ABSTRACT
In 1965 federal contractors were specifically required, under Executive Order 11246, to take affirmative action to assure nondiscrimination in such employment activities as transfers, recruitment, upgrading, compensation, and apprenticeship training. In 1968 federal contractors were required, further, to develop written affirmative action plans with goals and timetables to correct equal employment deficiencies. In the mid-1960s a number of studies examined the position of blacks in employment. The compelling finding was that obstacles to black employment in industry were substantially due to the discriminatory practices of federal contract employers, which hindered black movement into, among others, the aerospace industry, the automobile industry, the steel industry, the hotel industry, the petroleum industry, the rubber tire industry, and the chemical industry. Word-of-mouth recruiting, providing inexpensive advertising for the employer, is "probably the most common recruitment device in the nation". At AT&T, for example, "almost all new hires" were obtained through employee referrals.
