Greenberg Statement on Title VII (Employment) Conference

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139 

— 

President 

{ 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

me | 

PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 
ack Greenb 

egal efense und 
> oe ae 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL 
FUND, INC 

Jesse DeVore, Jr. 

NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JjUdson 6-8397 

Statement by Jack Greenberg, airector-couns
el, 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., 

10:00 a.m. studio 205, Summit Hotel, New york 

City, Friday, guly 19, 1968. 

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) will 

sponsor @ two-day conference here this week, July 19-20, to step up 
| 

the legal fight for equal empfoyment throughout the nation. 
| 

The conference convenes 14 days after the equal employment 

section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act pecame fully effective (Title 

VII of the Civil Rights Act became fully effective July 2). 
| 

As of July 2, the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Act expanded its 

| 

coverage to add 195,000 employers with 25 or more employees. 

LDF's own employment specialists, 
attorneys Robert Belton and 

| 

Gabrielle Kirk, will direct this first assemblage of private lawyers 

to implement the expanded coverage of Title VII. 

| 

This coverage represents an increase of 150 percent over the 
| 

number of employers covered previously and extends protection to an 

estimated 6 million more employees. 

The LDF leads all other agencies in representative
 Litigation 

against firms practicing racial discrimination
. At present it is 

handling 54 such suits, already having settled 26. We anticipate 

handling an estimated 100 cases by the end of the year- 

The specific purposes of this conference are? 

* to expand the number of employment Litigation specialists; 

* to develop and improve legal means of striking down the two 

most frequently used means of discrimination
 against minority 

group workers--seni
ority and testing; 

* to establish the LDF as 4 legal clearing house for defining 

new approaches. 

We believe a meeting of lawyers concerned with legal problems 

of equal employment for minorities will provide an invaluable oppor~ 

tunity to share experiences and expertise as well as to discuss the 

full range of avenues of relief. 

We hope that out of this meeting a deep understanding 
of the 

existing law will be gained and that strategies can be developed to 

establish further precedent in this area. 

Attending this meeting will be private practitioners 
who have 

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Statement by Jack Greenberg -2- July 19, 1968 

been in the forefront of litigation; representatives of governmental 

agencies concerned with equal employment; and professors who are 

learned in this area of the law. 

While heavy emphasis will be placed on job discrimination in 

the South, many of the southern firms that will be affected by their 

newly energized effort are subsidiaries of northern-based firms. 

Among the firms currently being sued by LDF attorneys are: 
American Cast Iron and Pipe, Seaboard Airlines, the United States 

Steel Corporation, Southwestern Telephone, National Cash Register, 

American Bakery Company, J. P. Stevens Company, Kaiser Aluminum, 

American Marine Corporation, Philip Morris, A&P Stores, Newport News 

Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, United States Pipe and Foundry, 

Sears Roebuck and Company, The Monsanto Company, and General Motors 

Corporation. 

Among the trade unions currently being sued by the LDF are: 

United Steelworkers of America, Local 205 of the Aluminum Workers, 

Local 203, Tobacco Workers International Union, P. Lorillard Tobacco 

Workers International Union, and Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers 

International Union. 

A myriad of procedural technicalities have been relied upon by 

recalcitrant companies and unions to impede attempts to reach trial 

on the merits of Title VII claims. 

Too often these efforts by defendants have been successful. 

Moreover, it seems that other tools of enforcing employment 

rights have not been employed to their full potential. The National 

Labor Relations Board, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and 

the United States Department of Labor, Wage Equalization Division, 

are such examples. 

By inviting representatives of these federal agencies, we hope 

to expand our role in representation and negotiation, which, when 

effectively used, can shorten or avoid litigation. 

We also want relevant government personnel to be fully aware of 

our expanded legal efforts. 

As we mentioned briefly above, employment testing and seniority 

are areas of grave concern. 

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Statement by Jack Greenberg =3- July 19, 1968 

With passage of the Civil Rights Act, many firms have altered 

their methods of restricting opportunity for minority workers. Many 

now give tests to persons seeking employment and promotion. These 

tests frequently are administered arbitrarily and are not valid 

gauges of ability. 

The problem of seniority is how to unravel threads of discrimina- 

tion which existed for years. Separate seniority lines are a viola~ 

tion of the Civil Rights Act, but in many cases it is not clear what 

is the best way that segregated lines can be merged or connected 

without destroying the seniority system. 

=30= 

NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a 
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP. Its correct desig- 
nation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educztional Fund, Inc., which is 
shortened to LDF.