Mr. HARMON. I don't know that we have done a survey.

Mr. DENT. Do you have any instances where your people were discriminated against because of age?

Mr. HARMON. Yes; definitely. I am not trying to hedge on the question. I am trying to give you an honest answer. I would say generally that many of the large corporations do have an arbitrary age established as a policy. I can understand and appreciate some of the problems that they have, especially if they have training programs.

For example, with my own background I might think I might be eligible to be the vice president of a corporation some day if properly trained, but they might think I am too old and they have somebody

else in mind.

Mr. DENT. I agree, but we do nothing about that. All we do is say that all other things concerned, that a person over the age of 45 should not be discriminated against if it is only a question of his age. This does not deal with problems inherent in age.

Obviously a 46-year-old bricklayer applying for a job as a plumber would not be qualified, regardless of age, but he might make a case that would fall under its own weight.

For instance, you can see the correlation between this discussion we are making here now, even the situation of airline hostesses who are dismissed at age 35, 36, 38, involves a universal restriction against employing which can be lowered by employee availability. They would be wiped out of the labor market because they have been trained for years in this job where they could get the seniority to protect them, those years have been wasted in short-term employment.

The problem, as you so ably say, is one that has to be considered. Mr. HARMON. I think often those of us coming up here to testify, perhaps can see a lot of the answers, but we are on the other side of the problem, as you are.

Mr. DENT. We see all sides of the question, but the answers get awfully foggy.

Mr. HARMON. I will say that at least we have a point of view. I recognize if you try to legislate and come up with a figure, I honestly couldn't tell you what I think the figure would be if you were asking me. I know we have had real problems in trying to place people who want to work. When we made the challenge, "We will place anyone," we fell down because we couldn't place just anybody, especially when that person was 60 or 70 years old and had 20 years of good engineering experience. We could not find them a job in most instances.

Many of these people are highly trained and their experience is being scrapped in our American economy. I don't know the answer, but I know there is a problem.

Mr. DENT. Very frankly, the most acute problem today other than the so-called middle-aged 40-year-old or older industrial worker is in the so-called junior executive group in the United States who find themselves let out for the very reason you are talking about. They just can't find any place of employment. Various clubs have been started for those over 40 and you look at them-they are trained people, not illiterates, they are people with college educations, university training, and a history of great success in their field, but they are eliminated. Mr. HARMON. Along that line, we ran into this problem. High caliber people would write and say, "I am available. I would like a job."

Placement agencies would say they can place this person since he is well qualified. But many times the individual places all sorts of problems before the agency. He refuses to leave Pennsylvania and go someplace else. Another is salary. He is a $15,000 man. He doesn't want to go for $10,000 or $12,000.

You think he is available. When you get right down to the line, maybe he is not as available as you think. They sometimes say they can't get a job. They can get a job, but they don't want it because they have eliminated it by their own thinking.

Mr. DENT. I am glad you made that point because in the preliminary discussions of this legislation we have found much confusion in the minds of Members of Congress. The subject you are covering now has been part of the discussion. They feel we are forcing employers to take employees when in fact they don't want to go.

From what I noticed the other day the role of the Federal employee may have a great deal more significance in the problem. A Federal employee with 25 years of service was denied his pension by the Pension Board because they claim he was not involuntarily severed from his position because he had refused to move with the department when it moved to another location.

The decision reversing the Board took into consideration the fact that the employee's 25 years had rooted him to a certain mode of living. health condition, being considerate of his family; therefore, he was entitled to his pension and his vested pension rights were held inviolate and were his.

That may have some bearing on the so-called executive-type employee in the future. I can understand why people might not want to move. Members of Congress fight every 2 years not to move.

Mr. HARMON. Yes, and we have to be fair about this. I ran into this in every State where I addressed a group. I talked to people on the firing line. I have never placed a person on the executive level, but these people are placing them. The statements I am making are secondhand, but what I have run into across the country are not isolated cases. There are jobs going begging based on the office files I have seen all over the country.

The problem is that many of those people, I suspect, could be placed but they are very selective. The fellow making $30,000 thinks he is worth $35,000 and $40,000. As one Senator said, "There are a lot of underemployed Senators. They would all like to be President." I think if the right situation comes along, they would be available.

In connection with the enforcement of this law, I would like to suggest that you consider placing it, with its proposed enforcement provisions, under the authority of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as it is generally in the States, so that there can be both a unified and uniform effort directed to all areas of arbitrary discrimination in employment. While this may require some changes in title VII, it would appear that those changes would be desirable.

I feel it would be of interest to this committee to know that the National Employment Association appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee during its hearings on S. 830, by Senator Yarborough, and S. 788, by Senator Javits, to offer our support of the Senate version of the bills under con

Since that time the Senate subcommittee has referred S. 830, with revisions, to the full committee for their consideration. I would like to comment briefly on several of the subcommittee revisions and urge their approval by your committee.

First, if this committee finds that the administration of the provisions of these bills would be better accomplished by Department of Labor than by an independent agency such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we urge that the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor be given the administrative and enforcement responsibilities.

This Division is already in existence and has the personnel and knowhow to perform the functions required by these bills. This present-day system of regional directors, attorneys, and investigators has vast experience in making periodic investigations similar to those which would be required under the age discrimination law. There is no need for the costly duplication of functions which would result if a new and separate division within the Labor Department were established to carry out this law.

Second, we recommend that the criminal penalties in cases of willful violation be eliminated and a double damage liability be substituted instead. The possibility of double damages should suffice in deterring willful violators of this law without resorting to the problems of proof which would arise under a criminal provision.

Third, we would support a new section in the bill which would allow a State agency 60 days to resolve a complaint before the Federal agency would take jurisdiction. This provision is more in keeping with title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In any event, Mr. Chairman, you are assured of the support of the private employment agency industry in your efforts in behalf of the older workers of our Nation.

In our testimony before the Senate subcommittee on this legislation, we made reference to a quotation by the poet Browning on growing old, and I think it is appropriate to repeat it here as my conclusion.

Thank you.

The best is yet to be

The last of life, for which the first was made.

Mr. DENT. Thank you very kindly.

I am sorry we don't have time to continue our discussion of the matter. I might say when my father was up past his biblical three score years and 10, and I was a little younger, I said something to him about the so-called calamity of old age. I sometimes think we should try to ease the problem of calamity for those who have to live.

I might say I am pleased with your presentation of the problem and your thinking does agree with that of the chairman.

We will recess until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. in this same room. (Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, August 16, 1967.)

AGE DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1967

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
GENERAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John H. Dent (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Dent, Pucinski, Hawkins, Mink, and Dellenback.

Mr. DENT. The General Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor will now come to order for the purpose of holding hearings on H.R. 3651 and identical bills. We are pleased this morning to have as our first witness a young man I have known and served with for many years in the State legislative body in Harrisburg and he has made quite a distinguished record for himself. He is Joshua Eilberg, Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOSHUA EILBERG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. EILBERG. I must say it is an extreme pleasure for me to be before you, Mr. Chairman, one of the most distinguished Pennsylvanians to ever come out of our State legislature. As I was telling you and my colleague back here I know of what I speak because the gentleman I am before now certainly picked himself up by his bootstraps and I would compare his knowledge and integrity with any college professor.

I feel very sincere about this. I have entitled my presentation here "Let's Put an End to Discrimination in Employment Because of Age, Now."

Daniel Webster once said, "Constant employment and well paid labor produce, in a country like ours, general prosperity, content and cheerfulness."

In our Nation we pride ourselves upon our prosperity and on the high level of wages paid to our workers; in a word, upon our high standard of living.

However our modern society emphasizes and glorifies youth, frequently to the detriment of those who have given at least 20 or 25 years of contributing to our economy-the older workers.

Is their just reward for long years of service, dependability, and knowledge to be "put out to pasture"? No.

In January 1967 President Johnson called for an end to arbitrary age limits on hiring and reminded us that although 23 States have already enacted laws to prohibit discriminatory practices, the problem is one of national concern.

I therefore urge prompt and affirmative action on my bill H.R. 9568, which I introduced into this House on May 3, 1967, identical with Mr. Perkins' bill H.R. 3651.

These bills would establish as a matter of national policy the elimination of arbitrary age discrimination in employment.

These proposed measures would also provide minimum standards barring arbitrary age discrimination for workers between the ages of 45 and 65, with authority for the Secretary of Labor to adjust these limits upward or downward in order to effectuate the purposes of the act, and finally State legislation for meeting the problem of discrimination in employment because of age would be encouraged by these bills.

Mr. Chairman, the problem of age discrimination in employment is a serious one. Within the next 20 years we will have approximately 25 million people over the age of 65.

Furthermore, life expectancy is steadily increasing and some scientists predict that an average life expectancy of 100 could theoretically be possible within 35 years.

But what do we find concerning the plight of the older American worker today? At age 40, a worker may find that age restrictions become common, according to a report of the Secretary of Labor to the Congress in 1965.

By age 45, his employment opportunities are likely to contract sharply; they shrink more severely at age 55 and virtually vanish by age 65.

This does not mean that so-called older workers cannot get jobs or cannot get good jobs. But it does mean that their job search may be long and hard, for they are given no consideration for employment in some establishment. For many, it also means that their choices narrow; that they must accept reduced wages in some cases, for the same kind of work, and in others, for work at lower skills.

Only 8.6 percent of all new workers hired by surveyed establishments during 1964 were 45 years of age and over-less than one-third this age group's proportion among the unemployed. In fact one out of five employers failed to hire a single new worker who had reached his 45th birthday and half reported that less than 5 percent of all new workers hired were in this age group.

Moreover President Johnson said in January 1967:

Despite our present low rate of unemployment, there has been a persistent average of 850,000 people at age 45 and over who are unemployed.

The average duration of unemployment for workers age 45 to 64 in 1966 was 15.4 weeks, while for workers of all ages, average duration of unemployment was 10.2 weeks.

These statistics reveal dramatically the existence of cruel discrimination against the older workers in employment.

As the economist, Sumner Slichter, said:

The community's need for more employment among the older workers is a permanent one, and it will become greater as time goes on, and as the proportion of older persons in the population increases.