A&M; TAKES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

A&M; Records will hire 50 inner-city youths this summer in what is described by a state official as the most ambitious minority-hiring program ever attempted by a Los Angeles entertainment industry firm.

The announcement comes less than three weeks after the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People accused the U.S. record industry of being “rampant” with racism and warned of possible boycotts if conditions for blacks don’t improve.

In announcing the summer program, Gil Friesen, president of A&M; Records, said plans for the pilot project have been under way since fall.

“I don’t want this to look like we’re simply responding to criticism from the NAACP or the Black Music Assn. or anyone,” Friesen said Thursday. “When we met with the NAACP as part of its investigation (in January), this was something we told them about.”

Still, Friesen agrees with some of the NAACP’s highly critical report. That report, “The Discordant Sound of Music,” estimated that 25% to 30% of the record industry’s revenues are generated by black artists--but, added NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks, blacks “are almost totally excluded from positions of authority and responsibility” within the industry.

Responded Friesen: “I don’t think that I have the background, sociologically or culturally, to try and make sense out of why that inequity has taken place. I don’t think there’s any inherent prejudice in the record business. I think it’s partly a lack of vision, and a lack of taking the time to consider that we’ll be a richer industry--and I mean that in quotes--and a more creative community, for being more racially mixed.”

Is A&M; better than the industry norm when it comes to hiring and promoting minorities?

“I wouldn’t hold A&M; up as an example of a company that’s ahead of the industry,” Friesen said. “But I hope that with this program we can make progress.”

To Al Dave, district administrator, Los Angeles region of the California Employment Development Department, the fact that A&M; is launching this program sets it apart from the rest of the entertainment industry.

“I’ve been in this business for 20 years,” he said, “and to my knowledge, this is the first time any company from the entertainment industry has stepped forward and said it wanted to set up a (major) summer youth program.”

“What I like about this program is that it’s a real step up from nepotism,” Dave said.

At a dinner at the February National Assn. of Record Merchandisers convention in Miami, Friesen looked around him at a roomful of record executives and knew something was wrong.

“I realized, ‘God, this is a white industry,’ ” he said Thursday. “It’s just shocking how white it is, and no one needs to be blamed--that’s the way it’s been for a long time, and for a variety of reasons. And I thought that we--A&M--had; better do something about that.”

Under the summer program, 40 unemployed, inner-city youngsters from the Los Angeles area--and 10 more inner-city students in Atlanta, New York and Chicago--will be given $5-an-hour jobs within the record industry.

Applicants will be chosen from the 30,000 to 35,000 youngsters who apply to the Employment Development Department. Qualified candidates will be screened by the department, but final interviews will be conducted at the department’s downtown Los Angeles office by A&M; executives.

Youngsters selected will work as assistants in such areas as sales, marketing, accounting and promotion at the label’s La Brea Avenue headquarters and its branches. Though agreements with retailer and radio stations, teen-agers will also be placed at Music Plus and Tower Records stores and at radio stations including KDAY-AM and KJLH-FM.

“The number may not make a significant dent in the number of kids looking for jobs, but nowadays any dent at all is significant,” Dave said. “And at $5 an hour for 11 weeks when most summer jobs pay $3.35 for eight weeks, it will make a significant difference to the kids who have the jobs.”

Friesen also said the plan might seem like a drop in the bucket. “But listen,” he said, “the record industry hasn’t done a good job of developing new talent in its ranks at all, whether it’s with kids from the inner city or anyone else. So if we have 50 kids who are part of this program, and only five or six or a dozen of them end up in the record business, that’s a big improvement over what usually takes place.”

There was no immediate comment from the NAACP about A&M;’s project.