New York Legislative Assembly Gets Bills to Check Racial Discrimination

A series of tills intended to put teeth in the State’s anti-discrimination policy and to eliminate any racial issue from labor relations was pending in the Legislature today. One of the bills, introduced by Assemblyman Andrews, would bar closed shop agreements between utilities and labor unions unless the State Labor Relations Board certified that the union admitted members without distinction of race, creed or color.

A proposed amendment to the labor law would deny a union that erects racial barriers the right to be termed a labor organization for purposes of collective bargaining. Under another proposed law, officers of a union having an agreement with a utility who refused union membership on racial or religious grounds would be guilty of a misdemeanor. Another bill of Assemblyman Andrews would require public officers to make sworn certification that candidates on civil service eligible lists were not passed over for racial or religious reasons. Discrimination in the civil service appointments would be a misdemeanor.

Similar bills, introduced by Assemblyman Wachtel make discrimination in employment by banks and insurance companies and utilities a misdemeanor and permit recovery of damages from $100 to $500 by aggrieved parties. The State and municipalities could deduct $5 a day from amounts due on public contracts for every job-seeker discriminated against. A bill of Assemblyman Crews would prohibit insertion of discriminatory ads by employment agencies unless the name and address of the person offering employment were listed. A companion bill has been introduced in the upper House by Sen. Heller, Bills of Assemblyman Gans and Assemblyman Jack would bar publication of legal advertising in newspapers that accepted discriminatory ads.