
In addition to the race, creed, color and national origin groups, women and older workers were brought into the labor force in increasing number.
Many employers had a favorable experience in the employment of workers from usually excluded groups. Some of these experiences were given limited circulation within the agency and assisted in demonstrating the possibility of employment based solely on occupational qualifications. Wider attention to the gathering of this information and its general use could be an important contribution to the solution of problems occasioned by discrimination in employment.
In recognition of the fact that policies promulgated by the Executive Order 8802 called for the closest possible cooperation between the President’s Conunit-tee on Fair Employment Practice and the War Manpower Commission, an operating agreement was signed between these two agencies on August 2, 1943, in order to define the respective responsibilities of the two agencies and to establish operating procedures which would assure expeditious and harmonious enforcement of nondiscriminatory policies.
Shortly after the development of the operating agreement, a major policy change took place in the handling of discriminatory orders. Under the revised definition for discrimination, as set forth in Field Instruction No. 21, “Responsibility of the War Manpower Commission in the Utilization of Minority Groups,” issued on September 3, 1943, the referral of workers by the Employment Service on the basis of discriminatory specifications constituted discrimination by that agency. The new instruction also incorporated procedures for handling and reporting discriminatory orders and for the specific use of form USES 510, “Report of Discriminatory Hiring Practices.” '
Many cases of discriminatory hiring practices, reported under terms of the operating agreement, were adjusted by the efforts of the War Manpower Commission and the activity of the President’s Committee.
The absence of a clearly defined legal basis for any activity other than persuasive effort and, in some instances, imposition of sanctions by agencies of the Government, spelled out the course followed by the War Manpower Commission in support of the nondiscriminatory orders.
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War Department, Washington, March 16, 19^6.
Mr. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice,
Executive Office of the President, Office for Emergency Management, Washington, D. C.
Dear Mb. Ross : This will acknowledge your letter of 6 March 1946, requesting -a brief summation and evaluation of the War Department’s effort to prevent discrimination as defined in Executive Orders 8802 and 9346.
From the beginning the War Department has endeavored to cooperate and secure conformance to both the letter and spirit of Executive Orders 8802 and 9346.
The position of the Secretary of War was recorded in the “Employee Relations policy for War Department employees” as follows :
“The War Department will make no discrimination in favor of or against an employee because of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin, or political or other afiiliation (except as may be required by law).”
The policy of the War Department has been reaffirmed throughout the civilianpersonnel regulations of the War Department which pertain to the employment status of all employees.
The Secretary of War has consistently sought to apply the principles of the Executive Orders and the War Department policy in its training of personnel officers. Fair employment practices have also been included as an area of the inspection program of the Department. Through inspection of personnel administration in all components of the War Department, the degree of compliance with recorded policies and regulations is continuously evaluated.
As recently as January of this year the letter of the President of the United States enunciating the President’s policy on nondiscrimination has been communicated to the commanding generals of the Forces with the admonition that all steps must be taken to secure full compliance with the spirit and letter of national law and policy in this area. A copy of a typical communication in this area follows:
“Memorandum for : The Commanding General Headquarters, Army Air Forces.
“Subject : The President’s Policy on Nondiscrimination.
“1. The following communication has been received from the President of the United States:
“ ‘Cutbacks in Government employment have resulted in a considerable displacement of wartime workers in Washington and the field. The Civil Service Commission, in the interest of retaining capable efficient employees wherever possible, has established a set of principles governing reduction in force and transfer of employees to peacetime activity. It has come to my attention that a considerable number of loyal and qualified employees have been refused transfer and reemployment by employing agencies solely because of race and creed. This condition is a violation of civil service rules which have been issued by the President and in violation of existing law.
“ T am wrting to request that you make careful analysis of your personnel policies, procedures, and practices in order that you can assure me that they are in accord with national law and policy and in order that all qualified workers in existing temporary war jobs will be considered fairly for appointments without distinction because of race, color, creed, or national origin.
“ Tn addition, your full cooperation with FEPC in all matters affecting the employment of minorities in government is requested.
, ‘“(signed) Harry S. Truman.’
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“2. This Office takes this opportunity to recall to you the policy of the War Department enunciated in paragraph 1, Administrative Memorandum No. W-6, 31 January 1943: Employee Relations policy for War Department employees and reiterated in Civilian Personnel Regulation No. 2, viz: ‘The War Department will make no discrimination in favor of or against an employee because of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin, or political or other affiliation (except as may be required by law).”
“3. It is desired that the President’s letter and the War Department policy relating thereto be again called forcibly to the attention of responsible officials of all components. The Department will take every step necessary to make certain that full compliance is maintained with the spirit and letter of national law and policy in this regard.”
With respect to the matter of valuation of the effectiveness of the policies and programs to secure conformance in this area, the War Department grievance procedure affirms the right of employees to appeal from the practice of discrimination up to and including the Secretary of War’s Grievance Board of Review. The experience of the Grievance Board of Review and inspection report findings have been substantially encouraging in reflecting a growth of understanding on the part of War Department appointing officers and supervisors of the spirit of the Executive orders and War Department policy. Although there will always be room for improvement of relations in this area, it is my determination that energetic and thoughtful consideration of the principles will be maintained.
I appreciate the expression of your satisfaction in the cooperation of the War Department with FEPC in the past and this is to state my appreciation, likewise, of the fine cooperation the War Department has received from the FEPC staff throughout the country in the endeavor to secure resolution of occasional conflicts in the administration of policy.
Let me assure you that the War Department will be unrelaxing in its efforts to further the purposes and objectives of the FEPC, concern for which we share with you.
Sincerely yours,
Robert P. Patterson,
Secretary of War.
The Secretary of the Navy,
Washington, April 10, 1946.
Mr. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Executive Office of the President,
Office for Emergency Management, Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : Reference is made to your letter requesting that the Navy Department prepare a report summarizing and evaluating its efforts to prevent discrimination as defined in Executive Orders 8802 and 9346.
When Executive Order 8802 was approved, the Department promulgated that order to its field activities and agreed to forward to your committee copies of complaints of alleged discrimination received in the Department and, on the other hand, to investigate and report all such claims or complaints which your committee might bring to the attention of the Department. In an announcement to the field, the Department directed that naval establishments comply with the order and that Navy-owned but privately operated plants and privately owned and privately operated plants handling Navy work would also be required to
701290—47---9
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include discrimination clauses in their contracts. The latter was a memorandum issued jointly by the Navy Department with the Army and Maritime Commission.
The above procedure ■ for handling discrimination cases at the departmental level between your committee and the Navy appeared after a period of time to be unsatisfactory. Therefore, when your committee was rebrganized on a regional basis, setting up field investigators to make investigations in the field, the Navy Department, wishing to streamline its procedures and conform with your reorganization, agreed with your committee that discrimination cases regarding appointments should be investigated primarily by your committee and that discrimination cases involving employees currently on the rolls should be handled as grievances under the Navy Department procedures. In conformance with this agreement your committee instructed your staff to refer discrimination complaints of Navy employees back to Navy activities before referring them to Washington. Approximately at the same time the Navy Department promulgated a uniform grievance procedure to its field activities, which has since been modified, which as one of its purposes would entertain appeals by employees of discrimination.
In general, the Navy Department at first attempted to handle discrimination complaints on a central basis but found through practice that it was much more satisfactory to decentralize the handling of such cases to local stations. In this connection it should be pointed out that with this decentralization it was possible for your committee to work very closely with local naval activities and assist and guide them in matters pertaining to discrimination thereby serving the purposes of your committee more satisfactorily and meeting the needs of the Navy service in a more practicable manner.
The foregoing procedure was further amplified in a joint agreement with your committee whereby the discrimination cases were divided into two categories as indicated in section 4 of the enclosure, (1) those involving applicants for positions or discharged persons, and (2) those involving employees at naval activities. It was agreed that your committee would handle all cases in category (1) while the Navy Department would handle cases found in category (2). Furthermore the Department agreed that representatives of your committee should be invited to confer with officials of naval activities to discuss policies, procedures, and practices of general interest concerning matters of discrimination. Officials of naval activities were urged to arrange such conferences speedily in an effort to arrive at unanimity of procedure and to expedite handling of cases. In addition it was agreed that when differences occurred between regional representatives of your committee and naval activities that such differences immediately would be forwarded to the Department for further handling, in which case the matter would be discussed at the departmental level with members of your Washington Staff.
In reviewing the development of its policies and practices regarding the handling of discrimination cases the Navy Department is of the opinion that the agreement reached between your committee and the Department has been satisfactory. This can well be illustrated by the fact that during the calendar year 1945 approximately 10 complaints of discrimination were filed with the Department. In all cases these complaints were handled in such manner by the Department and its activities that it was not necessary for any case to be forwarded to your committee proper for disposition.
Illustrative of the attitude of individual naval activities is a standard policy which was inaugurated by the Twelfth Naval District of inviting representatives of your committee to attend hearings held in cases where your committee had requested an investigation of alleged discrimination. This policy was initiated
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in order that your representatives might witness the manner in which discrimination cases were conducted and in order to insure that all pertinent sources of information would be developed to the satisfaction of those representatives.
The Navy Department is extremely interested in eliminating discriminatory practices and was most happy to cooperate with your committee in developing procedures and policies designed for that end. It is difficult, in view of the intangible nature of the evidence, to evaluate the effectiveness of these procedures and policies but it is the studied opinion of the Department that they have had a salutary effect and that cases in which discrimination is alleged are decreasing in number. For your additional information I am pleased to attach a copy of the Department’s instructions to all naval activities, Navy Civilian Personnel Instruction 75, as amended; which sets forth the Department’s policy and procedures with respect to the subject at hand, and the existing agreement between your committee and the Department. You may be assured that although your committee will go out of existence on this coming June 30th, the Department will continue its efforts to eliminate all cases of discrimination within its confines.
Sincerely yours,
John L. Sullivan, Acting Secretary of the Navy. j
NAVY CIVILIAN PERSONNEL INSTRUCTIONS
Division of SECP, AstSecNav, 11 January 19^5.
Instruction 75. Fair Employment Practice
Paragraphs
Section 1. References______________.______'______,__________________________ 1—1
2. General provisions_______________________________________________ 1—2
3. Procedures and methods of Committee on Fair Employment Practice._ 1—3
4. Joint procedures of Navy Department and Committee on Fair Employment Practice______________2______________________________________ 1-2
5. Documents superseded_________________________22____£_____________ 1—1
6. Enclosures_______________________________________________________ 1-1
SECTION 1, REFERENCES
Paragraphs
References_________________________________.____________________________ 1-1
1-1. The following Executive Order, entitled “Executive Order No. 9346, Further Amending Executive Order No. 8802 by Establishing a New Committee on Fair Employment Practice and Defining Its Powers and Duties,” is the basic reference of this Instruction :
* * *
SECTION 2, GENERAL PROVISIONS
Paragraphs
Legal basis__________,____________________________________________________________ 2-1
Policy______________________________’_____________________________________________ 2-2
2-1. Legal Basis.—Executive Order 9346 of 27 May 1943 reaffirms the policy of the United States Government, as previously stated in Executive Order 8802 of 25 June 1941, that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of any
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person in war industries or in Government by reason of race, creed, color, or national origin, and contains the following provisions :
a. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all contracts a provision against such discrimination.
b. All departments and agencies of the Government concerned with vocational and training programs for war production shall take all measures appropriate to insure nondiscrimination.
c. A Committee on Fair Employment Practice is established for the following purposes :
(1) To formulate policies and make recommendations to the various Federal departments and agencies, including the War Manpower Commission, and to the President.
(2) To receive and investigate complaints, conduct hearings, make findings of fact, and take appropriate steps to eliminate discrimination.
(3) To promulgate rules and regulations to carry out the provisions of the Order.
2-2. Policy.—The policies expressed in Executive Order 9346 are heartily endorsed by the Department and it is directed that :
a. Navhl establishments shall comply with Executive Order 9346 and continue their policy of nondiscrimination in matters of employment, promotion, and training.
b. There shall be all practicable cooperation with the Committee on Fair Employment Practice (hereinafter referred to as FEPC) in the matter of conferences regarding nondiscrimination policies and practices, and in the effectuation of the national policy.
c. Responsible Naval officials shall instruct the contractor-operators of government-owned but privately-operated plants that their policies and procedures must conform to the principles of Executive Order 9346.
d. Privately owned and privately operated plants handling Navy work shall be required to include the following provision in all contracts :
“Article —. Nondiscrimination in Employment.—The contractor, in performing the work required by this contract, shall not discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor further agrees that each subcontract made under this contract will contain a similar provision with respect to nondiscrimination.”
e. In handling cases of alleged discrimination, the procedure specified in NCPI 75.4-1 shall be followed.
SECTION 3, PROCEDURES AND METHODS OF COMMITTEE ON FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE
Paragraphs
Regional level__________________________-_________________________________________ 3-1
Washington Office of FEPC_________________________________________________________ 3-2
Full Committee of FEPC____________________________________________________________ 3-3
3-1. Regional Level.—FEPC investigates only a signed complaint against a named employer which alleges discrimination relating to employment, placement, or training because of race, creed, color, or national origin. Cases are filed at the regional level and initial steps taken are an effort to obtain complete additional information from the complainant in order to determine if the case has merit. If so, the case is called to the attention of the employer and when compliance is secured the case is closed.
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3-2. Washington Office of FEPC.—Cases not adjusted at the regional level are referred to the Washington office of FEPC for further negotiation.
3-3. Full Committee of FEPC.—In some troublesome situations cases are referred by the Washington office of FEPC to the' full Committee of FEPC. The full Committee holds but few public hearings each year and they are resorted to only after other methods of settlement have failed. Hearings conducted by the full Committee are informal fact-finding proceedings. In securing compliance, the Committee may enlist the assistance of the War Manpower Commission in carrying out its employment stabilization plan or may certify the case to the President who, under his authority as administrative head of the Executive Branch or as Commander-in-Chief of. the armed forces, may enforce Committee directives.
SECTION 4. JOINT PROCEDURES OF NAVY DEPARTMENT AND COMMITTEE ON FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE
Paragraphs
Cases of alleged discrimination___________________’__._________________________________ 4—1
Conferences____________________________________________________________________________ 4-2
4-1. Cases of Alleged Discrimination.—The following procedure for handling cases of alleged discrimination, which the Department has worked out with FEPC, is to be followed :
a. Cases involving applicants for positions or discharged employees.
(1) FEPC regional representatives, when presented with such cases, will first determine whether or not a prima facie case appears to exist by questioning the applicant and, if necessary, informally communicating with the Naval activity concerned.
(2) If, after a preliminary study, FEPC believes a prima facie case exists, FEPC regional representatives may request the appropriate Naval activity for a report on the case. As appropriate to the definite settlement of the case, Naval activities may. handle such requests through informal discussion with FEPC representatives or make reply through formal correspondence. It is suggested that, insofar as is practicable, informal discussion be used to dispose of cases. In developfng facts for either formal or informal reports, Naval activities concerned shall conduct such formal or informal investigations as may be necessary. At the discretion of Commanding Officers, FEPC representatives may be requested to be present at and assist in such investigations.
(3) If the regional office of FEPC is not satisfied with the report and findings from the Naval activity, the regional office of FEPC may appeal through its Washington office to the Navy Department for further consideration of the case.
&. Cases involving employees of Naval activities.
(1) FEPC regional representatives, when presented with cases of alleged discrimination involving employees of Naval establishments, will inform the employees concerned of their right to raise their questions as employee grievances (See NCPI 80). Representatives of FEPC may represent employees in such grievances at the fourth and fifth stages of the grievance procedure. Attention is invited to the fact that, when so representing employees, FEPÇ regional representatives are appearing primarily as representatives of another government agency concerned with the effectuation of the national policy of nondiscrimination rather than on behalf of the employees. Copies of the established grievance procedure have been placed
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in the hands of FEPC in order that regional representatives may be informed of its provisions. The time involved for each stage in the grievance procedure should not exceed the provided maximums.
(2) Should an employee be dissatisfied with the decision of the Department regarding his grievance, and appeal to FEPC for further assistance, FEPC regional representatives may appeal through their Washington office to the Navy Department for further consideration of the matter.
4-2 Conferences.—FEPC regional representatives are invited to confer with officials of Naval activities to discuss policies, procedures, and practices of general interest concerning matters of discrimination. Officials of Naval activities are urged to arrange such conferences as speedily as possible. At all times Commanding Officers and Commandants should extend the utmost courtesy and Cooperation in dealing with regional representatives of FEPC. Should any differences occur between representatives of FEPC and Naval activities, ft is requested that they be deferred to the Department for immediate handling.
SECTION 5, DOCUMENTS SUPERSEDED
5-1. The following circular letters are hereby superseded:
a. Dept cir Itr JIS : FLH of 8 Oct 1941 (CPL&D 41-233).
b. Dept cir Itr SOSED-2-HD of 10 Jul 1942 (CPL&D 42-206).
c. Dept, cir Itr SOSED^2-HD of 23 Dec 1942 (CPL&D 42-372).
d. Dept cir Itr SOSED-2-HD of 19 Oct 1943 (CPL&D 43-335).
e. Dept cir Itr SECP-520: 1mm of 28 Nov 1944 (CPL&D 45-515).
SECTION 6, ENCLOSURES
6-1. Executive Order No. 9346 of 27 May 1943, entitled “Executive Order No. 9346, Further Amending Executive Order No. 8802 by Establishing a New Committee on Fair Employment Practice and Defining Its Powers and Duties.”
By direction of UnderSecNav:
F. G. Crisp, File No. — SECP-520: sll F. G. Cbisp.
NAVY CIVILIAN PERSONNEL INSTRUCTIONS
Oir,' UnderSecNav.
22 January 1946.
Instruction 75, Amendment 1, Fair Employment Practice
REQUEST FOR EXAMINATION OF PERSONNEL POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND PROCEDURES WITH A VIEW TO ELIMINATING THE POSSIBILITY OF DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES
In conjunction with Executive Order No. 9664 dated 18 December 1945 which continued the duties of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, the President addressed a letter to heads of Federal departments. This letter requested department heads to make careful analysis of personnel policies, procedures, and practices in order to assure the President that their personnel policies and procedures are in accord with national, law and policy and in order that all qualified workers in existing temporary war jobs'will be considered fairly for appointments without distinction because of race, creed, color, or national origin. In addition, the President requested full cooperation with FEPC in all matters
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affecting the employment of minorities. This amendment is issued to comply with the President’s orders and requests.
NCPI 75.1-1 is hereby amended by the substitution therefor of the following: 1-1. The following are references in connection with fair employment practice: a. Executive Order No. 9346 of 27 May 1943.
&. Executive Order No. 9664 of 18 Dec 1945.
NCPI 75.2-1 is hereby amended by the substitution therefor of the following : 2-1. Basic Authority.—a. Executive Order No. 9346 of 27 May 1943 reaffirms the policy of the United States Government, as previously stated in Executive Order No. 8802 of 25 June 1941, that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of any person in war industries or in Government by reason of race, creed, color, or national origin, and contains the following provisions :
(1) All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all contracts a provision against such discrimination.
(2) All departments and agencies of the Government concerned with vocational and training programs for war production shall take all measures appropriate to insuré nondiscrimination.
(3) A Committee on Fair Employment Practice is established for the following purposes:
(a) To formulate policies and make recommendations to the various Federal departments and agencies, * * * and to the President.
(&) To receive and investigate complaints, conduct hearings, make findings of fact, and take appropriate steps to eliminate discrimination.
(c) To promulgate rules and regulations to carry out the provisions of the Order.
&. Executive Order No. 9664 of 18 December 1945 continues the duties and responsibilities ilnposed upon the Committee on Fair Employment Practice. In addition, Executive Order No. 9664 provides that tie Committee shall investigate, make findings and recommendations, and report to the President, with respect . to discrimination in industries engaged in work contributing to the production of military supplies or to the effective transition to a peacetime economy.
c. In conjunction with the issuance of Executive Order No. 9664; a communication was addressed by the President on 18 December 1945 to the heads of all Government departments, agencies, and independent establishments. This letter states in part as follows :
“Cutbacks in government employment have resulted in a considerable displacement of wartime workers in Washington and the field. The Civil Service Commission, in the interest of retaining capable and efficient employees wherever possible, has established a set of principles governing reduction in force and transfer of employees to peacetime activity. It has come to my attention that a considerable number of loyal and qualified employees have been refused transfer and reemployment by employing agencies solely because of race and creed. This condition is a violation of civil service rules which have been issued by the President and in violation of existing law.”
NCPI 75.2-2 is hereby amended by the substitution of the following for the part preceding a:
2-2. Policy.—The policies expressed in Executive Order No. 9346 are heartily endorsed by the Department. In order to implement those policies and to comply with the requests contained in the President’s letter of 18 December 1945 (NCPI 75.2-lc), it is directed that:
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NCPI 75.2-2 is hereby amended by the addition thereto of the following:
/. The head of each naval activity shall continue his review of the personnel policies, procedures, and practices under his cognizance to insure that they are in accord with national law and policy; to insure tl^at all qualified workers in existing temporary war jobs are being considered fairly for appointments without distinction because of race, creed, color, or national origin; and to insure continued cooperation with the FEPC in all matters affecting the employment of minorities in the Navy Department.
NCPI 75.5-1 is hereby amended by the addition thereto of the following: f. Dept Cir Itr OIR-101: ere of 21 Sep 1945 (CPL&D 45-410).
By direction of UnderSecNav:
F. G. Crisp.
File No. — OIR-519: coh.
Distribution: OIR Special List #25 and 25c-
United States Maritime Commission,
Office of the Chairman,
Washington 25, D. C., March 29, 1946.
Mr. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Executive Office of the President, Office for Emergency Management, Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : In response to your letter of March B, 1946, requesting a summary statement of the Maritime Commission’s activities and experiences under the antidiscrimination Executive Orders, there is set forth below an outline of these factors in two parts. The first consists of a statement regarding fair employment practices within the Maritime Commission and the War Shipping Administration themselves as regards direct Government employees. Secondly, there is a statement, supplemented by enclosures, outlining the Maritime Commission’s experiences and activities aimed at elimination of discrimination among * its contractor shipyards and vendors.
Government Personnel
On September 12, 1941, the Chairman of the Maritime Commission wrote the President as follows:
“With reference to your communication of September 3, 1941, to the heads of all departments and independent establishments, I wish to advise you that the policy of the Maritime Commission is opposed to discrimination because of race, creed, or national origin. I feel confident that an examination of our employment records will prove this practice to have been followed. You will find among our employees a rather even distribution of numerous creeds, races, and national origins. Our appointments are made after thorough examination of an applicant’s experience and qualifications. Employees must be citizens of the United States, and we insist upon loyalty to our Government.
“The Maritime Commission is in accord with the policies stated in y^ur communication of September 3, and our appointments will be governed accordingly.” Further, pursuant to recommendations of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, any reference to race was deleted from our application form.
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The Maritime Commission and the War Shipping Administration have consistently and whole-heartedly supported the President’s directives against discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin. This policy has been emphatically brought to the attention of supervisory officials. The Division of Personnel Management has been charged with the responsibility of seeing that not only the letter but also the spirit of Executive Orders 8802 and 9346 is observed in both our departmental and field services. I can assure you that applications have been received without regard to race, color, creed, or national origin. Employments have been effected on the basis of qualifications and abilities and promotions have been approved on the basis of experience, proper qualifications, and demonstrated abilities. Reductions in force have been accomplished in strict accordance with Civil Service Commission regulations which permit consideration of no factor that might be a basis for discrimination. Members of minority groups with high retention status, whose jobs were abolished in divisions undergoing drastic curtailment have been placed elsewhere in our agencies, often displacing nonminority employees, in accordance with the regulations.
As was the case in 1941, so now will you find in the Maritime Commission and War Shipping .Administration, a rather even distribution of numerous creeds, races, and nationalities. These employees have adapted themselves readily to their work environments and have contributed most effectively to the Maritime Commission’s and the War Shipping Administration’s parts in the successful prosecution of the war and they promise to continue their good work in the transition to a peacetime operation.
Shipyards and Contractors
One of the underlying reasons for the promulgation of Executive Orders 8802 and 9346 was to insure an adequate labor supply for our critical war production needs. Upon the promulgation of Executive Order 8802, the Maritime Commission joined with the War and Navy Departments in a letter to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, outlining the specific policy to be followed with reference to the application of the order to matters coming within the operations of the Maritime Commission.
Subsequently, Shipyard Labor Relations Bulletin No. 2 was issued, which notified all of our shipyards of the terms of the Executive order and the manner in which they were expected to comply with its provisions. Copy of Shipyard Labor Relations Bulletin No. 2 and copy of Supplement No. 1 thereto, issued September 22,1943, are attached.
Supplement No. 1 sets forth the procedures which thereafter should be used in processing complaints alleging noncompliance with the President’s Executive Order 8802.
As a means of making available to critical war industries the utmost utilization of available manpower, Executive Orders 8802 and 9346 have served their purpose. The Maritime Commission experienced, in the early days of the orders, some difficulties with shipyards, particularly in the South, but for the most part these disappeared.
The Maritime Commission required a clause inserted in all of its contracts, requiring all contractors and shipyards to comply with the terms of the orders. Very generally there were no complaints for nonadherence on the part of our contractors.
The actual working relationships between your Committee and this agency, in matters involving its shipyards and vendors, were carried on through an estab
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lished procedure whereby complaints coming to the attention of your Committee were referred to the Maritime Commission which, in turn, took them up with the company involved and attempted to secure a satisfactory settlement. Practically all such complaints brought to the attention of this agency by your Committee were worked out in this way without further enforcement action by your staff.
Cooperation in the elimination of discriminatory hiring by contractors of this agency was extended by the War Manpower Commission and the United States Employment Service. Shipyards on large scale recruitment campaigns, as well as those hiring locally, were cited if they refused to hire qualified workers because of race or color -and their entire recruitment was sometimes shut off. This proceduré proved a healthy factor in carrying out Executive Orders 8802 and 9346, as well as in maintaining production schedules.
In a few isolated instances, shipyards that were undermanned and behind schedules which, nevertheless, had traditionally refused to employ Negroes in certain classifications, were forced by concerted action of your Committee, the War Manpower Commission, and this agency to abolish such discriminatory practices. As a result, these yards improved their employment position and their delivery schedules.
Shown below is the employment of nonwhite groups in certain Maritime Commission new construction contract shipyards during the last of December 1944, as well as total employment in those yards at that time.* Although the Maritime Commission construction program had declined substantially from its war peak, these figures will serve to indicate the relatively large employment of nonwhite workers in the contract shipyards of this agency.
ATLANTIC COAST REGION
Name of company Total employment Nonwhite
Walsh-Kaiser _ 21,261 541
Pusey and Jones - 2,382 82
Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock 25,860 8,322
Bethlpheni-Fairfield 26,761 5,186
Bethlehem-Sparrows Point 7,657 1,404
Welding Shipyard, Norfolk, Va -- - 904 67
North Carolina Shipbuilding Co 12,452 3,876
Southeastern Shipbuilding Co_ 12, 883 1,692
J. A. Jones Construction Co., Brunswick— ----- -- Total _ 13,294 123,454 2,655 » 23,825
GULF REGION
MeCloskey & Co _ — - 4,581 314
J A Jones Construction Co.. Panama City - ; 11,915 1,730
St Johns River Shipbuilding Co 11,652 1,436
Avondale ATarine Ways _ 1- 1,243 231
Delta Shipbuilding Co -- 15,727 1,988
Alabama Drv Dock (repair division) - -- 5,086 1,227
Alabama Dry Dock - t 21,624 4,470
Qulf Shipbuilding Co _ 7,843 701
Tngalls (Paseagoula) 9,383 1,020
Pennsylvania Ship ' --- - -—---- 8,865 1,391
Todd-Won st on : *— 16, 245 1,462
Total _ - 114,164 2 15,970
119 percept.
214 percent.
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GREAT LAKES REGION
. Name of company Total employment Non white
Globe. ... .. 1,936 18
Froemming Bros ' 1,411 29
Walter Butler (Superior) _ .. ... . ... i 5,604 20
Walter Butler (Duluth) > 5,005 6
Leathern D. Smith 4,533 ' 34
Total 18,489 ’ 107
PACIFIC COAST REGION
Consolidated Steel (Los Angeles) 20,277 .2,228
California Ship __ _ __ _ 32,463 4,794
Marinship Corp _ _ _ - 13,535 2,299
Moore Dry Dock 19; 931 3; 175
Richmond Shipyards Nos. 1 and 2. 13,317 7,430
Richmond Shipyard No. 3 9,625 2,584
Richmond Shipyard No. 4 4,284 204
Bethlehem-Alameda 6,294 1,319
Western Pipe & Steel 7,387 265
Oregon Ship 31,689 1,523
Kaiser-Vancouver. . 35,462 4,819
Kaiser-Swan Island ........... ... 25,999 1,400
Total 220,263 * 32,040
Grand total. 476,370 ’ 71,942
3 0.5 percent
414 percent.
615 percent.
May I, at this time, express my appreciation for the degree of cooperation extended by you and yoiir associates to the representatives of the Maritime Commission in handling problems arising out of the application of the Executive orders.
Sincerely,
Edward Macauley,
Acting Chairman.
Enclosure.
Exact Text of the Nondiscrimination Clause Which Is Incorporated in The Maritime Commission Construction Contracts
Article 34. Fair Employment Practice.—The contractor agrees that in the performance of the work under this contract, it will not discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin. (Executive Order No. 8802, approved June 25,1941).
Shipyard Labor Relations Bulletin No. 2
EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE WITH REFERENCE TO EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 8802
1. Attached hereto please find copy of Executive Order NO. 8802 which binds the Maritime Commission with respect to the construction of vessels.
2. The Chairman of the Maritime Commission has joined with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy in a letter to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices outlining the specific policy to be followed with reference to the application of Executive Order No. 8802 to matters coming within the operations of the Maritime Commission.
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3. In this letter a distinction was drawn between the different types of operations as follows :
a. Government establishments wholly under the control of government agencies such as Navy Yards, Army Arsenals, etc.
b. Government owned but privately operated plants.
c. Privately owned and privately operated plants having Government contracts.
4. With respect to Government establishments, there is none engaged in shipbuilding for the Maritime Commission which falls under the category of “a” above.
5. With respect to Government owned but privately operated plants, the Commission’s policy is that through inspectors in charge, the contractor-operators will be instructed that their policies and procedure must conform to the principles of Executive Order No. 8802. This does not mean that the Government will itself take over the details of personnel administration for the contractors, but rather that it will hold the contractor-operator to his contractual obligation of providing satisfactory labor-management relationships. The Maritime Commission will concern itself with insuring that the policies followed in such plants will be consistent with :
a. Maximum production. •
b. Good management.
c. Safety and health in the plant.
d. The principles of fair employment practices set forth in Executive Order No. 8802.
6. With respect to privately owned, privately operated plants, the Commission’s policy recognizes that Government agencies do not have direction over personnel or other management procedures under such contract. In'view of the fact that government contracts now include a clause calling for compliance with Executive Order No. 8802, however, the Commission has stated that it will inform contractors, through customary channels, that the Commission regards it necessary for the contractor to carry out his contractual obligations regarding nondiscrimination and that the points enumerated in attachment “B” are deemed essential elements of contractual obligation.
The Commission’s policy is clear on the fact that such instructions will not be interpreted as an intrusion on the contractor’s responsibility in handling his own personnel. Such instructions will be regarded on the other hand as a definition of an obligation already existing by virtue of the nondiscrimination clause of the contract which the Commission expects the contractor to live up to in the performance of his contract.
7. It is recognized that methods of providing equal employment opportunities for all qualified persons regardless of race, creed, color or national origin will vary in different parts of the country and in different types of plants.
8. Recognizing the conditions set forth in “7” above, the following principles will be used as a general guide in handling minority group questions :
a. Efforts will be continued particularly in cooperation with the War Manpower Commission to provide equal opportunities for employment, in-service training and advancement to all qualified citizens, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin, to expedite maximum production.
b. Such equal opportunities for minority groups may be provided either parallel to or integrated with the opportunities afforded majority groups, and thus may be arranged and provided for to conform to existing state laws and community customs.
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c. In the practical application of this policy every effort will be made to open available employment opportunities to minority groups in such numbers and in such classes of positions as will expedite maximum production and as governed by the available supply of qualified workers.
9. The Commission recognizes that success in carrying out these policies must depend on cooperation of all parties concerned. This includes minority groups, unions, state and local officials and the citizens of particular localities. The moulding of public opinion in any given working force and in any given community, furthermore, is recognized to be of great importance and should be the concern of all who are interested in securing compliance not only with the word but with the spirit of the Executive order mentioned.
10. With respect to insuring application of this policy, the procedure will be that complaints as to nonobservance which are received by the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices will be referred to the undersigned whenever shipyard relationships are involved. In turn, the undersigned will clear all such matters through the Regional Construction Directors who, of course, are fully authorized to deal with any complaints in this respect coming directly to them. It would be appreciated if reports on complaints immediately directed to the Regional Construction Directors and acted upon by them, will be given to the Division of Shipyard Labor Relations.
(Sgd). Daniel S. Ring, Director, Division of Shipyard Labor Relations.
ATTACHMENT B
Specific Requirements To Insure Fulfillment of Commission Policy With Respect to Executive Order No. 8802, and Observance of Contractu at. Obligations With Respect to the Clause Involving Observance of That Executive Order
1. Executive Order No. 8802 will be complied with generally and specific attention will be given to the following points :
a. Recruitment, in-service training, and up-grading of employees should conform to the requirements of the Executive Order.
b. References to race or religion should be deleted from employment forms if such exist.
c. Recruitment should not be confined to any sources that result in discrimination against workers solely because of race, creed, color, or national origin, provided, of course, that the National Labor Relations Board Act and the laws regarding aliens must be complied with.
d. The contractor should not in any other way discriminate against loyal applicants or employees solely because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
Shipyard Labor Relations Bulletin No. 2
SUPPLEMENT NO. 1. EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE WITH REFERENCE TO EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 8802
Recently proposed procedures of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which, are reproduced below, have been the subject of discussion with, and have received the approval of, this Division.
Representatives of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice should be accorded full and prompt cooperation by Maritime Commission representatives, in accordance with agreed procedure. It will be noted that para
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graph 8 of the procedures provides for action by the President’s Committee independently of the Maritime Commission if participation by this agency’s representatives is unduly delayed.
The approved procedures for the President’s Committee are embodied in that Committee’s Field Instructions No. 10, which incorporates both the full cooperative policy and the procedures respecting the Maritime Commission, as follows :
“Attached hereto are copies of the following documents setting forth the policies the United States Maritime Commission has adopted to implement its obligations under Executive Orders 8802 and 9346:
“1. Letter to the Committee dated July 2,1942.
“2. Shipyard Labor Relations Bulletin, issued August 1942, including memorandum on specific requirements.
“3. Joint statement by the Chairman of the Maritime Commission, etc., on the employment of aliens, issued June 7,1943.
“The following procedures shall be used in processing complaints involving either government-owned and privately operated plants or privately owned plants operating under contract with the Commission.
“1. Determine^whether a prima facie case exists by questioning the complainant and analyzing pertinent documentary and statistical data, but do not communicate with the party charged.
“2. If in your opinion a prima facie case exists, advise the highest ranking regional representative for the Commission of the nature of the complaint, and request a conference and his cooperation in dealing with the party charged;
“3. Confer with such regional representative.
“4. If the regional representative is unsuccessful in obtaining compliance with the Executive Order, confer with the party charged and such regional representative.
“5. If no compliance can be obtained, submit a Request for Further Action to the Director of Field Operations.
“6. The Deputy Chairman and/or the Director of Field Operations will then confer with the Director of the Division of Shipyard Labor Relations in order to obtain compliance by the contractor.
“7. If no compliance can be obtained, the Deputy Chairman and/or the Director of Field Operations will report to the Committee.
“8. While the participation of the Commission’s representative is definitely desired, if his participation is unduly delayed, proceed without him.
“9. If you disagree with the regional representative as to the merits of ¡a case or the procedure to be followed in processing it, do not proceed further without instructions from the Director of Field Operations.”
(Sgd.) Daniel S. Ring, Director, Division of Shipyard Labor Relations.
September 22,1943.
War Shipping Administration, Washington, March 19, 19^6.
Mr. Malcolm Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice,
Executive Office of the President,
Office for Emergency Management, Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : This will reply to your letter of March 7th, concerning the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice which will go out of existence, June 30th.
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During the war period the War Shipping Administration’s Recruitment and Manning Organization fulfilled its obligation to the President’s Executive Orders 8802 and 9346, in assigning seamen to merchant vessels regardless of race, color, or creed.
An equal job opportunity was afforded all seamen under the rotary dispatching system and all instances Of diversion by our offices, the unions, or the steamship operators resulting in discrimination, were reported to the central office where they were immediately submitted to the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Maritime Labor Relations for appropriate handling and action with the Committee on Fair Employment Practice.
As a matter of information however, the Merchant Marine had a vastly different problem than any other industry in carrying out the Executive Orders 8802 and 9346. On a merchant vessel, in addition to working very closely together, crew members eat and sleep together. During the war these quarters were, of necessity, very cramped "due to the fact that each vessel carried a United States Navy gun crew of 25 to 30 men. Therefore, a vessel ordinarily certificated for 40 to 45 men had to accommodate 65 to 70 men without any appreciable alterations in living quarters.
Another obstacle, not prevalent in any other industry, was the necessity of obtaining replacements quickly and in most cases the Recruitment and Manning Organization was only called on at the last minute, in order to prevent a delay in sailing. This was due to the fact that this industry was obligated to use their normal procedure in obtaining and hiring crew and only called on the Recruitment and Manning Organization if these seamen could not be obtained through regular hiring channels.
We feel, therefore, that the War Shipping Administration has entirely succeeded in its effort to abide by these Executive orders which are to prevent discrimination and provide an equal opportunity for all Americans to apply their skills to the war effort.
Sincerely yours,
Granville Conway,
Acting Administrator.
Office of the Postmaster General., Washington 25, D. C., March 23, 1946. Hon. Malcom Ross,
Chairman, President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice,
Washington 25, D. C.
Dear Mr. Ross : I have your letter of March 7, 1946, requesting that this department prepare, as material for your final report, a summation and valuation of its effort to prevent discrimination as defined in Executive Orders 8802 and 9346.
As you say, it would require entirely too much time to search all files for pertinent material to give any details or particulars in specific cases within the time limit.
I am attaching a brief statement showing how postal personnel is selected and my policy concerning the selection and handling of personnel to the end that there be no discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.
Sincerely yours,
Robert E. Hannegan,
Postmaster General.
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Discrimination
POLICY OF THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT IN COMPLIANCE WITH EXECUTIVE ORDERS 8802 AND 9346
All officials and regular employees of the postal service, with few exceptions, are in the classified civil service and have been appointed as such after qualifying through examinations conducted by the Civil Service Commission and appointments were made in accordance with law and the rules and regulations promulgated by the Commission.
The greatest number of our employees are in the field postal service under the direct supervision of postmasters and other postal officials.
All appointing officers are directed to make selections from civil service registers without reference to race, creed, color, or national origin.
No great number of complaints concerning personnel problems reach the Department, but from time- to time reports are received in which it is alleged that there is a lack of fairness in handling employment, assignment, and promotion problems. Various reasons are given in these complaints, and discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is sometimes alleged.
All postmasters and other officials of the postal service have been informed concerning the provisions of Executive Orders 8802 and 9346. They have been instructed to see that there is full compliance therewith so that it cannot be charged justly that there has been discrimination because of race, creed, or color.
The postal service serves all the people and discrimination is repugnant to all our principles of good Government. Every postal worker should have full opportunity of aspiring to that which his ability, his application to duty, and his integrity entitle him.
There have been comparatively few complaints of this nature and in each case steps have been taken to eliminate the cause.
This policy will be continued.
o
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