Mr. FLOOD. This is a major problem now facing employees of the Central Road of Jersey with the entire State of Pennsylvania shut down by a court order. Now they are concerned because they are thinking maybe the Central Railroad should be shut down in the whole State of New Jersey. They are talking about that. Are you participating in this Jersey Central problem, in the State of Pennsylvania?

Secretary HODGSON. We haven't become directly involved in that yet. Mr. FLOOD. We hear it may take place in other States and other roads all over the country in a matter of months.

Secretary HODGSON. When we decided on the job security provision for the employees laid off from Amtrak, we tried to take a look at that not solely on the basis of its suitability for the Amtrak but for the entire industry. We believe we have a basis there with its kind of guarantees, the kind of provision for training, the kind of provision for consideration of service with the road for rehire in related or similar jobs, and for recall to job when those jobs open up in their own category, that will be suitable for broad use including the kind of thing you mention.

(Discussion off the record.)

EMPLOYEE'S ACCESS TO PENSION FUNDS

Mr. FLOOD. In your discussion of these problems how much do you get into the use of existing pension funds for these laid off employees, their rights to pensions, their access to pension funds? Are there any guarantees at the Federal level covering contributions to these pension funds, with regard to their sanctity? What are you doing with reference to suggested legislation to the Congress in this field? A man has been working for 30 years on one of these roads. He is now laid off, but he is not quite at retirement age. What about legislation reducing the age to 52 at which he would become eligible for the pension fund? And finally how closely have you worked in the last 8 months and are you working now and will be in the months ahead with the ICC? How can' the Department of Labor work with the sacred cow, the ICC, which is an independent agency? Do you talk to each other? Do they let you in the door with your hat in hand, or what?

Secretary HODGSON. Let's start out the initial part of your question, Mr. Chairman-what are we doing in the way of legislation. We have two very significant pieces of legislation that bear on the subject we are discussing. No. 1, a fiduciary responsibility bill designed clearly to make sure that money that is put away for these people will be there when they come to collect it, that it won't be dissipated by bad management, by fraud, or in any other way. The money that is put away for intended retirement and pension purposes will be available when indeed a person is ready for retirement.

No. 2, we have a bill that has a particularly important provision that would be beneficial in these kind of cases, something called the rule of 50, where a person who has a combination of a period of service for an employer and his age totaling 50, he then has a vested benefit in his plan and he can move from one employer to another and take his benefit with him.

Mr. FLOOD. We would like to know what legislation of which you speak is now before what committees in the House and Senate. We would like to know to what extent you are active in doing what you

can to present to the House and Senate the kind of legislation that will meet this kind of problem. We hope that all of these weapons in your arsenal will be a great contribution in working with the ICC, with management, and with the great labor organizations, to prevent strikes or to limit the impact of these strikes that we fear are coming. In the entire stewardship of the Department I can't imagine any Secretary who has had to face more serious problems.

Secretary HODGSON. I thoroughly agree with you the situation in the railroad industry and in some other aspect of transportation simply means that new measures are going to be required, legislative measures and others.

During these hearings, Mr. Usery, Assistant Secretary for LaborManagement Service Administration, will be prepared to speak in more detail and supply more data.

CONSTRUCTION WAGE SETTLEMENTS

Mr. FLOOD. Just what has the Construction Industry Collective Bargaining Commission accomplished since it was set up late in 1969? Secretary HODGSON. Three things. No. 1, it has done what a lot of people considered to be quite impossible. It was set up at a time when there was no general overall wage control system.

Mr. FLOOD. That is right and you had a can of worms.

Secretary HODGSON. And operating on a joint basis, that is unions and management together with Government assistance, they were able to turn a pattern which had prevailed for the previous 3 years—a successive increase each quarter in the level of settlement-downward and bring it downward from the 15- to 16-percent level to a 10- to 11-percent level in last year alone. This year it is now down below 7 percent in pattern. It has accomplished something significantly in anti-inflationary efforts on the wage side.

The second accomplishment, it has contributed materially to industrial peace. There were many who wondered how we could avoid massive strikes with the Government entering into the bargaining in an industry like the construction industry. But actually we have not only not had more strikes, we have cut the level of strikes in half and shortened the duration of them by a quarter in that industry.

The third thing it has accomplished and the thing perhaps I am most proud of, it has shown that labor and management and Government can work together to solve a problem of labor-management relations and do it with the support of all parties.

One thing this hearing is doing is confirming our sense of priority. These are two industires we have spent more time on in the Department in the last 2 years than any others.

Mr. FLOOD. You can be sure the Department of Labor is not going to be the forgotten child around here for the months immediately ahead, especially in the area of construction and the railroad industry. I am not speaking of just the urban aspect but the whole interstate show, the whole thing.

MINORITY HIRING PLANS IN CONSTRUCTION

Certain conditions existed and all of a sudden we woke up one day and somebody had come up with the "Philadelphia plan." Later on

we heard about the "Washington plan" and "the "hometown plan" and the what-have-you plan. What and where are the trouble spots? Secretary HODGSON. What we have done is used different tools to solve the same objective, and the same objective is to increase the participation of minority groups in the industries where Government contractors perform work for the Federal Government.

The key element that is characteristic of all of these plans, both in and out of construction, is the use of an old management tool, the establishment of a goal and a timetable for reaching that goal.

As a single plan, the Philadelphia plan has now completed its second year of operation. It was a plan that called for the setting of goals with timetables for reaching those goals for six crafts in the construction industry in Philadelphia. We have just reported the results at the end of the second year. That plan is more than meeting its goals in terms of percentage of hires.

One place we have not met our own private goals is in the spread of these plans to other cities. There are so many different local circumstances that we have had to come up with new plans and variance of existing plans. We have used the Philadelphia-type plan now in a handful of cities.

Mr. FLOOD. For the record, will you tell us what is the Philadelphia plan, what is the Washington plan, and what is a so-called hometown plan? Define these for the record.

Secretary HODGSON. We will provide that for the record. (The information follows:)

THE PHILADELPHIA PLAN

The "Philadelphia plan" is an equal opportunity compliance program imposed by the Department of Labor that requires bidders on all Federal and federally assisted construction projects exceeding $500,000 to submit affirmative action plans setting minimal goals for the utilization of minority man-hours. The plan went into effect on July 18, 1969, in the Philadelphia area. Originally it covered only Government projects of Federal contractors and subcontractors. It was later amended in March 1971, to cover all projects of Federal contractors and subcontractors during the period they are working on Federal projects.

Six higher paying trades in construction are affected. They are: iron work, plumbing and pipefitting, steamfitting, sheetmetal work, electrical work, and elevator construction work.

The plan was imposed under Executive Order 11246 issued in 1965, which charges the Secretary of Labor with responsibility for administering the Government's policy requiring equal employment opportunity in Federal contracts and federally assisted construction work.

Under the plan the contractor is required to establish goals for the utilization of minority man-hours which are within the range set by the Government. These goals are based on a realistic evaluation of existing labor force factors in the area involved and are designed not to displace the existing work force. In 1971, the second year of the plan, the minimum goal for the specified crafts in terms of percentages of minority man-hours was 9.8. An Office of Federal Contract Compliance Audit for that year showed that minority workers actually worked 165.802 man-hours out of a total of 1,233,378 on federally aided construction projects in the Philadelphia area for an average percentage of 13.4 hours. This considerably surpassed the minimum average percentage goal of 9.8 percent.

If a contractor meets his goals, he will be presumed to be in compliance. However, if he fails he will not automatically be in noncompliance. A contractor must make every good faith effort to satisfy his goals, and providing such efforts are made, he will not be in noncompliance for falling short of his goals. However, it shall be no excuse that the union with which the contractor has a collectivebargaining agreement providing for the exclusive referral fails to refer minority workers.

Two contractors covered by the Philadelphia plan were declared ineligible for further Federal contracts because they failed to make every good faith effort to meet individual commitments to hire minority workers during 1971. Debarment has also been recommended for a third contractor.

THE WASHINGTON PLAN

The Washington plan, like the Philadelphia plan, is an equal opportunity compliance program that requires bidders on all Federal and federally assisted construction projects exceeding $500,000 to submit affirmative action plans setting minimal goals for the utilization of minority employees. It was the first plan imposed by the Department of Labor to cover all projects (not merely Government projects) of Federal contractors and subcontractors during the period they are working on Federal projects. The plan, which was put into effect on June 1, 1970, affects 11 trades. When the plan was imposed, the first year ranges set for minority employment in the 11 covered trades averaged from 10.8 percent to 16.9 percent. After 1 year, employment of minorities was running within the ranges set by the plan. In June 1971, minority workers accounted for nearly 16 percent of the total man-hours logged in covered construction work in the Washington area. Of the 11 covered trades, involving 89 contractors and subcontractors, three surpassed their first-year ranges for minority employment, four were within their ranges, and four were below.

A HOMETOWN PLAN

A "hometown" solution plan is an equal employment construction compliance program, developed on a voluntary basis by local communities. OFCC assists the local community in drawing up a hometown plan to cover both Government and non-Government projects. A committee, usualy composed of representatives of the public, labor, industry, and the minority community, normally administers the plan. Craft operations committees, composed of employer, union, and minority community representatives are responsible for implementing the plan. Hometown plans also have provisions for imposed goals when the signatory contractors do not make good faith efforts to meet the minimum goals agreed to under the voluntary part of the plan.

As of April 10 there were 45 voluntary hometown plans in existence. In addition, there were five plans imposed by the Department of Labor including the Philadelphia and Washington plans and one court--imposed plan in Seattle.

Although the majority of hometown plans are in metropolitan areas-for example, Boston, New York City, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami-there are a number of plans that cover a wider geographic area-for example,, Alaska, Rhode Island, and Delaware.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PROGRAM

Mr. FLOOD. You have a big, rather new program, occupational safety and health. And there you have a bear by the tail. We had the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission before us the other day as you know. They want a 50-percent increase in the 1972 budget and a fivefold increase in the estimate for 1973 because of the big increase in the number of your actions that are being contested. Go ahead.

Secretary HODGSON. It is a new program because it is just a year old, and in 1 year we have entered a field the Federal Government hasn't been in before, the comprehensive standards for occupational health and safety in the American work place. This means that some people are going to work under some obligations and some regulations they have never worked under before, and some employers are going to have to meet some requirements that they have never worked under before.

Mr. FLOOD. You realize that every member around this table and every Member of the House and I am sure the other body is getting stacks of mail and many telephone calls on this matter. When I

went home for Easter I got many a punch on my chest. People stop you and say, "What about this?" I go in to buy a pair of socks or a hamburger or something and somebody else has a question. This is going on nationwide. It is murder when we go home to our district. Secretary HODGSON. It is murder around our place too.

First of all, I would say it was nothing that was not expected, for two reasons.

No. 1, this covers most every enterprise in this country, 5 million establishments in this country. The problem of getting those establishments acquainted with what the law requires of them is in itself a massive problem. Mr. Guenther and his crowd have engaged in a massive promotional effort to accomplish that, but that takes time.

Second, the purposes of the act have been imperfectly accepted by a great many. They still believe that somehow the requirement of the act really shouldn't apply to them, and those are the particularly difficult cases. So we get a combination of these two kinds of complaintsyou are asking me to do something I didn't know anything about or to do something about something I don't think I should have to do, or it shouldn't be in the law. We are having to approach these things with skill and in as vigorous a way as we can.

We get complaints from both sides: Employee groups, particularly represented employee groups, on the one hand, and on the other hand organized labor is concerned we are not pushing enough.

Mr. FLOOD. Management says you are doing too much and organized labor says, "We need 2,000 more examiners. Finally after 100 years we have the law. We need 2,000 more examiners last night to properly enforce it." What are you going to do about it?

The Commission told us almost all of the cases so far appealed to them are from management.

Secretary HODGSON. And 62 out of 63 bills that are before the Congress to revise our legislation are to make it less onerous on management. Nonetheless, we believe that we are proceeding in an evenhanded way, in a fair way, and we have decided we are not going to foist upon the industrial world of this country a bunch of incompetent, untrained inspectors who are massively hired and not hired without regard to qualification.

So we are moving forward with the hiring of these people as rapidly as we think we can hire trained people.

Mr. FLOOD. In the past, sometimes we have felt that the labor part of the labor-HEW bill was just a minor appendage. But not you, mister, not now. You are center stage. The Department of Labor, in this year of our Lord 1972, with these new laws and these railroad and construction problems, and now this tremendous big occupational safety and health program, you are no longer offstage in the wings. You know that.

Secretary HODGSON. There is no question about it. What we need is support from this committee to get the amount of help in terms of dollars we need and in terms of personnel, and we have asked the amount that we feel we can effectively utilize in terms of dollars and the amount of people we can effectively train and integrate into the organization and operate in a controlled manner for the coming year. Some, I suppose, will think anytime you try to almost double the size of an organization and double the amount you are requesting