I certainly commend you on your suggestion that the Congress above all ought to be looking into a national pattern for the public employees, just as we ostensibly have developed a national pattern for crime control. Perhaps if we were able to come up with a program that would do equity to our employees we might find other public groups adopting it. The lack of information in that area is appalling. I commend you on your suggestion.

Mr. UDALL. The gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. HOGAN. I have no questions except to thank you for coming and giving us the benefit of your views.

Mr. UDALL. I was going to comment further. We have fought this perennial battle about regional wages. In connection with the postal employees we have now passed that buck to collective bargaining. Beginning very shortly under the new bill, if the President signs it, and I think he will, that will be a matter of negotiation. The timehonored problem, however, is, if you are going to have regional wages, what is the region, who is in and who is out? Everyone would agree Washington is a high-cost area. As you go outside of Washington, at some point you are going to have a road and on one side of that road you get the high wage and on the other side the low wage. Where do you find the road?

Maybe, just as a thought, the thing that you have suggested (of a housing allowance), of a base national salary, and add the housing allowance to that. One thing that you can really zero in on, in my judgment and experience, is the cost of housing. You can find in any area what generally it costs to find a 3-bedroom house

Mr. PATERNO. That is why I brought it up.

Mr. UDALL (continuing). Of a particular style and maybe you key your additional allowance to housing. Housing is the real problem in New York. Groceries are not that much higher than are other things.

Mr. HOGAN. I suggest that you look first at Prince Georges County. Mr. UDALL. Which has such effective representation in Congress. Mr. PATERNO. I picked FHA because I figured the statistics were readily available and would go into almost any community in the United States.

Mr. UDALL. We thank you again for coming.

This will conclude our hearings this morning. We will reassemble tomorrow morning at 9:30 for the final round in this series of hearings. The subcommittee stands adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 11:12 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 9:30a.m., Friday, July 31, 1970.)

(The following statement was received for inclusion in the record:) ADDITIONAL STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY VINCENT J. PATERNO, PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CIVILIAN TECHNICIANS

I would like to take this opportunity to amplify certain facts contained in my testimony on July 30, and to add other pertinent comments. The committee's displayed interest in my projection of housing cost supplements to national pay scales, based on Federal Housing Authority cost surveys, was rewarding. This method would provide some degree of equity and balance to the "equal pay for equal work" rationale. The further interest voiced in the problems of labormanagement relations was appreciated.

Pay comparability is a complex task and cannot be reached by simple surveys of labor statistics. Too many jobs in the Government service are not capable

of simple comparability. The broad range of fiscal dealings, the noncomparable military functions, the nonparalleled regulatory functions, the unique range of services, the multilevel desks of decision (or lack thereof), and the simple vastness do not lend themselves to any easy survey. Can the profitmaking enterprise compare with government? A career service with a hiring marketplace? A system of bonuses, prizes, profitsharing, and real collective bargaining with a public service system with none of them?

Neither can the Federal Government look to lesser governing bodies since it must be the pace setter and the ultimate arbiter. The incentives to performance cannot be solely financial but must display the parity of dignity and reasonable living circumstances. The pay structure must reward dedication, seniority, innovation, talent, and experience. It must remark to the public that, "This is your man-a good man-the best we can find to serve your needs and laws." If the costs of good government are high, the costs of bag government are higher. To achieve equity in pay and working circumstance there must be meaningful dialogue between the employees and those agents of government who direct them. The union or employee organization has a role differing from the private sector. It must accommodate a dedication to the national interest while it pursues the interest of its membership. It must be more democratic, less corrupt, extremely responsive, and particularly informed within the rang of their representative area. The agent of government must be prepared to enter consultation, other types of discussion, or negotiation, as equals and without the patronizing attitude that they know best or are solely responsible to the public. Questions of withstanding issue must be posed to objective panels with prior resolution of acceptance. A well managed and democratic public employee union and a well managed and democratic government are capable of mutual decision. If these statements lack cynicism, or what some might call reality, it must be remarked that the course must be charted before you embark.

I must request equity and comparability for the national guard technicians I represent. Public Law 90-486 excluded these employees from receiving overtime pay for overtime worked, limited them to compensatory time. This has placed them in a completely different circumstance than other Government employees and is both unfair and effectively demeaning. It excuses personnel and budget managers from programing needs and gives rise to arbitrary personnel usage decisions without the usual discipline of costs. I ask specifically that the legislation be amended to erase this discrimination. We ask comparability with other Federal employees.

I wish to thank the committee for its interest and actions on behalf of all Federal employees. Thank you.

COMPENSATION IN THE FEDERAL CLASSIFIED

SALARY SYSTEM

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1970

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMPENSATION,

COMMITTEE OF POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:45 a.m., in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Morris K. Udall (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. UDALL. The Subcommittee on Compensation will come to order. We hope to complete this morning the series of hearings we have been having this week on H.R. 18403, H.R. 18603, and various pending proposals for improvement in the structuring and functioning of the Federal salary system.

We have scheduled six witnesses this morning from several organizations representing Federal employees. I had contemplated the House would not be in session today and that we would have a full 211⁄2 hours this morning. The House, unlike its usual practice, is going to have a session this morning. I am told they are starting at 11 o'clock. However, we will carry on these hearings unless we have to interrupt them, and try to get everyone in this morning.

For these reasons I am going to ask the witnesses, wherever possible, to summarize their testimony and give us the gist of it and assure them we will read very carefully the entire testimony and take it into account in making a decision.

With that understanding, the first witness this morning is Mr. Vincent Connery, president of the National Association of Internal Revenue Employees, accompanied by Mr. Tobias, the national staff counsel.

We are glad to have you with us, Mr. Connery. You have always been very helpful to this subcommittee and we welcome your thinking. STATEMENT OF VINCENT L. CONNERY, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INTERNAL REVENUE EMPLOYEES, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT M. TOBIAS, STAFF COUNSEL, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INTERNAL REVENUE EMPLOYEES

Mr. CONNERY. My name is Vincent L. Connery. I am president of the National Association of Internal Revenue Employees. NAIRE is the official spokesman for over 40,000 employees in the IRS, where for over 30 years we have been the principal union.

We are happy to meet again with this subcommittee and offer our views concerning the critical legislation on pay comparability now pending before you.

When I say "pay comparability" I do so advisedly, since I realize that one of the bills pending before your subcommittee-H.R. 18403contains a wide variety of important provisions in addition to those creating machinery for the regular adjustment of Federal pay scales. These provisions are all very sound but they do not directly concern us. Our organization is interested today, only in the proposed legislation aimed at reforming the pay system and achieving comparability. Specifically, this means section 2 of H.R. 18403 and the entire administration bill, H.R. 18603, referred to your subcommittee only late last week.

As this subcommittee already knows, NAIRE has long been a strong proponent of institutional reform to insure the prompt and accurate adjustment of Federal salaries so that the wages of Federal employees will stay abreast of their counterparts in private industry. We must take action to eliminate the timelag hitherto prevailing between wage surveys and salary changes. The adjustment of salaries should be required at regular intervals and should be virtually automatic. Such reform is the object of both section 2 of H.R. 18403 and the administration bill.

The basic scheme of both bills is much the same. Each creates an advisory body on wages and wage surveys; each requires the President to take action on salaries at a designated time each year; and each, of course, is designed to implement the concept of comparability. There are, however, differences between the bills which, in our judgement, are critical.

The first of these is that H.R. 18603, the administration bill, seems to contemplate the automatic implementation of salary adjustments each year, provided the President does not elect to withhold the pay raises because of a national emergency or other reason pursuant to the authority set out in section 2. H.R. 18403, on the other hand, obliges the President to submit his proposed pay raises to Congress and prescribes a 60-day waiting period. In the event of congressional inaction, the proposed adjustment would then go into effect.

Frankly, we can see little virtue in this 60-day waiting period. If the new machinery for pay adjustments is to reform the status quo, then it must be made as automatic as possible. Congress should actually delegate to the executive the power to raise salaries to the comparability level. The 60-day waiting period is an unnecessary step in the procedure. Such delay thwarts what would otherwise be a smooth and fair adjustment of Federal wages.

Needless to say, if at some future time Congress should find itself displeased with the manner in which the executive discharged its responsibilities under this act it could simply change the act. But if we are serious about streamlining the system for maintaining comparability, then we should go the whole route. Congress should delegate to the President the power to raise wages in accordance with the surveys and to do so with the full force of law. This subcommittee, of course, would continue to keep the new operation under careful scrutiny. Time would tell how well it worked. I happen to believe that it would work very well indeed, and would eventually become another landmark re