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and consistent policies among the agencies responsible for administering the various equal employment opportunity and equal pay laws and orders.

As a fruit of such coordination, a significant share of the total enforcement effort is devoted to seeking large industrywide conciliation agreements. For example, the major steel companies and unions signed an agreement with the EEOC and the Labor and Justice Departments to expand job opportunities for minorities and women. The consent decree required revision of hiring and assignment policies, modified the seniority system, and increased training and advancement opportuni ties for women as well as for black and Spanish speaking men. The companies also agreed to $31 million in back pay to employees adversely affected by previous practices.

In late 1974 the EEOC and OFCC agreed to share investigative files; consult on the selection of industrywide, companywide, or regional compliance targets and on the scheduling of investigations; and develop mutually compatible policies, including minimum standards of remedy.

State Protective Laws

A study of laws affecting women workers prepared 10 years ago would have dealt primarily with the "protective laws" many States had enacted for women. Many of these laws had been developed early in the century in recognition of the fact that women had neither the organization nor experience to protect themselves from rigorous working conditions and low wages. Many States had laws to establish minimum wages for women, to regulate their hours and other conditions of work, and to require that they receive equal pay for equal work. Many of these laws antedated Federal regulation (which, when enacted, applied to both men and women). State laws that limited hours of work or weights that could be lifted, though supported by many women's groups, nevertheless posed problems for those women who did not want these restrictions to exclude them

from overtime, nightwork, and certain better paying occupations. As the workplace changed with automation, and as women developed experience in more skilled jobs during wartime, many saw that a major factor in women's low earnings was relegation to traditionally low-paid categories.

Little change in State laws took place until the Federal Government began to enact equal rights legislation. Even after enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the result of the period of transition from special protection to equal employment opportunity has been mixed, with many States following-but some States challenging-EEOC guidelines that would invalidate restrictive laws but would not invalidate laws whose benefits could be extended to men.

By and large, State minimum wage benefits have been extended to men. By 1964, about half were

enacted or amended to cover men and women; by now, all but three apply to both. Only one State repealed a minimum wage requirement for women. This State had a lower rate than the Federal minimum and Federal coverage is now far more comprehensive than it was in earlier years.

Premium pay for overtime remains an issue because a few States had required it for hours beyond 8 or 9 a day whether or not the weekly hours exceeded 40. the Federal standard. State administrations and Federal courts have differed on whether the daily premium pay requirements should be annulled or the employer required to pay it to both men and women.

Generally, special hours limitations for women have disappeared. In all of the 40 States that limited daily or weekly hours before the enactment of title VII, the restrictions have been removed or limited to the small employers not covered by title VII. State laws setting absolute limits on hours for both men and women generally apply only to very hazardous work or to jobs involving public safety, such as transportation.

A few States have examined proposals comparable to contract provisions won by some unions, requiring the employees' consent for extended overtime.

One State has provided hours protection for older workers and the handicapped only. Of the few States that set specific weightlifting limits for women, regardless of individual preference or capability, none is really enforcing such a standard. Nearly all have eliminated prohibitions on women working in specific occupations. Some States repealed requirements with respect to rest or meal periods and seats; some extended them to men.

Other Laws Affecting Women's Employment and Economic Status

As women began to achieve legislative goals directly affecting their employment rights, it soon became evident that a number of closely related areas affected their employability and economic status. High on the list was access to all forms of training and educational opportunity. Also important were the cost and availability of child care; social security benefits; private pensions; and access to consumer credit, purchase or rental of housing, and mortgage credit.

A number of programs affecting access to these benefits involved expenditure of Federal funds but there was no comprehensive ban on sex discrimination in all federally subsidized programs. In the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sex was a prohibited basis of discrimination in Title VII-Equal Employment Opportunitybut not in Title VI-Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs. Thus, separate laws were needed for each type of program supported by Federal money. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (approved June 23, 1972, as Public Law 92-318) states

that "No person in the United States shall on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

The law was intended to eliminate restrictive quotas and unequal entrance requirements for colleges and universities and to require equality of opportunity for fellowship and scholarship aid and access to all course offerings and services. It also reaffirmed earlier prohibitions of discrimination in employment.

Covered by title IX are public or private preschool, elementary, or secondary schools and institutions of vocational, professional, and higher education. Exempt are certain institutions controlled by religious organizations and schools for training individuals for the United States military services or merchant marine. With regard to admissions, the antidiscrimination provision applies to institutions providing vocational, professional, and graduate higher education and most undergraduate institutions. Private undergraduate schools are exempt from the admissions provisions, but their educational activities and programs must not discriminate against any admitted students.

Earlier legislation had prohibited discrimination only in federally assisted schools of medicine and nursing and other health personnel training programs. In recent years, legislation funding training programs administered by the Employment and Training Administration of the Labor Department (formerly known as the Manpower Administration) has regularly included a prohibition of discrimination based on sex as well as race, color, and national origin.

In late 1974 the Women's Educational Equity Act authorized development of nonsexist curricula, new methods for training educational personnel, new techniques of guidance and counseling and career education, community and continuing education programs, and women's studies centers. Although Congress has not yet appropriated funds, public and private groups in some States and cities have begun to publicize schools' use of stereotypes about women's roles and curriculum

omissions.

Anticipating the impact of the law, major publishers of textbooks have issued guidelines on avoiding language or pictures demeaning to women and on showing them in a wider variety of roles.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, enacted during 1974 and effective October 28, 1975, prohibits any creditor from discriminating against any applicant on the basis of sex or marital status. The act was the result of widespread and substantiated complaints of discrimination by creditors against women, particularly those who are divorced, widowed, or separated.

The law bans States from prohibiting the separate extension of consumer credit to each party to a marriage

when each voluntarily applies for separate credit from the same creditor. Congressional conferees on the bill made it explicit that in such cases the credit granted to an individual will be his or her sole responsibility.

As of April 1, 1975, at least 38 States and the District of Columbia had enacted legislation prohibiting some form of sex discrimination in credit transactions. The laws vary widely in scope and enforceability.

The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 contains specific provisions to eliminate sex discrimination in federally related programs. The law expressly prohibits discrimination against women in granting federally related mortgage credit as well as in a new program of community development grants.

Specifically, the act amends the National Housing Act of 1949 to prohibit sex discrimination in the extension of mortgage credit, Federal insurance guarantees, or related assistance. Lenders are now required to consider combined incomes of husband and wife in

granting federally related mortgage credit; usually in the past only the income of the husband was considered.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was also amended by the law to include a prohibition against sex as a basis for. discrimination in the financing, sale, or rental of housing or in the extension of brokerage services. Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin had previously been outlawed.

In 1973 women in the United States pressed Congress to recognize that the status of women within a society is one of the indicators of its level of national development and that United States aid to other nations should assist in the integration of women into the economies of these countries. An amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 now requires that U.S. aid programs be administered "so as to give particular attention to those programs, projects and activities which tend to integrate women into the national economies of foreign countries, thus improving their status and assisting the total development effort."

Proposed Legislation

Despite recent achievement of major legislative goals to prohibit discrimination against women in employment and education, a number of bills introduced in the 93d Congress were addressed to remaining problems in employment and the related subjects of pensions, child care, insurance, credit, and tax structure. Impetus was given to the formulation of such legislation when, in mid-1973, the Joint Economic Committee held hearings on the economic problems of women. Witnesses assessed progress for women under existing antidiscrimination laws, and explored women's access to credit and insurance; features of Federal income, estate, and gift tax law which have a disparate impact on women; the treatment of women under social security and private

pension plans; and sex discrimination in employment insurance, veterans' programs, and public assistance.

Since that time Congress has acted on discrimination in credit and taken first steps in pension reform. The promotion of part-time employment opportunities in Federal agencies received congressional attention but no final action. Other bills served to put forward ideas for discussion and future refinement in a variety of areas among which are the following:

Child Care Proposals

As the number of working mothers in the labor force has increased so has interest in child care facilities and programs. Among the proposals introduced were bills to set Federal standards for child care; to establish child development programs; to coordinate child care programs; to provide equipment, facilities, and personnel for child care programs; to set a uniform code for child care facilities; and to liberalize income tax deductions for the cost of child care.

Tax Proposals

Legislative proposals would have changed tax law provisions to reflect the increased importance of women and women family heads in the work force. Some proposals had conflicting or competing objectives. Tax bills would have extended to all unmarried individuals the full tax benefits of income splitting currently enjoyed by married individuals; provided for equal tax treatment of married individuals filing separate returns and unmarried individuals; extended the head of household benefits to unremarried widows and widowers and to individuals at least 35 years old who have never been married or have been separated or divorced for at least 1 year; and limited eligibility to file joint returns to marriage partners having equal ownership, management, and control of their income, assets, and liabilities; and liberalized child care deductions. Omnibus women's rights bills would have required the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to study and make recommendations with respect to the treatment of women under social security and tax laws. Insurance

Problems of sex discrimination in disability, health, life, and automobile insurance were also the subject of proposed legislation.

Status of Pending Laws

All pending bills die with the adjournment of Congress, but comparable proposals have been introduced in the new (94th) Congress in 1975. In addition, new bills would amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of marital status and would promote the use of flexible work schedules in Federal agencies so that employees could better meet the dual responsibilities in their personal lives and at work. One proposal already

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The landmark legislation and Executive orders described earlier in this chapter were enacted or issued under the existing constitutional authority of the Federal Government or the States. Many legal scholars, however, believe that it is desirable to amend the Federal Constitution to incorporate explicitly the principle of equality between men and women. Consequently, an Equal Rights Amendment dealing with a wider variety of issues than women's rights as workers (the focus of the earlier discussion here) was passed by the 92d Congress in 1972, and is now in the process of ratification by the States. (Amendments to the Constitution require a two-thirds vote of each House of Congress and ratification of three-fourths of the States after Congressional approval.) The proposed amendment reads:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any State on
account of sex.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by ap-
propriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This amendment shall take effect two years after the
date of ratification.

As of June 1, 1975, 34 of the requisite 38 States have ratified it.

Following the national trend, 13 States have adopted equal rights amendments to their State constitutions. In addition, there were equal rights provisions in the original constitutions of Utah (1896) and Wyoming (1890).

In the United States a series of Constitutional amendments have promoted equality among citizens. The Fifth Amendment (1791), among other things, protects citizens against arbitrary action by the Federal Government. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) protects citizens against arbitrary action by State governments and guarantees equal protection of the laws to all persons. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) guarantees that the right to vote shall not be abridged because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) guarantees women the right to vote, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 years.

In theory the language of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments is broad enough to ensure equality of men and women before the law. However, the Supreme Court, with rare exceptions, has ruled that women are not included in the definition of "person" and therefore are not protected by the 14th Amendment. It is this ambiguity concerning the status of women under the Constitution that needs clarification

by the Equal Rights Amendment. Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would strengthen Federal and State legislation and other regulations dealing with discrimination.

The steps leading to passage of the Equal Rights Amendment are described in appendix A, part 2.

Impact of ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment would require every State and local government, as well as the Federal Government to examine all laws, regulations, and government practices in order to remove unequal treatment of men and women.

It would, for example, assure equality in participating on juries, result in the nullifying of those State unemployment compensation laws that discriminate against women, and any laws that give the husband control over his wife's earnings or over property she has paid for. It would remove inequities, sometimes for men and sometimes for women, in the Federal social security system. Some Federal or State laws that have benefited only one sex would probably be extended to both.

Because of State equal rights amendments, the pending Federal amendment, or both, a few States have already begun to purge their laws of discriminatory language and of provisions which treat men and women differently. A few other States have taken preliminary steps along these lines.

At the Federal level, a number of steps, already initiated, will speed implementation of ERA once it is ratified. These are described in appendix A, part 2.

Assistance in Finding Employment

Both men and women in the United States typically use several methods, more or less simultaneously, in looking for a job. On the average, each worker reports that he or she tries about four methods to find a job. Most common, used by 2 out of 3 women, is direct application to employers. Asking friends about opportunities in the companies for which they work ranked second.

Direct application to employers was not only the most common way of looking for a job, but was the leading method by which women actually found employment. Answering newspaper ads proved to be the next most fruitful way for women to locate work.

About 3 out of 10 women use the government sponsored Federal-State system of employment offices to find work. This system provides those in the labor force or seeking to enter it, with major emphasis on special groups in the population, with a variety of types of assistance in finding employment. Included are counseling, testing, information on occupations, job development, and support services.

This Federal-State Employment Service was created in 1933 to facilitate employment of "men, women, and juniors." It operates in all States and the District of Columbia and has more than 2,200 local employment offices. The laws establishing the Employment Service (ES) as well as other employment and training programs are administered by the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. The ES and other government employment and training activities have always been governed by a policy of nondiscrimination. It is the official policy of the Employment Service:

• To promote employment opportunity for applicants of both sexes on the basis of job qualifications for nontraditional as well as traditional employment.

• To encourage acceptance and use by employers of hiring specifications based exclusively upon job performance factors.

• To promote employer acceptance of women workers on the basis of their qualifications, and thus provide fuller utilization of the Nation's total human resources.

In providing employment service to women, the ES staff has both legal and professional responsibility to: • Advise women of the full range of opportunities available, interpreting narrowly the bona fide occupational qualification exception as to sex, to provide few exceptions.

• Give full consideration to interests and aptitudes without prejudice.

• Avoid limiting referrals to lower paying jobs or to traditional "female" jobs.

In fact, however, the long tradition of limited and frequently interrupted labor force participation by women and of considering certain jobs as women's occupations and others as men's occupations has in the past had a substantial impact on actual functioning of the offices. Despite recent efforts to increase opportunities in new fields of employment, women job applicants to the ES are still heavily concentrated in clerical and service occupations, as the following tabulation and table 49 show:

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Of the women applicants in the year ending in June 1974, the ES placed 16.1 percent, compared with 17.3 percent of the men applicants (table 51).

Steps To Increase Placement of Women

In the past few years the Employment and Training Administration has taken a variety of steps to provide greater attention to placement of women. The Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training, who has responsibility for formulating and executing the Nation's employment and training programs, recently appointed a special assistant to represent the woman's point of view in his office. This special assistant, who is a woman, reaches into all phases of employment and training policy and programs to assure that women's concerns are effectively reflected.

The ES has developed an action program to strengthen and promote the employment of women through the ES offices. The plan outlines detailed steps to eliminate discrimination against women and reminds State agencies that job orders must not contain discriminatory specifications on sex and that referrals based on the sex of the applicant are prohibited except in the very few instances where sex is a bona fide occupational qualification.

The ES has developed a series of tools (including a self-appraisal system and monitoring activities) to assure that the State employment agencies will eliminate sex discrimination in providing employment service. Each State is required to submit a plan of service.

Guidance materials provided to the State employment agencies to give to women jobseekers include material of special interest to women, and deal with the status of women in the economy and job opportunities for

women.

Local agencies have been encouraged and helped to

Employers with Federal Government contracts are required to list all job vacancies with the ES. In its work with these and other employers, the ES tries to communicate equal employment opportunity require. ments with respect to women. By stressing the required qualifications, it can sometimes change employers' attitudes as to what they consider men's or women's jobs. The ES also will not accept job orders that specify the sex of the applicant.

Those with veterans' status, of whom over half a million are women, are provided special employment services. Women placed in jobs by State agencies receive a slightly higher starting wage than do men veterans, and the duration of their employment is about the same. The fact that many women have clerical skills facilitates their placement. There are, however, special problems with respect to referral and placement of women veterans. For example, there is sometimes failure to identify women veterans as such when they visit local employment offices. A number of actions are now being taken to correct these deficiencies, including cooperation with the Veterans' Administration to insure that women veterans receive all training and educational benefits to which they are entitled and to provide women with information on VA benefits.

In 1974 veteran status for purposes of employment services was expanded to include veterans' widows, and wives of some disabled veterans or of men missing in action.

Major Employment Training and Placement Programs

All programs that provide special education, training, and placement for disadvantaged labor market partici. pants include women; and their administration either

develop local information for mothers seeking adequate already emphasizes antidiscrimination efforts or is being

child care. The ES has joined other community groups to support increased and improved child care facilities. The local offices also provide information on low cost or publicly assisted homemaker services to working women who have responsibilities to care for aging or ill relatives. As part of its efforts to open jobs equally to men and women, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, in which jobs are identified and defined, has been revised to delete sex or age connotations from job titles. Most job titles in the Dictionary did not have such identification, but about 3,500 titles were changed. The only exceptions were those complicated or arbitrary changes that would produce unfamiliar titles or confusion. The exempted job titles include (1) those for which sex, or age, is a bona fide occupational qualification, such as "Leading Lady" and "Leading Man;" (2) those titles fixed by legislation or international treaties, such as "Able Seaman;" and (3) those for which no acceptable, meaningful neuter title can be found. In this case, dual male/female titles have been suggested.

changed to eliminate discrimination.

Comprehensive Employment and Training Act

A substantial portion of Federal employment and training funds are now used to implement the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA). This legislation eliminates provisions of earlier legislation allocating Federal funds for specific programs. Instead, it authorizes block grants to State and local governments for employment and training programs tailored to community needs.

The new training act specifically prohibits Federal funding of any programs that discriminate against

women.

While the Employment and Training Administration has the responsibility for reviewing and approving grant applications for comprehensive employment and training plans, it must rely on the judgment of the local community officials who are prime sponsors in determining the needs of their communities and the content

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