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Abstract

The affirmative action plan, employment records, and personnel practices of the National Bank of Greenwood, employing 138 persons in the Indiana town of 20,000, were subjected to a grueling inspection by Labor Department staff for more than two years starting in 1979. The staff changed frequently, repeatedly demanded more and different information, and then rejected what it had demanded. “We feel,” the bank president said, “that... [the Labor Department] has taken over... [our] personnel function.” Such ordeals have often occurred, especially when contractors were developing personnel records to meet the complex and often unrealistic government affirmative action requirements. Setting aside the manifest incompetence and unreasonableness of Labor staff, the experience reflected the conflicting goals of bank and Labor officials. The bank sought to treat all applicants and employees fairly; Labor, to increase the number of women and minority employees, especially in better-paid jobs.

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References

1. U.S., Senate, Committee on Labor and Human Resources , Oversight of the Activities of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs of the Department of Labor, Hearings, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 29 and 30 July and 22 Oct. 1981, pt. 1, p. 614.

2. Ibid., p. 615.

3. Ibid., p. 105.

4. Ibid., p. 108.

5. U.S., Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs , Federal Contract Compliance Manual (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, [1981?]), 1-60.15, p. 1-6.

6. Oversight of the Activities, p. 145.

7. The categories were officials and managers, professionals, technicians, sales workers, office and clerical workers, craft workers, semiskilled operatives, unskilled laborers, and service workers.

8. Oversight of the Activities, p. 147.

9. Ibid., p. 107.

10.

10. Regulations, which must, in theory, be obeyed, are adopted after a public announcement and opportunity to comment. The regulations governing the affirmative action and equal employment opportunity work of OFCCP occupied 112 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations in 1989. Guidelines, which usually serve to amplify regulations, need not, in theory, be followed, especially if they conflict with regulations. Except in cases that come before a hearing officer or judge, the distinction can have little practical significance. Rufus Miles, for many years the senior administrative official in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), writes, “In the spring of 1965, [to implement school desegregation under the 1964 Civil Rights Act] HEW issued what were labeled `guidelines,' a new type of instrument of administration. These guidelines fell short of being formal regulations and yet their sponsors sought to convey the impression that there was considerable force behind them. Their indeterminate status allowed a good deal of flexibility in their application.” Rufus E. Miles, Jr. , The Department of H.E.W. (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 248.

11.

11. Ascribed to both Disraeli and Mark Twain , and borrowed by Michael Wheeler , Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics (New York: Liveright, 1976).

12.

12. White, black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American males and females.

13.

13. Federal Contract Compliance Manual, 2-160.5b, p. 2-32.

14.

14. Ibid., 2-160.1d2, p. 2-29.

15.

15. Ibid., 2-160.1f, p. 2-29.

16.

16. Ibid., 2-160.1g, p. 2-29.