responsible for products and planning and a Chief Statistician responsible for standards and techniques. 108 Ross accepted these recommendations and put them into effect, also separating the operations functions from the program and planning functions in the Bureau's regional offices.

Implementing another Booz-Allen recommendation, the Bureau established a central Office of Publications to help the Commissioner and the program offices plan, prepare, and disseminate public information. The Office used computer languages created by the Bureau's systems staff to generate photocomposed statistical tables, charts, and text, making the Bureau a pioneer in the photocomposed production of statistical publications from existing data bases. 109 Moreover, BLS now makes available major data series at the time of initial release through electronic news releases and, more comprehensively, through magnetic tape.

Indeed, the Bureau had emphasized improving its electronic information systems. Booz-Allen had stressed the need for broader and more aggressive use of electronic data processing and had recommended the centralization of all data collection and processing, which were then being conducted separately in the various program offices. BLS had installed a second-generation computer system in 1963. Under Ross, the Bureau encouraged computer language training for its professionals to promote expanded use of the computers for analysis and interpretation and worked with the Department to plan a system based on a third-generation facility.

During the early 1970's, the Office of Systems and Standards developed Table Producing Language (TPL), a system designed to select, restructure, cross-tabulate, and display data. Installations around the world have acquired this tabulating system, including commercial enterprises, State and municipal agencies, major universities, and other national statistical agencies. In fiscal year 1978, BLS initiated LABSTAT (LABor STATistics), its greatly expanded data base or general pool of statistical information which gives users direct on-line computer access to more than 150,000 time series.

Meanwhile, the Bureau had moved into time-sharing on mainframe computers at the National Institutes of Health and, later, with a commercial computer center. This boosted processing capabilities in major programs and greatly increased opportunities for analytical research, while also facilitating transmissions between BLS headquar

ters and the field offices-without committing scarce resources to expensive and soon-outdated equipment.

Having already reorganized under Ross, the Bureau largely conformed with proposals issued by the Office of Management and Budget several years later for improving the organization of all Federal statistical activities. In 1971, when OMB called for centralized data collection and processing activities within the statistical agencies and the establishment of separate units for planning and data analysis, Moore replaced the positions of Chief Economist and Chief Statistician with two Deputy Commissioners, one in charge of data analysis and the other in charge of statistical operations. Shiskin altered the arrangement somewhat by establishing a single Deputy Commissioner in 1975.110

During her term, Norwood refined the BLS organizational structure. She enlarged the role of the Office of Research and Evaluation, which she expanded in 1982, reflecting increased interest in mathematical statistics and concern for improving the quality of the Bureau's data. In 1982, she also created the position of Deputy Commissioner for Administration and Internal Operations. In 1983, she announced the recombination of the two program offices dealing with employment statistics, forming the Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics.111

Field operations

The tremendous growth in demand for local data and the accompanying expansion of Federal-State cooperative programs enhanced the role of the Bureau's regional offices. In 1967, as part of the Department's effort to establish uniform regional organizations and boundaries, BLS changed the location of one of its regional offices from Cleveland to Kansas City. In 1968, it established new offices in Philadelphia and Dallas, for a total of eight.

The incoming Nixon administration pushed decentralization of government activities, prompting the Department to issue orders to its agencies to delegate authority to the field. In 1973, when the Bureau's regional directors were designated Assistant Regional Directors, Shiskin complained of the "apparent subordination of the Bureau staff to political appointees," namely the Department of Labor Regional Directors.112 In 1975, Secretary Dunlop made a change, establishing Regional Commissioners along with Regional Solicitors and Regional

Administrators. At about the same time, Shiskin created the position of Assistant Commissioner for Field Collection and Coordination in the national office.

The regional offices now exercise several basic functions: They collect and process primary data required for the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, the Employment Cost Index, the international price program, and the occupational wage survey program. They supervise and assist cooperating State agencies in collecting labor force and occupational safety and health statistics and also assist in the preparation of area estimates of labor force, employment, and unemployment. In addition, they disseminate Bureau publications and data. The Regional Commissioners represent the Commissioner and the Bureau in the regions and advise the Department's Regional Director.

Advisory groups

The Business and Labor Research Advisory Councils, established in 1947, continued to play active roles as advisers and disseminators of the Bureau's data. Most recently, Norwood has stressed the importance of their role and her desire to see that they become more helpful to the Bureau in carrying out its mission.

Over the years, there have been proposals for extending the Bureau's formal advisory arrangements. Moore proposed setting up some means of obtaining advice from the staffs of universities and research institutes, but these were not implemented. In 1979, the final report of the National Commission on Employment and Unemployment Statistics contained a proposal for a panel "broadly representative of the data-using community.” In his comments on the report, Secretary Marshall noted that BLS sought means of obtaining advice from State, county, and municipal leaders, as well as CETA prime sponsors, State employment security agencies, and others interested in State and local statistics. However, in his report on the National Commission recommendations, Secretary Donovan rejected the suggestion for a "new permanent advisory council."113

Chapter IX.

History as Prologue: The Continuing Mission

he mission of the Bureau of Labor Statistics since its founding 100 years ago has been to collect information on economic and social conditions and, in the words of Carroll Wright, the first Commissioner, through "fearless publication of the results," to let the people assess the facts and act on them. It was the belief of its founders that dissemination of the facts would lead to improvement of the life of the people.

On the occasion of the Bureau's centennial, Janet L. Norwood, the tenth Commissioner, summed up the Bureau's past-and continuing-role: "The Bureau stands for

-Commitment to objectivity and fairness in all of its data gathering and interpretive and analytical work; -Insistence on candor at all times;

-Protection of confidentiality;

-Pursuit of improvements;

-Willingness to change; and

-Maintenance of consistency in the highest standards of perform

ance."

These principles, Norwood stressed, must be steadfastly applied in monitoring "our programs to ensure that they remain accurate, objective, and relevant. We must modernize our statistical techniques because a statistical agency that does not constantly move ahead in the use of new techniques quickly moves backward."

As an institution, the Bureau has evolved from the original and sole labor agency in the Federal Government, with a broad factfinding scope, to one among many specialized labor agencies. Serving as a quasi-Department of Labor during its first two decades, it was called upon to study and report on issues such as the violent strikes and lockouts of the period and the harsh conditions of employment for women and children. Today, the Bureau is a general-purpose statistical agency, gathering, analyzing, and distributing information broadly applicable to labor economics and labor conditions.

While the focus and perspectives of Bureau studies have changed over the years, most areas of investigation have remained germanethe course of wages and prices, the state of industrial relations, problems of unemployment and the effects of technological and demographic change, and safety and health conditions in the workplace. Some areas of study, such as child labor, have been rendered unnecessary by legislation. In others, newer, specialized agencies have taken over the work the Bureau began.

The Bureau's role has been to provide data and analyses that contribute to the development of policy without crossing the line into policy formulation, but the line is a fine one. Certainly Neill and Lubin, through their personal relations, advised Presidents and Secretaries on specifics of labor and economic policy. And at times the Bureau has found itself in the midst of controversy, its findings and objectivity challenged by one set of partisans or another. Wright's wage and price studies were attacked as products of political manipulation, and, during World War II, labor unions challenged the cost-ofliving index because of their dissatisfaction with the government's wage stabilization policies.

Professional integrity is essential to a government agency which provides information for public and private policy needs, and the Bureau's institutional probity has been a constant concern of the Commissioners and their staffs. Over the years, the Bureau's objectivity has been affirmed and reaffirmed upon review of its work by congressional committees, Presidential commissions, and professional