Ncrac Finds Anti-jewish Job Bias ‘less Severe’; Urges Federal Law

The National Community Relations Advisory Council, representing six national Jewish organizations and 66 local Jewish community councils throughout the country, urged Congress this weekend to enact a comprehensive fair employment practices law. The measure was urged before the Senate subcommittee on employment and manpower, a unit of the Senate’s Labor and Public Welfare Committee, by Jacob Sheinkman, chairman of the advisory panel of the Jewish Labor Committee, one of the national affiliates of the NCRAC. He is also general counsel for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

Mr. Sheinkman told the subcommittee that all the constituent organizations of the NCRAC are convinced that equal opportunity for Jews and a distinctive Jewish group life are best assured in a society which accords equality and justice to all, and in which individual freedoms and religious liberties are secure. “Accordingly,” he said, “we seek to foster equality of opportunity for all without regard to race, color, religion, or origin; to promote religious liberty; to advance freedom of speech, press, and assembly; and to encourage amicable relationships among groups with respect for difference. “

While observing that employment discrimination is an “old problem for Jews,” Mr. Sheinkman noted that Jews are as fully employed as the rest of the American people, and that “our problems in the area of employment discrimination are much less severe than those of the non-white minorities.”

“For Negroes,” he said, “job discrimination does mean economic deprivation, of the most serious kind. Congress can do something right now to effectively curb job discrimination,” he declared.

Experience with FEP laws in almost half of the states in the nation proves that the most reliable and workable approach to the solution of the problem of job discrimination is a strong fair employment practices law, Mr. Sheinkman maintained. The most compelling single reason for the adoption of a federal law is that those states most in need of FEP are precisely the ones that do not have it and show no sign of being willing to adopt such laws, he added.

OUTLINES FOUR-POINT PROGRAM; RECOMMENDS FUNDS FOR EMPLOYMENT SURVEYS

Outlining for the subcommittee what the Jewish organizations for which he was testifying consider an effective FEP law, Mr, Sheinkman said it should:

1) create an anti-discrimination agency with responsibility for dealing with employment discrimination on the basis of a broad approach, and not on the basis of complaints by aggrieved individuals;

2) contain “workable” enforcement provisions, including the right of the anti-discrimination agency to obtain court injunctions to enforce its orders, with the courts accepting findings of fact made by the agency;

3) apply to both employers and labor unions, and to apprenticeship programs as to all other aspects of employment;

4) cover employment agencies, both public and private.

In addition to enforcement, Mr. Sheinkman recommended the law should provide for adequate funds and manpower for surveys of employment practices in American industry, commerce and labor, much as the Minimum Wage Division surveys industrial compliance with the minimum wage law; and for educational and informational programs with the public in order to overcome some of the deficiencies which handicap members of minority groups in qualifying for decent jobs.

The organizations for whom Mr. Sheinkman appeared included the American Jewish Congress, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans of the USA, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and United Synagogue of America, And Jewish Councils in cities in all parts of the United States.