Monthly Report of Labor Secretary, August 31, 1946

MONTHLY REPORT OF LABOR SECRETARY

August 31, 1946

USES —

Recognizing that the return of the USES1 to the states on November 15, 1946 will have tremendous significance to minority group workers, the Labor Department requested Secretary Schwellenbach to call a conference to discuss the following NAACP proposals:

    Each state plan of operation submitted for approval shall contain policies and procedures for promoting the full utilization of minority groups in local employment and training programs serviced by the agency.

    There shall be assigned adequate qualified personnel to see that policies designed to prevent discrimination are followed in local offices.

    No office shall accept discriminatory orders.

    No employer or his agent shall be permitted to use the facilities of the employment service to recruit workers unless a written guarantee is furnished that all hiring will be on a non-discriminatory basis.

    Separate offices for Negroes shall be abolished and personnel integrated on the staff of offices serving the general public.

    All persons shall have equal opportunity for employment on the staff of the agency without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.

These suggestions are considered minimum standards which should be required of state offices before they receive Federal funds.2

Secretary Schwellenbach has agreed to the meeting and it is set for September 11th at 10:00 a.m. The following persons joined in requesting the conference at the NAACP’s invitation: Messrs. Will Maslow, American Jewish Congress, George Weaver, C.I.O., James B. Carey, C.I.O., Boris Shishkin, A.F.L., and A.A. Liveright, American Council on Race Relations. Representatives of the Latin-American and Japanese-American groups were also invited to attend. Mr. John Sengstacke, President of the Robert S. Abbott Publishing Co. sent a letter to the Secretary of Labor urging that the conference be held.3

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY EMPLOYMENT —

Word from Mobile, Alabama indicates that 35 colored carpenters and 35 painters formerly employed in the maintenance of public housing property have been dismissed. Apparently the local housing authority has adopted a new policy of using colored carpenters and painters for work on colored homes only. The Mobile NAACP blames a representative of the carpenters union who is now serving on the authority for this move. We are giving this matter our attention through the Federal Public Housing Authority and when we receive additional details from Mobile, we will take it up with international offices of the carpenters and painters unions.4

We continue to follow the Veterans Housing Program but have not received a report from the National Housing Agency on whether available colored persons formerly employed in shipbuilding areas are being absorbed into the program. The National Housing Agency is without certain basic data which it should have if it is to plan a workable labor program. We are continuing to urge that this information be gotten. This includes the number of workers by skills needed in specific areas and a listing of the areas in which labor shortages have developed.5​

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD —

In its 10th Annual Report, the National Labor Relations Board6 includes the following as a statement of policy:

“Neither exclusion from membership or segregated membership per se represents evasion on the part of a labor organization of its statutory duty to afford ‘equal representation.’ But in each case where the issue is presented, the Board will scrutinize the contract and conduct of a representative organization and withhold or withdraw its certification if it finds that the organization has discriminated against employees in the bargaining unit through its membership restrictions or otherwise.”

Thus, the National Labor Relations Board endorses the practices of segregation and exclusion followed by such unions as the Machinists and Boilermakers. The NAACP must challenge this policy and we are currently making plans to do this.

LABOR COMMITTEE —

The following persons, Messrs Charles H. Houston, George L.P. Weaver, C.I.O., Boris Shishkin, A.F.L., Nelson H. Cruikshank, A.F.L., and Frank Fenton, Director of Organization, A.F.L. have agreed to date to serve on a national NAACP labor committee. Mr. Weaver and Mr. Shishkin are assisting in obtaining other persons who will make good working members.7

While in Detroit, Tuesday, I shall meet with Walter Ruether to determine whether he will serve with the committee.

MS: NAACP II: A-341, DLC.

[1] The USES was required by law to “assist in establishing and maintaining systems of public employment offices in the several States and political subdivisions thereof (and) assist in coordinating the public employment offices throughout the country.”

The Public Employment Service was created as a federal-state system by the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933. Subsequently, Congress enacted Social Security legislation, which included provisions for state systems of unemployment compensation. On July 1, 1939, the USES was transferred to the Social Security Board. Following the declaration of war, the Employment Service was transferred to federal operation and soon thereafter to the WMC. It continued as a federal system until November 15, 1946, when the local offices were transferred to state administration. After the WMC was disbanded, the USES was transferred to the Department of Labor because its program was seen as more closely related to the department’s other activities. See “Brief Sketch of the History and Functions of the Public Employment Service” and also “The Public Employment Service, an Instrument for Full Employment,” both in RG 182, FEPC, NARA; materials in NAACP II: A-653, DLC.


[2] The eighteen hundred local USES offices were funded by the federal government. New York Times 10/1/46, 2. See also 9/30/46 for Mitchell’s reaction to the amount of funding Congress had allotted to the Department of Labor for distribution to local USES offices. Mitchell reminded Schwellenbach that even under federal administration, the USES was responsible for much discrimination against Latin Americans, Jews, African Americans, and members of other groups. Experience during the war had shown, he said, “that when some cities relaxed racial specifications, the employment service continued referral of workers on a discriminatory basis.” The agency’s violations of nondiscrimination policies were flagrant, he noted, especially in the southern states and in Texas and New Mexico. Mitchell sent a copy of the letter to George E. C. Hayes, president of the Washington, D.C., NAACP branch, in order that he could pass it on to the “proper person” in the local unit, no doubt so that person could follow up with Schwellenbach in challenging segregation in the USES in the capital. Mitchell’s letter of 8/13/46 to Hayes and of 8/13/46 to Schwellenbach are in NAACP/1167, DHU-MS. See also, among others, 9/30, 10/31, and 11/30/46.


[3] At the FEPC, Maslow had been director of field operations, and Shishkin had been a member of the FEPC’s policymaking body. Weaver, national director of the CIO Committee to Abolish Discrimination, and Carey, president of the CIO, had also supported the FEPC. See volumes I and II. For a narrative account of Mitchell’s involvement of Schwellenbach, see Watson, Lion in the Lobby 153.


[4] Created under the Housing Act of 1937, the Public Housing Authority administered low-rent public housing programs. Congress and the Nation 465.


[5] See 7/31/46.


[6] The National Labor Relations Board was responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act). It guaranteed workers the right to strike and to organize unions. Congress and the Nation 761. See also http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/home/default.asp.


[7] Houston had also been another member of the FEPC’s policymaking body, popularly referred to as the Committee, and Fenton had been an alternate to William Green, president of the AFL. See 12/30/46 for the complete board.