Business roundtable; Minority groups and business employment

The following program is made possible through a grant from the nation's business. This is a business roundtable a program of current comment from leading members of America's business community. Today. GK ECHOES vice president in Blue Steel Company and Bruce Kohl assistant general secretary Y.M.C.A. Metropolitan Chicago will discuss the topic minority groups and business employment. With series host Alfred Seeley dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Michigan State University. Unemployment among nonwhite minority groups primarily in large urban centers has been and is several times higher than that of whites in 1910 eight of every 10 negroes lived in Southern states

primarily in rural areas. Today seven out of 10 of the nation's 21 million negroes live in cities. And the migration to the northern cities continues. The unemployment problem is particularly acute among the teenage negroes. For several years the unemployment rate among negro teenagers has been 24 to 30 percent approximately 18 percent of the new entrants into the labor force each year are nonwhite compared to a total nonwhite population of only 11 percent. Whites are continuing their education and therefore not in the job market as teenagers in such large proportions of the non-whites entering the job market. Over 50 percent lack a high school education. These hard facts pose a social. Economic and

political problem of the first magnitude. Our subject today on the Business Roundtable. Minority groups and business employment. Is designed to explore this explosive subject. Mr. capons How did we get where we are with regard to this problem among the minority groups and employment when we get to it I think in a variety of ways one of which is we became an urban society. And in becoming an urban society we moved people off the farms. We. Not planned our cities very well. And our population in the cities the large cities has become. By preaching degrees more and more blacks are moved into the cities. Here you've had the pride people. Who crowded the neighborhoods the crowded neighborhoods of it crowded schools crowded schools have not been good schools I mean as a series of living in deprivation and all of a sudden you find

yourself with a number of people who are unemployed and who really aren't qualified for employment but they're here. Just care what you think about that. I endorse everything Mr Tejpal said. I think too you have to look at the cash problem involved here. We're talking basically about a Negro Problem. We're talking in the cities basically about a negro teenage problem. And we're looking at a group of teenagers that have had almost none of the kinds of support that a middle class society gives to youngsters and that business expects youngsters to be into them when they go into the employment field. So we have a special problem. That is two fold 1 helping teenagers who are lacking these attitudes develop these attitudes into helping business understand the special problems that they will have to solve if they're going to tap this last

untapped labor market. The negro urban teenager now in the center of these large cities with large negro populations the environmental factors are quite different is this correct. No I think that in all of the larger cities that the environmental factors are very much the story much the same if you take the 20 largest cities in the United States I don't care whether it's Washington D.C. Philadelphia Chicago Detroit St. Louis San Francisco Los Angeles. It's almost as if there were a couple the same guy. Having said this I'm not sure that the cure would be the same in every city because I think that the power structure of the cities are different and the problem's the same but how you get the answer to the problem I think the debonair maybe Mr. Cole has extensively travelled the United States to take this problem may disagree with that I don't know what are the environmental conditions and call it have a bearing on the situation of

unemployment among the negro groups. Well some of them will capless already touched on the lack of adequate education. I would add the fact that jobs don't exist in slums to any great degree. The jobs are in one place. The kid is in another place I would add those little legal jobs. Thanks for the correction. I'd also like to add that many of these young fellas have really not known anybody who really goes to work day in day out they've had. No experience of a working population around them and others going back for several generations and I take it. While it's gone back in the city you only have to go one generation to produce this teenager but the point is he may not have a father if he does have a father the father may not work. In fact one of the interesting things about gang teenagers is that they have less contact with adult meaningful contact with adults than any other part of our youth population. We've had some research that indicates this.

And we know each other but they don't know anyone older than they are. And the adults they do know are critical of them are not supportive in any real sense. And with cables in addition to your position as vice president of inland steel where you work for this problem for several years. You were a member of the school board in the city of Chicago I saw for a number of years you touched upon the education problem. What is this education problem with the inner city as you see it. Well of course that could be the subject of a telecast in itself. But. As I see it. We have a dedication a program or an educational system. That is designed if a child starts out and successful in it to go to secondary primary school secondary college and ultimately come out at the end of the horn as a Ph.D. and the system is designed to be a creaming or selective

system. And I don't think it's a system where I do think it's a system that is not compatible with the needs of the society. The needs of the society and the educational system should jive and I think that the educational system should look at things as they are. For instance most young people that start to school are not going to be college. Now we don't do a very good job of preparing people for the world of work. And I think that the educational system our economy play 60 percent who don't. Have an equal right to have the system designed to their needs is the 40 percent who do. In other words our economy has been changing also pretty drastically in the sense that the number of jobs available for the unskilled has declined and our economy now requires more skilled or semi-skilled types of people.

Yes but on the other hand you are creating a great many more jobs by this type of society because you're getting such a great trend from manufacturing to service industries and you start to think of the new industries that have sprung up because of the so-called affluent society. Look at the skiing industry. Look at the need that we have to take care of our own world in the sense of nursing care homes and so forth. Look at the recreation industry in the south not only ski all of these things create lots of jobs. The question is do they create jobs that these people can fill for instance I was in Las Vegas last Saturday and one of the problems is that in the gander at the scene I was there all white. And yet the population of Las Vegas is 12 percent Negron other question is how do you train the blacks to work in the gambling casino which at that time happens to be a rather substantial business and this is no way to win and that is why they're ignoring the best crap shooters in the world. I don't know I pointed out I thought that these people

that I had always had all of natural talent when I was in the army they exhibited great skill in this direction. I mean this girl isn't isn't a true pretty much across the country that negroes are not employed in proportion to their numbers. This is true I think the situation is relatively better than it was but we've got a long way to go. I think there are some interesting developments and interesting potential. Not so much unfortunately in fact as in potential but there are some ways that begin to open up. That show how we can hook a whole part of our society that's cropped out not just out of school but out of society back into the opportunity structure. Listen one of the things trying to keep them in school longer period time the data tends to show for example that Negroes. Go to school approximately two and a half years less than comparable whites and their educational level even then maybe 5 years lower than they've

actually had interned I would disagree Dean that there's any real validity to laws that require you to stay until you're 17 18 19. These kids have dropped out psychologically when they were about 8 years old and they sit and wait until they can finally break out of the prison that they see a school to be. If we started at the other end and enroll them at age 2 in daycare centers that freed their parents to work and them to get the kind of middle class training that our schools require before our youngster can cope. Then that would make some sense then we wouldn't have to have a legal requirement that they stay on. They would be interested in staying on but to require a young fellow who is scar tissue from failure with the educational system to stay another year and mark time is ridiculous. DEAN I would agree with Mr. Cole on that wholeheartedly I think one of the things that.

We've got to realize is that. In a middle class society the home is a very effective teaching device of itself. People young people can get answers to their questions. They learn that books are a useful way to learn the newspapers are useful a learn what a dictionary is they learn when encyclopedias young people we're talking about come from a meal in which there is a home without a magazine without a newspaper without a radio without a television this is a real cultural does it have no social aspiration their parents generally have been illiterate and they have normal cultural base to spring from again in the society or to get into the mainstream of the society we have to find a method in the device No wonder Mr. Cole suggest. It's certainly

one way of getting at where you substitute. A cultural background that would normally be supplied by the home for these young people and also. It makes the opportunity for their parents to work. And I think that most of the people it's been my experience who want to work. I think there's a section in this country these people don't want to work and I think that that's absolutely incorrect. And I do think they have some of the same aspirations as the middle class white person. We've had some interesting research again that on that subject starting again gang youngsters in Chicago using a very sophisticated test which they wouldn't believe so they repeated it and found the same results. Gang youngsters have the same middle class aspirations that middle class kids do. They want the the home the job the finishing of school a better life for their kids. They are ambivalent however because they've learned a kind of behavior that makes

sense on the street and doesn't make sense in business and how we allow them to latch onto the American dream to hope their middle class values realistically into their living pattern is the real problem we have to deal with. Now both of you have described a situation in which many of these young Negroes in the central cities have dropped out of school relatively early not had very good schooling of what they have had made in large numbers have a police record of one kind or another. How can business utilize that. Isn't it true that most businesses today were not hiring people with these kinds of backgrounds and records how are we going to get at this hardcore employment unless business decides that they're going to lower some of their usual standards for admission to the labor force. Well I think two things are going to happen one is that you're going to be forced to lower the standards

just because of that lack of availability of people. When are a lot of people of vailable and you keep raising your standards and of course everybody wants the brightest fellow in the block like the college recruiters come around always want the top 10 percent of the class I always wonder what the bottom 90 percent is because there must be a lot of them. And and so that you're going to before I say the other thing is that I think that this will be accomplished by a combination of forces and I think it has to be a combination. Obviously business has jobs but the biggest single employer is government and probably the worst employer in this regard is government. They don't take any chances with anybody your civil service you take examinations as a matter of fact. It was just within the last year that the military took a gamble on 100000 of these young men who couldn't pass the entrance examinations for the army which is about the equivalent of the 5th grade from our educational level. You gotta have the civil rights people there you've got to have the people in the community

to do your recruiting and these people aren't going to come out of the ghetto you're going to have to go out and find them. Once you have done that you're going to have to use the indigenous population of the ghetto to help you go out and find these the places where the poverty program has been very successful in doing two things one is in finding these people in the other and pulling them in here ahead of her. We just forgot they exist. But bear in mind there are two million of them in this country so they are allowed to exist. I want your problem and then I think the. Government is going to have to I don't care whether it's state city federal or a combination of the three is going to have to subsidize these people until they're competent although the way I think they subsidize it is by making realistic incentives to business which is there to make a profit that you can if you make these kids profitable. To educate and hire. You'll find that people are educating and hiring. And I don't I don't I don't

quarrel with having a business and a social motive combined. I see nothing wrong with Mr. Cornell in your jobs no program which you are connected with in Chicago. You find business firms willing to hire these people with long police records and dropped out before they finished high school. Yes we are but I think it isn't as simple as just saying yes. We have a hundred and sixty five companies that hire young fellas. These are status gang kids who are about to go into training programs who want a job now a job that pays well around $2 an hour. That has a future. We have asked industry to waive police records to waive aptitude tests the way it had high school diplomas has none of these are any predictor of productivity. But they young fellows we're working with. And are they doing this. They are doing this. They are setting realistic demands for example they may say the man has to

weigh 150 pounds to do the kind of work or something like that but they are doing this for us. This has come about however not overnight. It's the end of a very interesting process I work for the YMCA for 100 years we've been hollering help the businessman in getting it for 11 years we've been working with street gangs and in the process of really finding out what you have to do to answer the needs of those young fellows. We've revolutionized our agency. We've deeply involved other agencies. We've become deeply involved with industry. We've had four years of asking industry to hire these fellows off more Orthodox training programs. We are backed by the business leadership of the community. We're backed by the mayor's office and the public agencies and in Chicago this is a very important factor. We're back by 40 agencies public and private ranging from King Richard Daley to Martin Luther King. It was going to send some sort of support here in the churchyard and we have a staff.

Most of whom came out of the same kind of backgrounds our clients are coming from. We have had four years of learning how to work at this problem and we still don't have any final answers but we're sure asking the right questions and we're batting about 50 percent in successful retention of our young people. The difference between those who stay in the job and those who lose jobs is nil. We've compared them every way outside of the fact that kids who hold jobs have a substantially higher arrest record than the ones who have lost jobs there's no difference between the two groups nor an initiative. The difference is in the companies that the degree of high support they develop and of understanding and working with these young people. When industry commits itself to do the job it gets the job done. And I strongly support Mr Cable's argument that let's make it profitable. This is a profit motivated countries the cheapest way to spend federal funds would be to make it profitable for industry to train educate and employ the

kids they now view as marginally employable. She even put it on an incentive system. If you train a young man if he's promoted within a year you get a bonus without the length of time he stays on a job one. Once you've had a person on a job for two years you got a well oriented mentor workforce you can take pressure he can take the ins and outs of the job he can take the yelling at the foreman of the foreman is having a bad day I mean he by that time is acclimated to the jar and he's very highly employable every anyplace else by that time because he's got a solid record behind them in the right sense. He knows work practices he knows the importance of time he knows how to handle money stay out of trouble these are all very important assets you're looking for work. Let's look at another issue that has been raised.

About the hiring of the minority groups by business concerns there been many allegations that there is union discrimination. Do you find that there is union discrimination in the hiring of the minority group. Like all generalities that one's true and I got a generality that gets a lot of exceptions to it. There are some unions and there are some businesses that have really done a very poor job in this and there are some that have done very good job. Our experience has been with the industrial unions. Generally speaking they are very cooperative and you've always got to bear this about the union you take these people in. Once you take them in there the unions as well as they're yours because they have to be given membership and the union can point out to you or they may cause you trouble but they can cause us trouble. The trades industrial unions primarily the building trades I think are the worst offenders have not been very cooperative. I don't know

whether. There are just so many jobs available and we're not going to spread them around our whether they're afraid of the competition of the black or what the reasons are. But with very rare exception of the building trades and the rare exception the labors carry for instance if you look at a building in Chicago it is being torn down everybody in the place is black. What is going up there anybody is why there is we turn it down going up I don't know what this is the way it goes black white is this kind of union activity. Missed calls pretty general nationwide. I don't know of any city with strong craft unions where theres been a real breakthrough. Theres been talk. As a. Token breakthrough in a lot of other areas but real wholehearted support has not developed I think its going to take all kinds of exploration and pressure. But I'm not so sure that we are to look to crap you know. It's easy to pick out that

kind of a sub issue. The truth of the matter is that the jobs have opened up generally for Negroes. We keep insisting on qualified negroes. An equal opportunity we're not talking about equal opportunity we're not we're talking Crow Jim for a change. If for 10 years we gave the negro an extra break to offset 300 years of giving him no break at all this country could begin to really solve this problem. He's going to get that break because he's beginning to build a political foundation to come out and have a power base that works from I think the elections in Cleveland and Gary yesterday were very important in this whole movement because now you've got two. Popularly elected elected strong Negro leaders who have a political base to work from and one political base starts to have power. Then what happened to the other ethnic groups in this country I think is going to

start to happen for the black one assuming that we sitting around this table today could. Plan a program. Of a nationwide impact in the major cities. To try to get at this hardcore unemployment problem of them are minority groups. What would you recommend. What what would we suggest. I would recommend substantial. Federal funding. I would recommend total local planning. Each city would put together its own package. It should include. The public sector it should certainly include key business leadership the five or six businessmen in that town that make things go it would include the civil rights group would include private agencies. It would include the industrial and the graft union. And I would take enough time to make sure everybody was on board and agreeing and in consensus before I enrolled the first youngster before I

put out the first story. I would call for an imaginative supportive program of orienting those young fellows to the business world. I would want profit in hiring them for the companies. I would want a very well-planned supportive program after they went on the job to handle everything from wages sign much to how do we get housing to. I've been used to having my caseworker handle my medical problems out I learned to do it myself. We've got to develop independent workers as fast as we can. And I would take five years to put that together and I would not put it into any city that wasn't ready to move. And I realize that that's asking a lot. But there is no quick instant solution. Let's go. You think that's a realistic program that you're going to get from the federal government giving money to Ines pallies in a sense to use is they want to a local committee may want to end it you're going to obtain the cooperation of all of the groups that

Mr. Coles just mentioned. I'm afraid with the present Congress it is not until we have a Congress that realizes the necessity of it. I think the most expensive urban redevelopment in the world are the things that are happening watch in Detroit and the Congress which is essentially rural controlled better start to realize this is a problem. When they do realize that they're going to pay this bill eventually the taxpayers are in the Congress must realize it. I really with Bruce call and say that I would involve the indigenous population both in the program and in some advisory capacity with the schools the educational system also. But I would go out and put in satyrs or clinics or call or whatever you want in the slums and then bring the people in there and try and find out what they as individuals need I think too much of the programs we're a great nation. Here's a program we'll put in on our travels are cured and we forget the individual. The thing I

believe the great power of the G.I. Bill is that when you come out of the military service you determine what education you want nobody tells you what you share education should be or what school you should go to. You make a determination of what your needs as an individual are and then the government subsidizes this and I don't see any reason why you couldn't do this with the population that we're talking about. They have complex needs and groups of needs for instance we have to make sure if the physical needs are there they're taken care of. What about the health of these people. We ought to have enough money so that this daycare arrangement is there for working fathers working mothers who otherwise can't have children think of I think the either we're going to pay for this and do it fairly rapidly or we who are going to find that we have something that can break down the whole society.

And if you break down the society you're just never going to be able to put this is going to take massive infusions of money as well as time and talent of all concerned isn't it. It's going to take a lot more to cure this than it is to support the war in Viet Nam and I think internally we better respond. Mr. propose and Mr. Cohen we certainly thank you for appearing on the Business Roundtable and participating in today's business roundtable where William G Cable's vice president and Lynn steel company and Bruce Cole assistant general secretary Y.M.C.A. Metropolitan Chicago. Also when the program was Alfred L. Seeley the dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Michigan State University. The topic for next week's Business Roundtable is our profits. The only obligation of business guests for the program will be Raymond H Mulford president Owens Illinois glass company and

Louis F. pulping Jr. Vice President Gore finance international operations and development General Mills incorporated. This program was produced by the Graduate School of Business Administration and the Broadcasting Services of Michigan State University under a grant from nation's business a publication of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Business Roundtable is distributed through the facilities of national educational radio. This is any are the national educational radio network.