pensates for an almost complete absence of Negro supervisors in charge of major operations. On the daylight tour in the main office, they were conspicuous by their absence as heads of any operation.

The major operation is housed in a giant mausoleum built in 1914. In some areas the ceilings could have given adequate space for the Wright Brothers to make their first test run. The cost of heat, lighting, and air conditioning which must have some trying time to perform its proper function, must play havoc with the post office budget. But don't worry, the budget won't suffer too badly because, I understand, they haven't painted certain sections of that post office in 30 years. Plaster cracks from water seepage continue to go unplastered; broken windows that show their age by a massive accumulation of dirt remain as they are. There must be a drastic shortage of janitorial service, and if there is, I understand there was a previous recommendation that there be a reduction in the custodial service. If it is true that such a recommendation was made, I would say it was made with an utter disregard for the health and welfare of the employees, which in itself is a matter of grave concern. While I heard a discussion of one employee who was out with tuberculosis, I am wondering how many more have contracted this germ or other respiratory diseases or eye diseases that could come from such an accumulation of dirt.

If proper dieting or a decent meal is necessary to maintain their resistance against sickness, then the employees are fighting a losing battle. It's hardly possible to get any type of meal from the hodgepodge of vending machines that seem to be under the management of one company. Surely, in the big city of New York, which is the headquarters of many vending machine companies that offer the latest in glamorized food automation, there could be better service in automated food dispensing. Lest I forget, I did see an unsanitary fly-producing can opener that is used to open canned soup. If you are lucky, you might be near that one location for the coffee machine, but if you are unlucky you'll get daily training in a long distance obstacle course.

If all this hasn't seemed bad enough for the health and morale of the employees, management decided to curtail operations in many stations where the employees at least had some elbowroom to work more efficiently and bring them into general post office, where, in most instances, they were already overcrowded. Again, I say, such a decision seems to have a total disregard for the health and welfare of the employees and there certainly is some question as to whether it has made for a more efficient movement of the mail. It certainly seems a gross waste of the taxpayers' money to see millions of dollars' worth of automation machinery sitting idle. If you think the conditions on the inside are bad then the outside conditions on the loading docks must be torture in the winter months. There was neither heater nor canvas drops to knock off the icy winds of winter, neither were there any coffee machines reasonably near to give a little internal warmth. We won't attempt to place the blame for the conditions we've found in the New York Post Office, nor can we say the conditions here are the worst until we've checked the rest, nor can we say that the new acting postmaster and his staff will not correct the conditions that are within their power until they have been presented to them. But we do know the postmaster has requested a report of our findings with a promise to take whatever corrective measures possible.

Mr. SMITH. These are only some of the instances we have found. They are by no means all of them. In Indianapolis, I remember going down a series of dark, narrow steps into a subbasement where neither the light, the heat, nor the ventilation was adequate. It was damp, and in comparison, our ancient catacombs were a desirable place to live or to work.

In this connection I might say that most frequently, when you go into the less desirable areas of these post offices, these are the areas in which the minority group people are more likely to be concentrated.

SENIORITY

There is at least one area in which a requirement of years of service works against the morale of young talented ambitious employees. If the employee enters the service he knows that whatever his ability he must wait in his present level for 4 years before he can even take the examination that will qualify him to advance to a supervisory level.

FAVORITISM

This is a vicious practice rife in the postal service of which racial discrimination although the most obvious, is not the only manifestation. Despite Executive Orders 10925 and 11246, two of the strongest proclamations against racial or religious discrimination in the Federal service and despite specific regulations implementing these orders, an employee's race or religion may still play a larger part than his ability in determining whether he will or will not move upward. The MexicanAmerican and Puerto Ricans who have been denied postal employment. the Negroes who have been bypassed for promotions or preferred assignments, the instances in which minority group employees have been assigned to train white employees in a job only to see that employees get the job for which the trainer was certainly best qualified, the outside training that is secretly given to chosen employees so that when the job becomes available, he, and only he, is qualified to fill it, all these practices that militate against minority group and female employees embitter them. It is worth nothing, at this point, that minority group employees and women are a majority group in most of the large cities through which the major volume of mail moves.

The experience of a Negro employee who moves through the seniority process in a section where promotions have regularly gone by seniority, he becomes senior man in his section, expects the next promotion to be his and then seeing someone brought in from another installation or agency to take over the position he had every right to expect, this experience is all too common and the postal regional offices are among the chief perpetrators of this shell game.

In addition we find that a group will come in entering the postal service. They will be mixed groups, racially, and they will be assigned to a certain section for 2 or 3 days. Later we find the Caucasian members of the group have disappeared from the workfloor and, when an investigation is made, we find they have been assigned to offices or to much more desirable assignments. This is not the sort of thing that makes one happy to be a postal employee.

And in connection with the pay, I would like to say that pay means something more than money in a society such as ours. I think every

body enjoys money, but pay has become a status symbol in America and a person's importance to the society is likely to be fixed by his salary. For years, on this basis, the postal employee could hold his head up with some assurance and say, "I work for the Government," because at this point he felt he certainly was not among the lower paid people of that society. And if the pay that a man receives is the value that that society attaches to his services, we definitely feel that the postal service is an extremely valuable service to the American people and to the American economy and to the world, and if its employees are not paid on that basis they are not likely to be too proud of their jobs, and if they are not proud of their jobs they will be looking for a way to get another job as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Mr. Nix. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. I can assure you that the Post Office and Civil Service Committee has evidenced its deep interest in the pay of Government workers, particularly of postal workers. I think it is reasonable to say that is a continuing and deep interest.

On the first page of your statement you mention training. What do you suggest as a substitute for the type of training employees are presently receiving?

Mr. SMITH. I don't know that I am so critical of the type of training as the amount of training. Knowing the hardship I suffered when I entered the postal service, I have made it a practice whenever I go into an office that has a training section, to ask the training officer if he is satisfied with the training program he is carrying on, if it is sufficiently manned and sufficiently financed. I have yet to find a training officer, when he is not in the presence of a supervisor, who will say he has an adequate training program.

The Training Institute that was set up manifested to me a new interest in training at the departmental level, but, in order to be adequate, this type of institute will have to be decentralized and made available

lot more employees. These are training devices largely concentrated on middle management, and I think middle management is important, but I think more intensive training for employees to become initial supervisors is necessary and also more adequate training for people entering the postal service for the first time.

Mr. Nix. I think, Mr. Smith, it would be most helpful to me if there had been submitted a critical analysis of each complaint. Let us take training as the first topic. I would like, in making a determination, to have before me your analysis of that which is in being, your criticism of that which is offered as a substitute, and its shortcomings. Having those factors before the subcommittee, we would be then in a position to ask management to come in and answer what is put to them, and from the assertions on your part and the answers furnished by them, one might well arrive at something constructive in any given field.

Mr. SMITH. I think it is well to emphasize that all this training, all along the line, has to go on simultaneously. I am reminded that in Chicago we had a reasonably adequate training program for people entering the service. They were given 7 or 8 hours a day of training that, in my opinion, was along the right line. But when they went on the floor, because the supervisors were not aware of the training they

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had received and perhaps were out of sympathy with the newfangled training the employees were receiving, it was difficult for the employees, when they went on the floor, to apply the training they had received. So it is important to have training all along the line. But we will work on an analysis of the type you mention.

Mr. Nix. On the second page of your statement, you speak of the unwillingness of Congress to adequately finance a training program. Of course, that might be applicable to the 90th Congress, but I don't think it could be stretched out to any great extent. But I would make the observation that having a critical analysis of the things that are wrong, one seeking to influence the Congress to take any given action would be in an infinitely better position. I have found that, in order to convince the Members of Congress or any other legislative body, one must approach the subject with a complete analysis of the problem at hand, and the case for the things sought must be conclusive. I don't think the Members of Congress would back away from doing something that had been shown to them to be absolutely essential and in the best interest not only of the Post Office but of the people in the country. This has been my experience of 11 years.

You mentioned something about the nonwhite people being placed in the least desirable positions. Is that because of the grade in which they find themselves?

Mr. SMITH. NO. What I am referring to here is people of the same grade and in the same craft and in the same offices, and I believe what I said indicates how this is done. When a large group of new employees comes in-and I recognize the fact that in many big offices right now when a large group comes in the majority are likely to be members of the minority group, racially, or female employees, so the fact they are minority people is not the important part, but they are brought in and perhaps put on the pouch rack, which is generally considered the least desirable job for clerks. In 2 or 3 days you look around and you find the whites don't stay there. They are drained away and assigned to office jobs or jobs on cases or jobs that have more sitting down involved in their operations. Finally, you see only the minority people working on pouch racks.

Mr. Nix. Do you attribute that to discrimination?

Mr. SMITH. It would be hard to attribute it to anything else.

Mr. Nix. Then I suggest that a cross section of those cases be documented and made a part of the record for the information and study of the committee. That is a part of the jurisdiction of this subcommittee and this subcommittee intends to shirk no responsibility.

Mr. SMITH. We have cases in our file that will substantiate this assertion and we will make them available to you.

Mr. Nix. You refer, also on the second page, to Executive Order 10988. Witnesses who appeared before this subcommittee yesterday offered critical testimony with reference to this Executive order. I then asked for an authoritative interpretation of the Executive order. I want to have the actions taken under it to determine the variance between the actions taken and the meaning to be found in the Executive order. The criticism yesterday had to do with subjects that had been declared nonnegotiable arbitrarily, which is a matter of grave concern to this subcommittee. It is of grave concern because I find it difficult to understand why anyone should have the sole authority to

say what is or what is not negotiable. I think it strikes the very basis of the principle of negotiation if one has the authority to say, "we will not talk about that," without having a discussion with the other party and reaching an accommodation on what can be discussed.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, at this point could I enter additional testimony on Executive Order 10988, because we are concerned with the whole concept of the Executive order.

Mr. Nix. Yes; I wish you would submit a statement, setting forth your experience and what you have gathered from others as the result of the application of this Executive order.

Mr. WILLIAMS. We will do that.

Mr. Nix. I want to say to Mr. Smith, Mr. Williams and Mr. Henderson, that I am very grateful for your appearance here and the contribution you have made. I look forward to having the documents I mentioned.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for your consideration. We will provide the material you have requested.

Mr. Nix. Our next witness is Mr. Harold McAvoy, president of the National Association of Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers, & Group Leaders, AFL-CIO. We welcome you, Mr. McAvoy, and you may introduce your associate and proceed.

TESTIMONY OF HAROLD J. MCAVOY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POST OFFICE MAIL HANDLERS, WATCHMEN, MESSENGERS & GROUP LEADERS, AFL-CIO, ACCOMPANIED BY ANDREW W. CARNIATO, ADMINISTRATIVE AIDE

Mr. McAvoy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the record, my name is Harold J. McAvoy. I am accompanied this morning by my administrative aide, Mr. Andrew W. Carniato. Mr. NIX. You may proceed.

Mr. McAvoy. My name is Harold J. McAvoy. I am the president of the National Association of Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers & Group Leaders, AFL-CIO. As you may know, the Mail Handlers Union has just recently merged with the Laborers' International Union, fifth largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Our union will continue to retain its autonomy as a separate craft in the postal service through its own division in the Laborers' International Union.

Mr. Chairman, what we have really done at this particular time, we voted a merger. Conditions pertaining to it have yet to be worked out. We have 1 year for the transition period.

We are grateful for the opportunity to appear here on behalf of all mail handlers in this country. We would like to express our appreciation to the chairman and all members of the subcommittee for seeing fit to hold these hearings on a matter that has many mail handlers concerned.

We believe a special compliment is due the committee and Chairman Nix for scheduling these hearings, because they deal so vitally with the human element in the postal service. And despite improvements in wages, fringe benefits, and other aspects of postal workers' lives; human compassion and consideration are sadly lacking today in the post offices of this country. They are lacking because of many fac