Abstract
The affirmative action plan, employment records, and personnel practices of the National Bank of Greenwood, employing 138 persons in the Indiana town of 20,000, were subjected to a grueling inspection by Labor Department staff for more than two years starting in 1979. The staff changed frequently, repeatedly demanded more and different information, and then rejected what it had demanded. “We feel,” the bank president said, “that... [the Labor Department] has taken over... [our] personnel function.” Such ordeals have often occurred, especially when contractors were developing personnel records to meet the complex and often unrealistic government affirmative action requirements. Setting aside the manifest incompetence and unreasonableness of Labor staff, the experience reflected the conflicting goals of bank and Labor officials. The bank sought to treat all applicants and employees fairly; Labor, to increase the number of women and minority employees, especially in better-paid jobs.
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