(The editorial follows, but here’s joanie-f’s encapsulated version):
A local printing company, R. R. Donnelly & Sons, was politically extorted into paying $610,000 for discriminating against minorities in their hiring practices. Why? Simply because Donnelly is a government contractor (the kiss of death for any company that wants to remain competitive), and thereby required to abide by hiring guidelines established by OFCCP (the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) …. and Donnelly required applicants (1) to have a high school diploma, and (2) to possess the ability to fill out the job application form. By the OFCCP’s definition, such requirements discriminate against minorities.
So....
Donnelly has been advised to:
(1) spend $30,000 a year on area outreach programs (translate that: politically correct, psychobabble-based programs designed to keep pseudo-victims situated in their pseudo-victimhood).
(2) make cash payments to 1,179 minority applicants who were not hired because they did not have a high school diploma and/or they were unable to fill out the job application.
(3) Provide jobs for an additional 68 people who were originally overlooked due to the (terribly unreasonable) guidelines.
Thinking of investing your money in R. R. Donnelly now or in the future? Throw it down a manhole. You’ll get a better rate of return.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Editorial:
Bureaucratic nonsense
Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
August 10, 2002
There are times when the desire to be fair overwhelms common, sense. Take last week’s story about R.R Donnelley & Sons for example.
The commercial printing company agreed to spend $610,000 to settle charges that it had inadvertently discriminated against minority applicants at two Lancaster area plants by requiring applicants to have a high school diploma or the equivalent and to complete the application forms they were given.
According to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, those requirements are discriminatory. The settlement is said to include payments to 1,179 minority applicants who were not hired as a result of the company’s policy of using the guidelines. The company also agreed to provide jobs for an additional 68 people who were originally overlooked due to the guidelines.
If you think this case turns logic on its head, you’re correct.
R.R. Donnelley is a government contractor and therefore must meet a different kind of litmus test than most firms in its hiring practices. And while there may be jobs in which a high school diploma is unnecessary, the ability to fill out an application form - even with the help provided - would seem to be a basic requirement for employment anywhere. That includes the federal government which requires applicants for federal jobs to possess a high school diploma or the equivalent. Yet, in this case. government auditors have the authority to require a government vendor to lower its hiring standards.
The OFCCP’s implication that the hiring practices discriminated solely against minorities also is incorrect. It is not just minority applicants who lacked the education or ability to read. As Donnelley spokesman Michael Winn noted, some of those who were “accidentally filtered out” were not minorities.
And OFCCP’s proposed remedy - that Donnelley spend $30,000 annually on outreach programs in Lancaster - is less than the $40,000 the company already spends annually on outreach. Winn said Donnelley intends to raise the amount to $50,000.
The Rev. Ronald Taliaferro, president of the Lancaster County Chapter of the NAACP, has said discrimination exists in hiring practices in the Lancaster community. No doubt he is right.
But Donnelley has attempted to increase its minority hiring and has worked to diversify its workforce.
Rather than requiring vendors to lower their employment standards, the federal government should encourage those companies to offer additional programs that would upgrade their workforce. The ability to read, comprehend and follow instructions is basic to any job.
The auditors’ “solutions,” in this case, are not solutions at all. They are a prescription for greater problems in the future
However, I want so much for them to succeed and get out of the "community of impossibilities" built up by Jesse Jackson and the Foundation for Hopeless Broadcasting, that I make a great effort to engage these kids in conversations about where they are at.
After a few minutes, they relax and suddenly they begin to actually speak English.
You know it's there all along, but the thought police have these kids bullied so much, the kids are afraid to be ...
Individuals.
R. R. Donnelly & Sons
Great company, based upon my spending time in their shops in New England and elsewhere.
They are serious engineers, fabricators, machinists, machinery operators, etc., because they produce almost 24 hours around the clock, and the equipment must perform --- and safely.
It is not environment for people who "have a 'tude."
It is not sedate, like the automobile plants.
The workers are tough and quite often know the machinery's tempermment beyond what "executives" from other companies would ever care to.
While at R. R. Donnelly & Sons, the suits whom I met, really did know their business: MACHINERY. They know it can kill you, or cut off a part of you, "just like that."
This move by the feds (that's Bush still running 75% of the Clinton Administration) sounds like Clintonistas "leveraging" a decline in standards, so as to help new work-related accidents to increase, and thus feed union-istas with trumped up causes for propaganda.
Press equipment moves at very high speed; it's some of the fastest manufacturing out there.
We wrapped 273 magazines per minute, off the line in Old Saybrook (near Essex, CT).
It is extremely dangerous work.
In another plant, we set up four lines, wrapping magazines for four GIGANTIC Toshiba presses. Each press was the size of 3 locomotive engines lined up --- that's twelve locomotive engines' worth of steel, running at high speed, yet fixed stationary to the very thick plant floor.
The scene looked like something out of a James Bond film. Each press line had a staff of interpreters from Japan; very nice, attractive Japanese ladies; they looked like airline stewardesses. The setup men did not speak English, yet scurried about all day long, building these machines; they were also in uniform.
They had cultural pride, but no "'tude."
I imagine that once in a while one or two of those guys gets crushed flat; we never heard about it in the news.
One of my jobs was to make the machinery work as fast as possible without breaking. I constantly tuned machines to the breaking point and then just "backed off a hair."
Parts wear out fast. The next thing you did not know, is that a hydro-stop failed and the next time a tool arm comes around at over 290 ft/sec, it crushes everything in its path ... kinda hard on the unprepared.
When flying, and as passengers, we must be able to read and understand the aircraft safety procedures pamphlet, that would apparently be "discrimination" for the "affirmatively employed" who are being herded about by the OFCCP?!
...no purchases would be allowed "that would cause the company to be covered by or responsible in any way for compliance with" three federal laws or executive orders that deal with equal employment, affirmative action and discrimination. The company also will not accept purchase orders or even cash if the items are being used by the federal government.