How the CBC can Create JobsBy Harry C. Alford Years before the Civil Rights Act was passed President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11246. This set minority and women employment standards for all businesses directly or indirectly doing work for the federal government. This just about covers all major corporations. Unions fiercely opposed it and ordered traditional civil rights groups to ignore it. However, in 1969 with the encouragement of President Richard M. Nixon and Secretary of Labor George Schultz, the great Arthur A. Fletcher began to enforce Executive Order 11246 with a vengeance. Major corporations were already starting to open their doors to minorities and women but the unions were fiercely resistant. Dr. Fletcher forced their hand with the Philadelphia Plan in 1969. From Philadelphia he went to Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City and everywhere else forcing the trades and crafts to hire minorities or lose their contracts. The results were phenomenal and Blacks, Hispanics, Asians started being employed in traditional workplaces like never before. It economically changed our neighborhoods Dr. Fletcher was so strong and courageous but he had to have Secret Service bodyguards around him during these treacherous days. George Meany of the AFL-CIO was livid and made it clear that he hated Dr. Fletcher and George Schultz for doing this. Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen claimed that when he “gets out of this hospital the first thing I am going to do is get Art Fletcher fired”. God stepped in and Senator Dirksen never left that hospital alive. Despite negative antics from the traditional civil rights groups (at the behest of the unions), Dr. Fletcher was successful. The NAACP never approved what would later be called Affirmative Action until 1990. Even today, the current NAACP president claims that “unions have been good to us and they are our friends”. Of course, this happened before he was born but he needs to research the matter. The U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for enforcement of Executive Order 11246. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, OFCCP, is the direct enforcer. These guys have been battle tested by the unions also. I have been in some field offices where they have multiple dead bolt locks on their doors engaged during working hours. The death threats and confrontations are immense. They are true warriors and dedicated federal workers. When you see utility companies, banks, construction companies, trucking companies, etc. scrambling to hire minorities they don’t necessarily do it out of the goodness of their hearts but because OFCCP is on the case. The national standard or goal for minority hiring is set at 12.6% nationally. This is a minimum and it may fluctuate based on local demographics such as major metropolitan areas. However, this standard is based off of the census reports of 1970. Yes, 1970 when minorities accounted for a little over 12% of the total population. Times have certainly changed over the last 40 years and it is time to adjust the standard significantly upward. The minority population has surged within America and a standard more like 30% (250 percent increase) is now due. In essence, we are now dummying down the relevance of the program. If we bring the standard into the real world employment for minorities, particularly Blacks and Hispanics would skyrocket and the disparities would be greatly reduced. That’s where the Congressional Black Caucus can make a difference. All they need to do is order the Secretary of Labor to modernize the standards or goals set in Executive Order 11246 to the current census figures. They can do this now by using the current estimates and then refine them once the 2010 Census is certified. Congress can push this and the only one who could block it is the President. I don’t think he will go there even though he too has an addiction to unions. This is just a logical process and it preserves the reality of Executive Order 11246. Set the standards or goals to the demographics to prevent disparate impact.
Black Leaders in the White House: What Happened, What Next?By Ron Walters The consensus feeling was that President Obama “got it” but that he was also focused on passing a jobs bill he thought would address some of the issues. Sharpton explained the purpose of the meeting as “getting a commitment from the administration to make sure that all of these things were factored in,” as they went to meet with Republicans and Democrats about the jobs legislation. He admitted that the President “was not going to engage in any race-based programs” but felt that some of the “structural inequalities” could be corrected. This reminded me of his comment to April Ryan, White House Reporter for the American Urban Radio Network that, by law, he couldn’t pass laws “that say I’m just helping black folks.” I don’t believe that is true, or he couldn’t pass laws for Gays or Native Americans, or write Executive Orders for Asians and Pacific Islanders. So, Sharpton reported they “didn’t ask for a race-based program, but wanted to make sure that everyone was involved” in the debate over jobs. But what does that mean in legislative terms? First, I think that the president does have a responsibility to say to the Congress that he wants special coverage in the jobs bill for communities that have been hit the hardest. Presidents have done this for years. But second, I think he could do much more. Second, Clinton had a series of meeting with business leaders to use the $180 billion in Venture capital funds to start new businesses in the underserved areas. Understanding that the government could only go so far, he wanted to incentivize private firms to invest in these areas. But the Bush administration neglected the program and changed the incentives of businesses with massive tax cuts that led investment to much larger projects overseas. Right now, the metro area anchored by Detroit has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 15.4 percent, according to Department of Labor. But the City, which had an official unemployment rate of 31 percent in December 2009, has an actual rate of 50 percent as analyzed by the Detroit News. So, this 82 percent Black City, where one out of two people are unemployed, should be targeted. Why could Obama, for example, not lean on the Congress to pass legislation where communities at 20 percent (or 200 percent) of the official national poverty rate (10%) or more should receive a proportionate share of the $18 billion package? The current Senate job bill is too anemic to do much about employment and measures proposed by the Congressional Black Caucus such as money for summer jobs, affordable housing and public service jobs where minorities are represented are not included. So, Civil Rights leaders are right to try to get the attention of the President and the Congress, but we may all have to get involved to get this done right. Dr. Ron Walters is a political analysts, author and syndicated columnist, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press) |
|
