Working Women Defend Affirmative Action

الب محامية

The following material is excerpted from "In Defense of Affirmative Action: Taking the Profit Out of Discrimination, a study by Working Women, a national association of office workers.

With the advent of the Reagan Administration, we are seeing an all-out attack on Affirmative Action, mounted by the Administration,. the Congress, and the business community. Affirmative Action, the program which requires federal contractors to take positive steps to upgrade disadvantaged women and minority employees, is administered by the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance, under President Johnson's Executive Order 11246. Affirmative Action is a necessary and effective means of changing the ingrained patterns of discrimination which still plague our nation. Its benefits-to women and minorities, to other employees, and to society at large-are many. Its costs have been exaggerated.

In an attempt to unfetter the business community, in the mistaken belief that all of society will thereby profit, the Administration and elements in the Congress would throw away a demonstrably effective means of bringing the talents of excluded groups into the economy. Theirs is a retreat from the hard-fought battle of women and minorities to overcome centuries of discrimination. In its place is an invitation to the business community to turn its traditional profit on discrimination.

Working Women believes that:

Affirmative Action is necessary in view of the employment discrimination that is still an ugly reali-

tyy

-Affirmative Action has worked effectively to

reduce discrimination;

-There is no available, workable alternative to Affirmative Action;

-The benefits of Affirmative Action far outweigh Its costs.

Now is the time for streamlining and strengthening Affirmative Action, not for gutting it. With the support of 12,000 members in every state, we are prepared to defend our rights and take the profit out of discrimination.

Discrimination is Alive and Well

While virtually every occupation now includes at least one female or minority employee, the basic pattern of women and minorities occupying low-level, low-paying positions remains. In fact, a higher percentage of women work as clerical and service workers (the nation's lowest paying jobs) than did twenty years ago. The percentage of women in management has increased by only a little over one percent.

In every occupation, women continue to be paid less than men for equal work. Most women work in so-called "women's jobs," which pay less than men's hobs even when the women's work requires more skill, effort, and responsibility than the men's.

The employment practices that perpetuate the wage gap and job segregation include:

-hiring practices that channel men and women into different jobs;

lack of job posting; reliance on word-of-moutli and the old boys' network;

lack of job training programs for women and morities;

-stereotyping of jobs. Cultural stereotyping means that, for example, executives design their secretarial jobs so as to feed stereotypes of the office wife or the office sex object;

-women training men to be promoted above

them.

All these policies are targets of Affirmative Action investigations. An employer with a well-functioning Affirmative Action program is making an effort to

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root out these policies. An employer without such a program is less likely to be taking steps to 'reverse such policies.

Minority women, regardless of level of education, occupy positions with the lowest promotion opportunity and the lowest pay. Hispanic women earned 54 cents, black women 59 cents, and white women 63 cents for every dollar earned by white males in 1980. In 1978, only 7.9 percent of minority women college graduates were employed as managers or administrators, compared to 24.5 percent of male college graduates.

The existence of Affirmative Action and other equal employment opportunity laws and regulations has opened up some opportunities for women and minorities. But we are a long way from equity on the job. And we are a long way from institutionalizing employment policies that might eventually result in equity. This is the purpose of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action Works

There is no denying that discrimination remains a tremendous social and economic problem in America. Yet it is also undeniable that Affirmative Action enforcement has worked to reduce discrimination.

Working Women examined the employment policies and profiles of banks before and after publicity generated by Working Women and investigations by the OFCCP. We found that the banks which received the greatest government attention made the greatest progress in certain employment

areas.

In Cleveland, Central National Bank carried out bank-wide job evaluations and upgraded the salary schedule for non-officer positions. National City Bank, the subject of an extensive government review, recently announced a management training program for non-degree employees affecting many women and minorities. Even banks not currently under in-

graphic: liberation news service

vestigation have begun new programs in response to the change they sense in Affirmative Action enforce-

ment.

Overall, in Cleveland's five largest banks, the percentage of female officials and managers rose 20.4 percent in one to three years-years when Working Women and the Department of Labor were actively involved in exposure and review of the banks' employment practices. Though this figure is still well below the national average claimed by the American Bankers Association, it is higher than the pre-1978 figure of 16 percent.

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Minority participation in the workforce of these five banks rose from 14.5 percent to 20.4 percent in these years, higher than the national average. Minorities in management positions rose from 3.1 percent to 5.8 percent.

The banks' reports to the government show that while the percentage of managers who are women rose slowly before strong government enforcement

(from 11.6 percent in 1950 to 12.2 percent in 1960), the percentage rose markedly once enforcement was stepped up (from 17.6 percent in 1970 to 31.6 percent in 1979.

Another industry that has benefited positively from Affirmative Action is the coal mining industry. According to federal statistics, there was no such thing as a woman coal miner in this country until 1973. By December of 1980, there were 3,295 women coal miners. In 1973, 0.01 percent of coal miners hired were women; by 1980, 8.7 percent of underground coal miners hired were women. In 1972, no women applied for mining jobs at Peabody Coal Company (the nation's largest coal producer) in Kentucky; by 1978, after the word had spread, 1,131 women applied for mining jobs at Peabody.

Even in 1981, there are numerous coal operators who openly declare they will never hire women or minorities until forced to do so, according to Betty Jean Hall of the Coal Employment Project (Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee testimony, April 21, 1981). Only strong government action can begin to correct this situation.

The available statistical data indicate that the job situation for women and minorities has improved with the aggressive aid of Affirmative Action enforcement.

Is There an Alternative to Affirmative Action?

For over twenty years, government Executive Orders urging voluntary Affirmative Action had no effect on federal contractors' hiring practices. As mandatory Affirmative Action requirements were developed and enforced, we began to see progress. Without the spur of government regulation, we can expect employers not to try so hard to bring women and minorities into full participation in the labor force.

The benefit to the employer of paying women and minorities less than white males is clear. Equally clear is the benefit in creating a racial or sexual job ghetto in which a large labor pool competes for a small number of jobs. But many discriminatory policies persist out of inertia or convenience. Word-of-mouth recruiting by white male managers, for example, is most common. It perpetuates a favoring of white males, those who hear about the jobs, to the detriment of women and minorities. An Affirmative Action plan requires the employer to supplement this method of recruitment with others more likely to reach groups outside the traditional company grapevine.

Critics of Affirmative Action, including those in the business community, often cite the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as an adequate tool for fighting discrimination. Affirmative Action, enforced by the Department of Labor, is, they claim, unnecessarily duplicative. Yet an article in the American Banker (May 28, 1981) reveals that "EEOC...has not been a serious litigation threat in most instances". Indeed, while the EEOC cleared up its backlog during the recent tenure of Chair Eleanor Holmes Norton, it has never developed a workable approach to company-wide, "systemic" discrimination. The Labor Department's effectiveness in pursuing problems that require company-wide changes in policy have made it a great boon to those suffering from discrimination. And a great threat to those who profit from discrimination. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Affirmative Action

Neither business, which complains of the high cost of Affirmative Action, nor the government critics of Affirmative Action has produced a cost-benefit analysis which assesses the true advantages anddisadvantages of Affirmative Action. Instead, they