MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1938.

SYSTEM OF TRANSFERRING HIGH RANKING OFFICERS HAVING NO FLYING TRAINING TO THE FLYING CORPS

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM H. SUTPHIN, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE THIRD DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Mr. SUTPHIN. A disturbing situation exists in the flying branch of the Navy at the present time due to the system of transferring high ranking officers who have not had previous flying training or experience to the flying corps. This has a tendency to destroy the initiative of junior officers and is demoralizing.

An elimination of this practice would result in increasing the efficiency of the flying branch at the present time, as the junior officerwho have spent many years flying are certainly more familiar with the duties of flying than one who had not had any previous experience. Mr. UMSTEAD. Mr. Sutphin, have you had flying experience?

Mr. SUTPHIN. I have.

Mr. UMSTEAD. In what capacity?

Mr. SUTPHIN. I was a captain in the Army during the war.

Mr. UMSTEAD. I believe that you are now a member of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House.

Mr. SUTPHIN. I am, sir, and serve on the aeronautics subcommittee. Mr. DITTER. In your opinion is the matter upon which you have just made your observation one of the incidents of the present selective system that prevails in the Navy?

Mr. SUTPHIN. The selective system in my judgment is demoralizing. but due to my contact over a period of years with numerous flying officers I am of the opinion that such a law would certainly be most beneficial to the service.

Mr. DITTER. Such a law as you suggest?

Mr. SUTPHIN. Such as I suggest; yes.

Mr. DITTER. The condition about which you make your observation arose to some extent out of the present practice of retiring involuntarily trained avaiation men in the Navy, did it not?

Mr. SUTPHIN. Possibly but not entirely.

Mr. DITTER. And these trained aviation men of the Navy who were involuntarily separated from the service as a result of the selective board go on the retired list, do they not?

Mr. SUTPHIN. They do. That is my understanding.

Mr. DITTER. So that the Government must pay the salaries of those aviation officers who are retired as a result of the action of the selective system?

Mr. SUTPHIN. I believe that is correct.

Mr. DITTER. Then to that extent a saving could be effected if these men who are involur tarily retired in the lieutenant-commarder group for instance or the commander group were not retired and were permitted to be advanced into the upper brackets, such as you suggest, in command of aviation?

Mr. SUTPHIN. Certainly.

Mr. CASEY. Would an action such as you suggest mean making the Naval Air Corps an independent branch of the service?

Mr. SUTPHIN. Not at all. It has nothing whatever to do with hat, sir.

Mr. CASEY. It would still be a branch of the Navy?

Mr. SUTPHIN. It would not interfere with that.

Mr. CASEY. Except that you would have men who had had experience in flying acting as officers rather than permitting inexperienced men to have command?

Mr. SUTPHIN. That is it in the higher grades.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1938.

CHANGE IN CLASSIFICATION OF PLANNERS, ESTIMATORS AND PROGRESSMEN

STATEMENT OF CHARLES I. STENGLE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

Mr. UMSTEAD. Gentlemen, we have with us Mr. Charles I. Stengle, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, who desires to make a statement to the committee. We shall be glad to hear you now, Mr. Stengle.

Mr. STENGLE. Mr. Chairman, I know that you are limited in time, and I have prepared a brief statement which I would like to have included in the record.

Mr. UMSTEAD. The statement may be included. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

HEARING, NAVY APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1938

CLASSIFICATION

Classification of planners, estimators and progressmen in group IV b: Proposed change in wording of bill outlined in attached memorandum. Letter from Assistant Secretary of Navy also attached.

SHORTAGE OF WORK

From time to time a shortage of work results in lay-offs and dismissals. This can be remedied by equalizing, so far as possible, the building of naval vessels and distribution of repair work among various navy yards and also by giving as much work of this kind as possible to the Naval Establishment rather than to outside concerns.

AIRCRAFT FACTORY, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Conditions to be remedied at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia come about largely through a lack of funds. This results in periodic lay-offs in various departments of the factory. There are times when work is available, but due to lack of money it becomes necessary to delay work indefinitely or to transfer it to some naval air station.

In the engine-overhaul department in the Philadelphia factory, work standards are high both for volume and quality. However, requirements of the various overhaul bases of the Naval Establishment differ according to their locations. Some bases will overhaul airplanes, while other bases will overhaul for squadrons operating out of the base. Unassociated as the factory is with active operating squadrons, it is called upon to produce overhauled engines for delivery either by airplane or freight to operating squadrons. Each workman is impressed with the necessity for his work being of the highest caliber and for the product being a factory rebuilt job rather than a repair job. Despite the high quality of the work obtainable at the factory and the amount of work to be done, men have been laid off during the last year owing to lack of funds for overhaul work.

The Naval Aircraft Factory, in some of its work, operates in competition with outside firms paying lower wages. This situation has a direct bearing on employment opportunities for motor aircraft mechanics, general aircraft mechanics, and fabric workers who do work peculiar to an aircraft factory. These fabric workers cut and assemble target sleeves used by the Ordnance Department and manufacture parachutes and all parachute accessories. There are private concerns in Philadelphia and Trenton that do the same kind of work. These firms get a considerable amount of work which would normally go to the aircraft factory if those firms were required to pay aircraft-factory wages. This situation would not exist if private firms competing with the naval establishment were required to meet the conditions of the Walsh-Healy Act.

Lay-offs at the aircraft factory have not been confined only to the mechanical employees. Recently there was a lay-off of group IV-b employees, comprising clerical and technical employees, due to lack of funds. Previous to that there was a lay-off of group IV-a employees, largely technical workers in a supervisory capacity, also for lack of funds.

LABORERS

Discontent and dissatisfaction have been occasioned at the navy yards and stations by the employment of helpers and laborers at wages lower than necessary to maintain an American standard of living.

SUBMARINE BASE, NEW LONDON, CONN.

Eighty-one regular employees at the Submarine Base, New London, Conn.: Annual appropriation has been $145,000. To that there has for several years past been added some special funds for special work allotments from the Works Progress Administration. In those cases the yard has not secured help this year they have been having. If they could get $180,000 instead of the $145,000 all of the 81 regular employees would be employed throughout the year without any lay-offs. At present time they are working on a 4-day week.

NAVAL TORPEDO STATION, NEWPORT, R. I.

This station, in various departments, suffers from lack of personnel. Although the force has grown during the last several years (from 1,000 to 3,300), different departments, despite this increase, are handicapped by insufficient personnel. This is true, particularly in the clerical departments, and it has led to the neces sity for the older clerks continually to be breaking in “"green" employees because of a considerable turn-over.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES I. STENGLE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

PROPOSED CHANGES IN APPROPRIATION LEGISLATION TO EFFECT CLASSIFICATION OF PLANNERS, ESTIMATORS, AND PROGRESSMEN IN NAVY DEPARTMENT FIELD SERVICE

Planners, estimators, and progressmen in the field service of the Navy Department are seeking a change in their classification and pay status from group III to group IV (b). In group III are artisans who are performing mechanical duties, while group IV (b) comprises employees who are doing work of a clerical and technical character.

Ordinarily such a change in classification of employees could be effected administratively in accordance with civil-service law and rules. In the case of the employees involved, the obstacle in the way of changing their classification is a limitation in the appropriation law on the sum available for salaries paid to group IV (b) employees.

The classification of the group of employees involved may be effected either by eliminating the limitation on group IV (b) employees altogether or by so wording the language of the limitation that it will permit the inclusion of an additional specified group of employees, somewhat restricted in number in the IV (b) classification.

It is suggested that if the limitation is to stand, the words "Exclusive of planners, estimators, and progressmen who may be assigned to group IV (b)" be inserted, so that the limiting provision in the bill will then read as follows:

"Provided, That the sum to be paid out of this appropriation for employees assigned to group IV (b) and those performing similar services, exclusive of planners. estimators, and progressmen, carried under native and alien schedules in the

Schedules of Wages for Civil Employees in the Field Service of the Navy Department shall not exceed ** *

A similar way to attain the same objective would be to increase the amount tated in each limitation. Although the total sum involved in the compensation of planners, estimators, and progressmen is approximately $1,150,000, the inrease of the limitation would not add that amount to the total sum of the approriation but would call for only a bookkeeping transaction to transfer funds from one account to another.

The actual increased cost to the Government has been variously estimated at $10,000 to $12,000. This is explained by the fact that there are about 300 emLoyees affected and the adjustment of pay from a per diem to an annual basis ould necessitate an increase of approximately $40 a year per man.

Advantages accruing to these employees from a change in their classification Lclude the following:

1. Increased pay of about $40 a year per man.

2. Better opportunity for promotion, since there would be a broader range in the annual salary schedules.

3. Retirement would be delayed 8 years, since these employees who are now in the 62-year group would be transferred to the 70-year group. Thus the value of their expert knowledge based on long experience would be available to the Government 8 years longer.

4. They would be classified according to character of work. Although they are selected from the ranks of highly capable mechanics at the navy yards, these men are no longer actually performing mechanics' duties. The services of this group are doubly valuable because the men have a mechanical background and a thoroughgoing knowledge of mechanical processes. Their present duties, however, are of a technical and engineering character, combining practical experience with technical knowledge gathered through study and experience in their work as planners, estimators, and progressmen.

NOTE.-Planners and estimators are selected from fully qualified mechanics and assigned to duty in the planning division of a yard for the purpose of planning and estimating work. Progressmen are similarly selected and assigned to the production division for the purpose of progressing work through the various shops, the yard, and aboard ship. The chief and assistant chief planners and estimators are already classified in group IV (b).

THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY,

Washington, September 7, 1937.

My Dear Mr. STENGLE: During your committee's recent visit to the Department in connection with the proposed reclassification of planners and estimators, it was brought out that apparentlyy ou had not received a reply to your letter of June 17, 1937, on this same subject.

Earlier this spring, the Department was in receipt of two petitions from committees of planners and estimators at the navy yards, New York and Norfolk, respectively. While it is believed that you are familiar with the contents of the Department's reply of June 2, 1937, I repeat that reply as an answer to your letter of June 17, in order that your records may be brought up to date:

"The petition of the planners and estimators as submitted in their letter of March 10, 1936, requesting that their status as group III, mechanical, be changed to the status of group IV (b) employees, has been under consideration by the Navy Department for some months. While the Department is somewhat in sympathy with the reasons advanced for the proposed change there exist certain difficulties which prevent this change being made. Among these difficulties are

the following:

"(a) The necessity for increasing the limitation in the current appropriations which it is estimated would total about $1,100,000 per annum to take care of all such employees at the various yards and stations.

"(b) The problem of including the salaries of group IV (b) employees in the cost of work performed instead of being charged direct to the appropriations named in their appointments, as has been the custom for many years.

"Until these difficulties have been removed, it is not practicable to approve the transfer of planners, estimators, and progressmen from group III to group IV (b)."

Sincerely yours,

Mr. CHARLES I. STENGLE,

CHARLES EDISON, Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

President, American Federation of Government Employees,

Washington, D. C.

Mr. STENGLE. If satisfactory to the committee, I would like to emphasize only that portion which has to do with and which has reference to planners, estimators, and progressmen in the field service of the Navy Department who have been seeking a change in their classification and pay status from Group III to Group IV (b).

Now, briefly, these men we are talking about are skilled mechanics. and were transferred to the Technical Division and are doing extremely important work in the Navy.

APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE DOES NOT DETERMINE RECLASSIFICATION OF EMPLOYEES

Mr. UMSTEAD. You understand, do you not, Mr. Stengle, that this committee does not determine the reclassification of employees? Mr. STENGLE. I am fully cognizant of that, Mr. Chairman, but I think you will see later why I come before this committee.

In your previous appropriations when you had provided for the funds covering these together with other mechanics and technical men you have provided a sum to be paid out of this group assigned to IV (b). I would like to have you put in these few words:

Exclusive of planners, estimators, and progressmen—

So that it will be possible for the Department to provide a proper departmental classification for these experts. It does not call for much extra money; it is largely a case of bookkeeping. It will require only $12,000 to cover 300 men. This is due to the fact that it requires only $40 a year per man to put them in the classification where the Department would put them if it were not for this inhibition that has been in the appropriations heretofore.

We have taken up the matter with Assistant Secretary Edison, and I have included his letter in that statement I have filed. He says:

While the Department is somewhat in sympathy with the reasons advanced for the proposed change there exist certain difficulties which prevent this change being made.

And he refers to what I have referred to:

Until these difficulties have been removed, it is not practicable to approve the transfer of planners, estimators, and progressmen from group III to group IV (b.

You understand, Mr. Chairman, doubtless that these men are picked men from the mechanical line who are put into a higher class of work, technical work, because of their long experience, and they are extremely valuable in the work in the navy yards.

However, Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact that I heard you say a moment ago that Secretary Edison would be here tomorrow, I should be delighted to have you bring this subject to his attention and see just exactly what his views are on it.

SUBMARINE BASE, NEW LONDON, CONN.

Recently I visited New London, Conn., where is located the United States submarine station. After a careful survey I discovered these facts, that the Government is employing there as permanent employees 81 expert mechanics in the line of work necessary to produce successful submarines. Heretofore the appropritaions have varied, sometimes going up as high as two hundred thousand-and-some-odd dollars, and