Mr. UDALL. I think the air traffic controllers and the traveling public are greatly indebted to the author of the book, "Airport," which rather dramatically brought home the problems of controllers.

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ruppe.

Mr. RUPPE. What percentage of the time would you say most of the air controllers at major cities put on actual controlling? They work a 50-hour week, but what percentage of the 50 hours would you suggest probably would be right at the scope or right at the air controlling effort?

Mr. LYONS. One who could answer that is the Los Angeles air route traffic controller, Mr. Bob Smith. It is amazing what is happening just at that center.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ruppe, in a normal workday the controller, time permitting, has 20 to 30 minutes off for his lunch hour, and maybe 15 minutes off in the morning and 15 minutes off in the afternoon for a coffee break. This is traffic permitting and personnel permitting. We do not staff for lunch breaks or coffee breaks. In a heavy traffic situation, it is quite common for controllers to have coffee brought to the sectors on a cart and you drink the coffee, traffic permitting, and oftentimes it goes cold because you just don't have time to talk to the airplanes and drink the coffee. At the same time, it is not uncommon to take your lunch home with you.

Mr. RUPPE. You do not really have any substantial percentage of your time available for training or learning suggestions and techniques that are coming down?

Mr. SMITH. None whatever. At the present time the authorized staffing at Los Angeles center, on the June figures, is 208 traffic controllers. These are GS-12 type traffic controllers. Our June staffing was 138 GS-12 controllers out of those authorized.

I would like to direct part of this answer to you, Mr. Udall. You asked Mr. Thomas or made the statement that it would take a couple of months' leadtime. I want you to be well advised that it takes 40 months or 32 years' leadtime for a controller at any center in the country.

Mr. UDALL. I probably misspoke myself.

Mr. SMITH. You said a couple of months, and I wanted to be sure you understood it is 312 years.

The passage of this particular bill will not improve the traffic congestion, because you must have airports to land these aircraft, but it will stop controllers from reluctantly working all the time. I do not think there are very many pilots who would be resting in much comfort if they thought the controller who was working with him really wasn't willing to be there.

Mr. Thomas stated controllers are not refusing overtime. We cannot refuse overtime legally. Controllers can lie. They can say they just had a drink, which would preclude their working traffic. Or they have had antihistamines. We cannot take any type of drug. We have a very limited number of drugs that we can take. The controller can say this and he is not coming in.

I started working the day shift yesterday, and a controller came to me and said we are not taking a militant enough stand on this. They want the ability to refuse to work overtime, because it costs them so much money.

As an example, I have an order right now in my pocket telling me to work overtime next Sunday. Next Sunday I will draw something around $2 an hour less because we get 25 percent additional premium pay for working Sundays.

Mr. UDALL. You draw less than your regular pay?

Mr. SMITH. Certainly, about $2 less than my regular pay, and I am a controller, not a supervisor.

Mr. RUPPE. Do you differentiate, as did several of the previous witnesses, between a man involved in operational work and particularly under stress and strain as contrasted to perhaps the executive people in the same pay category?

Mr. SMITH. Yes. They are not actually working the radar. They are not separating the aircraft. They may be responsible for my separating the aircraft, but they are not under the gun.

Mr. UDALL. Would some of your other gentlemen who have come from a long distance like to take a couple of minutes before we adjourn?

Mr. HAMILL. I would like to bring out a point about insurance. Lloyds of London dropped us. Usually they will insure just about anything. We had an insurance clause with them that if you get a heart attack or ulcer, if you lose your medical certificate, they would compensate you for it. With so many people losing their medicals, they dropped us. We are not covered by them any more. That was through another organization.

You mentioned that you came in and were holding over northern Virginia to wait to land at Washington on a clear, sunny day. Unfortunately, in the state of the art, no one has found a way to have more than one airplane land at a time. So, the time period you were coming in is the highest time for us with traffic coming down from New York. With the wind condition being what it is, with the various restrictions that are placed upon us, the ultimate number of airplanes would be, say, 35 to 40 airplanes in on one runway. Washington National Airport was designed in 1941. The Federal Aviation Administration said it can safely handle 60 airplanes an hour, of which this would be 30 arriving and 30 departing.

I have personally put 102 airplanes in and out of that airport in a given hour's time. There are other people who have put in over 115 airplanes onto that airport. This is being done with the idea that if one person says, "What did you say?" it is not going to work. This is the type of pressure that you are under. Nobody can make a mistake. You are operating at 99 percent of your efficiency 90 percent of the time.

Now we are being asked to go to 100-percent efficiency 100 percent of the time. This is where you are getting your slowdowns.

Mr. UDALL. I would like to have another 2 hours of discussion, because I am personally very much interested. In fairness to the full committee, I will have to break it up.

Let me suggest to those of you besides Mr. Lyons, who have come here at some difficulty, that if you would like to write a letter to the subcommittee summarizing what you would have told us if you had another 10 or 15 minutes, I would be delighted to have it for the record. It may be of some help.

Mr. LYONS. We will. We have facility personnel people here, too, and we will present that for the record.

Mr. UDALL. You do that individually to me as chairman of the subcommittee. Write me a letter telling us what you would like to have told us.

Mr. MAGUIRE. I know about the facility in Boston. Relative to staffing the facility, it is getting bad at the present time. If the traffic increases the way it has been increasing in Boston and other facilities, summer leave may possibly be cancelled. This means, of course, the staff being shorthanded and people working overtime; they probably will not be able to give anybody vacations next year.

Mr. UDALL. If anyone should have a vacation, the air traffic controllers should.

I will try to get the subcommittee together on Wednesday if we can find time, to mark up this bill, along with other pending bills.

The statement of Nathan T. Wolkomir, president, National Federation of Federal Employees, will be received at this time.

TESTIMONY OF NATHAN T. WOLKOMIR, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

Mr. WOLKOMIR. My name is Nathan T. Wolkomir. I am president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which has many locals and members in virtually all Federal departments and agencies including the Department of Transportation. The NFFE is the pioneer and the largest of all independent general unions of Federal employees. The subcommittee is addressing itself at this time to H.R. 18630, a bill to amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for the payment of overtime and standby pay to certain personnel employed in the Department of Transportation. The proposed legislation would revise section 5542 (overtime rates; computation) and section 5545 (night, standby, and irregular duty differential) to include certain personnel in the Department of Transportation. In regard to the overtime pay under H.R. 18630, the duties have to be "critical to the immediate daily operation of the air traffic control system, directly affect aviation safety, and involve physical or mental strain or hardship in which overtime work is therefore unusually taxing; and in which operating requirements cannot be met without substantial overtime work."

We understand that Federal aviation centers resort heavily to overtime. This is because the centers are operated at only 80 percent of authorized personnel strength. Thus an air traffic controller who comes to work on a sixth day on Sunday earns 20 percent less than the controller who works Sunday on a regular basis. According to an article written by Mr. David Hoffman, Washington Post staff writer, which appeared in the Washington Post, Sunday, July 21 1968, "Controllers are pleading sick when asked to work a sixth day. Or they're taking 1 day's sick leave for every day of overtime they work." While the NFFE does not subscribe to such broad and general allegations, it is quite conceivable that some employees may engage in these practices, particularly in a situation as we have here with the air traffic controllers, where the Federal Aviation Administration is taking advantage of the controllers by working them to the point of exhaustion without proper compensation. Under these circumstances it is apparent that legislation such as H.R. 18630 is urgently needed.

Mr. Chairman, the NFFE strongly supports H.R. 18630 which corrects the inequities which now exist for employees in the Department of Transportation insofar as their entitlement to overtime and standby pay is concerned. There is no logical reason for them to be excluded from overtime and standby pay and they should be entitled thereto as provided in H.R. 18630. To exclude these employees from overtime and standby pay is manifestly unfair. This and other grievances have been of long standing in the Department of Transportation.

The recent curtailment of category IV facilities and equipment projects in the Federal Aviation Administration and the reassignment of employees to maintenance positions was brought to our attention by our NFFE locals in FAA. I believe that this curtailment was not only unsound and contrary to the public and national interest but especially inappropriate in view of aviation's constant growth. The disruption of much needed improvement, indiscriminate realinement of technically qualified personnel, and virtually a complete halt on all new installation needs, all are indefensible on any ground and above all contrary to the highest public interest.

These actions are especially inappropriate in view of aviation's constant growth in sophistication and complexity of equipment used. This policy will place FAA in a retrogressive position while the industry which it is established to survey rapidly surpasses its capability. The impact of moving personnel about just to suit whimsical or immediate budgetary needs, inevitably will result in another typical "crash program" at a later date which will be far more costly and cannot fail to affect morale adversely.

It is our strong contention that the capabilities of FAA should be developed concurrently with the growth of the aviation industry. Personnel should not be shifted from outside into a facility. Cost reduction should be affected agencywide, not only by a selected group.

The NFFE has had much contact with the FAA administrator and members of appropriate committees in both the Senate and House on this subject. It is directly related to the trials and tribulations of air traffic controllers.

I observe that an identical bill, H.R. 18670, was introduced by Congressman Roman C. Pucinski of Illinois. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I wish to repeat that the National Federation of Federal Employees supports H.R. 18630 and we thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to present our views.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you. The subcommittee will stand adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.

(Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)