stewardess does her work; there is no "foreman" watching her on the job in the air. The stewardess therefore must be a "self-starter" who responds with a young girl's enthusiasm for an exciting job.

This self-generated enthusiasm becomes diminished when flying has lost its thrill and the job has become a matter of routine. Additional factors also develop to affect motivation. Senior stewardesses may experience emotional problems resulting from the absence of a permanent home and family relationship. Consciousness of growing age disparity may prevent a cooperative team spirit from developing in the cabin.

Poor motivation causes poor service. Poor service results in loss of business and good will.

Another reason young stewardesses serve the public better is that they have the physical agility and endurance to do a good job. A stewardess must be able to serve dozens of means in a short period of flying time-often in turbulent airat a cabin pressure equivalent to about 6,000 feet altitude. Round the clock airline schedules and changes in time zones result in irregular hours. Long periods of time are spent walking, bending and lifting. Stewardesses must be able to complete meal and beverage service quickly enough to meet jet schedules. Yet they must also retain sufficient vigor to give courteous, sympathetic attention to passengers requiring assistance.

Periodically each stewardess is given recurrent training which includes participation in strenuous emergency drills. Practice aircraft evacuations must be completed within two minutes, under standards fixed by the Federal Aviation Agency. During that time, stewardesses open emergency exists (requiring a force of 50 to 80 pounds pressure), handle escape chutes, and otherwise assist in the evacuation of the aircraft. The more rapidly these duties can be performed, the greater is the margin of safety in an emergency.

D. POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES

No one can reasonably contend that stewardesses should be retained until normal retirement at age 65. Between ages 38 and 50, women are subject to changes in metabolism and in the endocrine, circulatory, digestive, nervous and cutaneous systems, symptoms of which would interfere with the desirable performance of such a job. Problems associated with the climacteric stage of life frequently develop. Personality traits may alter; emotional reactions may become heightened and unsure in times of stress or emergency. In addition, older women would not be able to respond well to the physical requirements of the job. For this reason, the New York State Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, after investigating the reassignment policy of American Airlines, reached the following conclusion:

"We take official notice of the fact that the position of an airline stewardess involves at times extraordinary physical effort in handling passengers, administering first aid and coping with emergencies and airline disasters. By its very nature, the job of airline stewardess is a hazardous one. For unemployment insurance purposes, the age limitation of 33 imposed by company and union agreement is a reasonable one and not discriminatory." (Appeal No. 118,040, March 9, 1965.)

Similarly, the Pennsylvania Fair Employment Practice Commission issued the following statement:

"Our Commission made the policy decision that the imposition of age limits less than forty for the position of airline stewardess or hostess constitutes a bona fide occupational qualification under Section 5 of the Pennylvania Fair Employment Practice Act. This was decided principally on the ground that the rigorous training required to qualify a woman as an airline stewardess or hostess could not ordinarily be undertaken by women of age forty or more." (Letter from Pennsylvania Fair Employment Practices Commission to United Air Lines, signed by Nathan Agran, General Counsel, dated August 27, 1959.) Thus, since women cannot continue to serve as stewardesses until the Company's normal retirement age of 65, two alternatives can be considered:

1. An individual determination-case by case and year by year-of which senior stewardesses could no longer continue; or

2. A stated policy which is equally applicable to all stewardesses— such as the American Airlines reassignment program.

As shown below, the American Airlines reassignment program is the more desirable of the two. Under it, a senior stewardess is guaranteed a position which will provide a career until normal retirement at age 65.

1. Individual determinations concerning the ability of senior stewardesses to continue to serve

Those who advocate the making of individual determinations as to the continuing capability of aging stewardesses fail to recognize the practical difficulties involved.

a. A fundamental principle of union representation requires all employees to be treated equally. The stewardess union would hardly be willing to permit determinations that some aging stewardesses cannot continue while others of the same age are permitted to do so.

b. Moreover, the determination that certain employees have become deficient as stewardesses because of the effects of aging, while others of the same age continue to be acceptable, would be highly objectionable to the women concerned. Charges of unfairness, favoritism, and subjective factors would be inevitable.

c. In contrast, reassignment applied uniformly to all at age 32 cannot be regarded as an indication of personal deficiency or failure. Like graduation from high school or college, the event symbolizes a new level of career development. It is true that a few women resent the policy as requiring a change from a glamorous flight job to what they regard as a more pedestrian way of life. This would be equally true, however, if the reassignment were at any age.

2. The American Airlines reassignment policy

The reassignment policy is based on three underlying considerations.

a. The fact that medical, motivational, and customer service considerations require termination of stewardesses at some point prior to age 65. b. The fact that it is not feasible to determine continuing eligibility of senior stewardesses on the basis of individual differences in aging.

c. The fact that the beginning of a new career for former stewardesses should not be deferred beyond age 32. Points a. and b. above have been discussed earlier in this paper. As to point c., American Airlines has sought and obtained the advice of an eminent industrial psychologist who regarded the following factors as significant:

a. Retraining will be needed to qualify stewardesses for new careers, whether the new job is inside the Company or outside the Company.

b. Studies have shown that the percentage of persons utilizing retraining drops markedly when the age advances to the 30's and 40's. A study published by Michael E. Borus in the September 1965 issue of the Labor Law Journal indicates that the correlation is as follows (p. 578):

c. More job opportunities are available for a woman in her early 30's than for older women.

d. A stewardess in her early 30's adapts more readily to a new type of job and hence is more likely to succeed in her new career.

e. In addition, there will be more opportunities for advancement if job entrance is made at an early age.

Based on the foregoing considerations, the consulting psychologist retained by American concluded that the reassignment policy is in accord with sound personnel practice in providing for job transition. His only suggestion was that activities designed to help stewardesses transfer to new jobs be moved up to begin at age 28, and cover a range of four years.

CONCLUSION

The American Airlines reassignment policy is the best solution yet devised for the problem of stewardess aging:

a. It permits the airlines to provide the highest level of service for their

b. It provides former stewardesses with permanent careers in the airline industry.

c. It provides other young women with a very desirable form of employment.

d. Job transition is made at the optimum age for retraining and future advancement.

e. Individual comparisons involving the effects of aging are avoided. The airline industry is a progressive industry, and American Airlines is a leading airline. American was the first domestic airline to participate in Plans for Progress. The Company has received repeated commendations for its efforts to leiminate discrimination and provide full equality of opportunity. The reasignment policy represents another progressive response by American Airlines to a difficult problem in human relations.

(The following material was submitted for the record:)

STATEMENT OF ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) asks that the railroad industry be excepted from the provisions of H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481 (and similar bills) which would make unlawful, discrimination in employment because of age.

The AAR is an unincorporated, voluntary association of Class I railroads which operate 96 percent of the railroad mileage in the United States, whose revenue amount to 96 percent of railroad revenues in the United States, and whose employees constitute 95 percent of the total number of railroad workers in the United States.

The purpose of this statement is to succinctly set forth the compelling reasons which cause the railroad industry to seek an exemption from age discrimination legislation as embodied in H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481. Since the railroads' concerns stem basically from considerations which particularly apply to the railroad industry but may or may not be true of other industry segments, the AAR limits its request for relief of the Committee to an exclusion of the railroads from these particular proposals and age discrimination legislation in general. As the following comments demonstrate, a rail industry exclusion is a matter of over-all public interest, for a statute which would force the railroads to accept older new hires would impair the capacity of the industry to service, now and in the future, the nation's over-all transportation requirements. There are two fundamental concepts which support these general statements. First, because of a combination of circumstances which will be outlined in more detail subsequently, the rail industry has a work force which is disproportionately over age. To prepare for the demands which are sure to come from all portions of the economy as it expands in virtually every calculable respect, the railroads are attempting to remedy this age imbalance. H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481 would nullify these remedial efforts by increasing the percentage of older workers in the total work force.

Since it may not be readily apparent why an age imbalance factor is undesirable, a brief explanation at this introductory stage may be helpful. With a transportation mode where public convenience and necessity are at stake, an experienced work force is important. Since experience comes from years of service, employee turnover, that is, the rate at which the various decremental factors remove experienced incumbents from the working rolls, should be fairly uniform on a year-to-year basis. If for any reason an especially high turnover occurs over a relatively short period of time, the quality of the work force will be affected. A work force heavy with age turns over more rapidly than one in age balance and in so doing changes the composition of the work force. It is for this reason that an age distribution balance should be struck. H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481 would feed the present age imbalance in the rail industry and its byproducts.

A key concept, the significance of which must be appraised in changing any personnel policy in the railroad industry, is the seniority principle. All of the collective agreements between rail management and the various unions have adopted it and the assignment of the work force depends on it. It is firmly embedded not only in the labor agreements, but in the working philosophy and everyday thinking of the railroad worker. Principles of the seniority system are (1) hiring of young new entrants and (2) progression from the least desir

able jobs (including the element of physical demands 1) to the more desirable ones as years of service are acquired. Age discrimination legislation, unless accompanied by clear and concise exceptions and qualifications, is diametrically opposed to these principles for it would bring elderly new entrants without any accredited years of service or experience into the bottom of the seniority spectrum working on the least desirable, most physically taxing assignments.

The principle of indiscriminate hiring, regardless of age considerations, is an important personel policy change. It should not be precipitately thrust upon the railroad industry whose work force by agreement with its employees revolves around the seniority concept.

The foregoing comments briefly summarize the two general considerations which prompt the Association to seek an exclusion from the coverage of H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481. A more detailed, although not unduly lengthy, explanation of these two central points, follows:

Industry in general, and the transportation modes in particular, must have effective manpower. Manpower is the work force, the make-up of which is determined by many factors, all of which are interrelated and dependent on each other. In origin the work force structure of the basic industries was management-designed, but as organized labor gained power its influence on the structure and composition of the working forces became more apparent. The end products are an accommodation of one to the other and as a result work force composition varies from industry to industry.

In the railroad industry the structure and composition of the work force revolves around one of these end products, namely, the key concept of seniority which is incorporated in all labor agreements. Because the rail seniority concept is so pervading, no fundamental change in personnel policy, and the legislation under discussion unquestionably is of that character, should be attempted without a careful appraisal of what effect it will have on a work force which operates on the seniority principle. In that respect, a cursory appraisal illustrates that legislation which would discriminate against the preferential hiring of younger workers is opposed to the principles which make the rail seniority-oriented work force operable.

To illustrate, between 1940 and 1965 total railroad employment declined from 1,450,000 to 790,000-almost 50 percent. Since seniority preserved the employment rights of the worker with more service time, the layoffs were concentrated among junior employees. The end result, of course, is a surviving work force heavily weighted with older workers. Declining employment opportunities coupled with the application of seniority could produce no other result, and with the railroads both of these factors were active. Employment declines were steep; the seniority principle controlled; and the industry is saddled with the disproportionately over-age work force. While the railroads have made some progress by hiring younger new entrants, uneven distribution is one of the industry's personnel problems. Passage of this legislation without a rail industry exclusion would only accentuate it.

In 1961, after a full year of extensively studying the rules and practices which govern the working conditions of railroad operating employees, the Presidential Railroad Commission found that the rail work force is older than that of manufacturing industries generally and recommended that rail management and the rail unions adopt a compulsory retirement program. (Report of Presidential Railroad Commission, pp. 28, 32-33. Such findings and recommendations were unquestionably influenced by a desire to strengthen the Nation as well as the railroads, for as the Commission said, "The manpower of the railroad industry

1 In the words of the Presidential Railroad Commission: "These operating employees have had to adjust to a way of life which is in many ways different from the pattern of employees in 'outside' industry. They are subject to call at irregular hours, round the clock; many of them cannot accommodate their time away from duty to the normal family program of free Sundays and evenings. Many of them must spend considerable time at distant terminals, away from their families and communities. They work out of doors regardless of weather, in the desert heat, or pouring rain, or amid snow and ice. Until they have achieved very considerable seniority, they are subject to irregularity of employment and often to extensive furloughs." (Report of the Presidential Railroad Commission, February 1962, page 23.)

2 In 1964 67% of the industry's employees were 40 years of age or over; 42% were 50 or over; 30% 55 or over; and 18% 60 or over (Table D-7, 1965 Annual Report of the Railroad Retirement Board.)

While the number of employees with less than 10 years of service is now on the rise after a long period of decline, in 1964 there were 239,000 rail employees with between 20 and 29 years of service and 164,000 with over 30 years of service; 109,000 of those with 30 or more years of service were over 60 years of age. (1965 Report of the Railroad Retire

represents one of our national assets. The industry's work force is a key resource composed of employees of varied skills and occupations, including those who man the trains." (Report of the Presidential Railroad Commission, p. 23.) These remarks, even more valid in 1967, highlight the importance of keeping the industry's work force in top-notch condition. This request of the AAR for an exemption is in keeping with that theme.

In its consideration of certain changes in railroad organizational structure and the effect of such changes on employment in the industry, the Interstate Commerce Commission has recognized the age factor and encouraged "the establishment of a retirement allowance to stimulate early retirement by senior employees."

The problem of putting the industry's work force in age balance is the first practical factor which causes the Association to seek exclusionary relief. The second stems from the seniority system in operation.

Within the spectrum of jobs available to most of the individual rail job classifications and particularly to the operating classes such as road trainmen and yard switchmen, work requirements, including physical efforts, differ. In short, some are more taxing and demanding than others, even though the job titles and rates of pay may be identical. The seniority system permits the employees with the most years of service best selection of available jobs, and this principle repeats itself through the entire selection process. In theory and practice, advancing age diminishes the human physiological capacities, including the important factors of coordination and ability to withstand exposure to the elements, but where the seniority principle is applicable, it compensates by allowing the older worker to select the physically less taxing jobs. Application of the system, therefore, would be impaired by placing older new hires at the bottom of the seniority roster. The work of the operating crafts, that is, the people who run the industry's trains and yard engines, is such that their know-how is acquired at a time when the body is physically best able to absorb the mistakes that inexperience spawns. Older new hires would suffer from their relative inability to withstand the lapses that inexperience breeds but for which the younger man is better prepared to withstand and learn from.

Instead of being able to select their jobs, the compensating factor of a seniority system, or have management pick the proper jobs for them, the older new hires would be saddled with the most undesirable positions, those they would be the least capable of performing. The inexorable results when a mismatch of man and job occurs on any large-scale basis would happen. More specifically, older new hires doing the same physically taxing work means reduced productivity, a less efficient over-all operation and a much higher employment turnover with all of its incidental disadvantages.

A final pragmatic consideration which the proposed legislation overlooks is the amount and kind of training which new hires must receive before they can perform the tasks for which they are hired. On the railroads many of the crafts do require training, and this is usually at railroad expense, with the employee under pay during the training period. The wherefore of maximum age requirements for every apprentice or training program is well illustrated by the law of diminishing returns. Obviously, the age of the new hire and the intensity and length of each training period determines to a great measure the return which can be expected from the training. Subjecting the railroads or any other industry, for that matter, to indiscriminate hiring regardless of age, where many of the employees require extensive training, is unfair and itself discriminatory.

Both H.R. 3651 and H.R. 5481 contain the following or similar language: "It shall not be unlawful for an employer, employment agency or labor organization to take any action otherwise prohibited . . . where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age."

It may well be that these exculpatory provisions would allow the railroads to continue to hire younger new entrants because of the current work force age imbalance, the seniority concept, and by reason of the nature of railroad work in general. Perhaps that is the intention of the exceptions. If so, in the railroad's case at least, it is earnestly submitted that such an intention should be made

Chesapeake and Ohio-Control-Western Maryland Railway, 328 I.C.C. 684, 716 (Feb.