27% of Chicago Firms Bar Jews from Employment, Report Shows

One thousand out of 3,700 business firms here investigated by the Chicago Bureau on Jewish Employment Problems were found to have barred Jews from employment on job-orders placed with employment agencies during the past year. This was the major finding revealed today in the Bureau’s 1954 report of activities.

The Bureau’s investigation of the 1953 hiring practices of some 3,700 Chicago business firms, undertaken in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, uncovered explicit statements of discriminatory policy in 27 percent of these firms. Employment agency officials contend that the proportion of discriminatory firms is actually higher since many firms which do not wish to state discriminatory preferences to the employment agencies, are found to repeatedly reject qualified Jewish applicants referred by the agencies.

Emphasizing the serious extent of current discrimination against Jewish workers, the report points out that even in the face of the extreme shortage of clerical workers in 1953, one out of four requests to employment agencies for such routine jobs as stenographers, typists and other office workers contained specific instructions from the employers that Jews were not to be referred.

The direct result of the high level of discriminatory limitations on job-orders, the report observed, is reflected in the placement records of one employment agency investigated by the Bureau, which indicate that while 41 percent of the non-Jewish applicants found jobs through the agency, only 19 percent of the Jewish applicants were placed.

JOB ORDERS CONTAIN ANTI-JEWISH RESTRICTIVE SPECIFICATIONS

Organized in 1937 to combat employment discrimination against Jews, the Bureau on Jewish Employment Problems operates as a service agency of the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith and Jewish Labor Committee.

Typical of the restrictive specifications found in thousands of discriminatory job-orders reviewed by the Bureau were such comments as: “Plenty of religious preferences – Nordic a must”; “This is a Gentile firm”; “No religious preferences as long as they are of the Nordic race”; “We like the German-Scandanavian home-type girls”: “Can’t use any matzo-ball queens”; “A Jewish girl wouldn’t be comfortable here – we like a compatible group.”

Widespread discrimination by government contractors in violation of the non-discrimination provisions of their federal contracts was an important Bureau finding. Over 200 firms which have prime or sub-contracts with the government were found among the 1,000 discriminatory firms listed, despite the fact that both prime contractors and sub-contractors are obligated by Presidential Executive Order to observe merit practices as an essential condition of their government contracts.

Morris Sostrin, president of the Bureau, in releasing the report, asserted: “The substantial degree of employment discrimination uncovered by the Bureau during a period of relatively full employment is sobering, and a matter of serious concern to the Jewish community. The listing of those 1,000 Chicago business firms – employing many hundreds of thousands of men and women – whose discriminatory policies are attested to by documentary evidence in the Bureau’s possession, includes every mercantile and manufacturing classification to be found in the Chicago area, and contains the names of many of the most prominent industrial establishments in our nation.”