Leading Jewish organizations today requested the newly established Committee on Government Contract Compliance to give “top priority” to an investigation of discrimination against Jewish workers by the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers.
In a joint telegram, the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans of the U.S., Union of American Hebrew Congregations and 27 Jewish community councils which together comprise the National Community Relations Advisory Council protested against the testimony this week of General G. J. Nold, deputy chief of engineers, before the Senate Preparedness Committee that New York workers were not being recruited for building military bases in Arab countries because the contractors believed a large number of them would be of Jewish origin and would be resented by the Arabs.
“General Nold’s testimony,” the protest said, “indicates that New York construction workers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have been the victims of a discriminatory policy which runs completely counter to the provision requiring non-discrimination in government defense contracts and to the purpose for which the Committee on Government Contract Compliance was established. We urge the committee to give top priority to an investigation of this discriminatory policy, to determine how widespread it is, and to take steps to end it at once.”
Criticism of the Army’s policy of rejecting recruitment in New York of Jewish construction workers for employment on military bases in the Middle East was also voiced by the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith in a telegram to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace. The telegram pointed out that the Army policy “seems to make the military establishment partner to obvious evasions of Federal law as promulgated by Presidential Executive Orders Nos. 9346 and 10308.
The first order obligates employers holding government contracts not to discriminate among job applicants on racial or religious grounds. The second order holds government agencies letting contracts responsible for obtaining compliance with this regulation.
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