to indulge in practices that are in violation of the ordinary rules of the set-up. Mr. Ross. I would say that we have never taken any action that could be construed as offering special privilege to any minority group. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES REQUESTED Mr. TABER. You are asking for a very large percentage increase in the number of employees. Why are you asking for practically a 25-percent increase in the number of employees? Mr. Ross. Our case load is going up and our ability to handle cases, as shown in the data, is decreasing. ACTIVITY LIMITED TO WAR EFFORT Mr. TABER. As I understand it, your activity is limited to the war effort. It would be a very sad situation, if you were approaching the problem properly, if the number of cases continued to increase after 3 or 4 years of operation. What do you think about that? It would seem as if you were at the point where your work load should be down instead of up. Mr. Ross. The complaints that come to us are the index of our activity. I do not think the numbers of complaints that come in are any index of the amount of discrimination that is happening in war plants. It is a national situation, Mr. Taber, which nothing but circumstances and the war need have created. I think the addition of those Negroes to the war effort that I have talked about necessarily touches on the business of racial competition for jobs. That is everywhere in this country, wherever minority groups are in contact with majority groups. That is borne out by our experience in opening up new offices in New Orleans and Pittsburgh. We have sent men there because there were situations that needed handling; and perfectly spontaneously cases have been brought in there. It is a sad commentary that so much discrimination, with its potentialities, exists; but it is there. PRESENT NUMBER OF POSITIONS Mr. TABER. You have set up here 141 positions. The Budget has set up 140 man-years and a little fraction over. It is 140.8. That is shown on page 6. Ordinarily the man-years, as the result of lapses and all that sort of thing, will run anywhere from 10 to 15 percent below the number of positions. I do not understand why your set-up is not based upon about the maximum amount that other governmental agencies would have. Mr. Ross. Mr. Taber, I think Mr. Jones has the best information on that. Mr. JONES. Mr. Taber, the number of positions in this agency is very small. Our percentage of employment in those positions has been very high. At the moment we are employed up to our ceiling. Mr. TABER. What is your ceiling? Mr. JONES. It is 117 positions. We have 117 persons employed as of this monent on our staff. Mr. TABER. Will you give us a break-down of where they are? Mr. TABER. I mean, your present employment. Mr. JONES. That is right. That is shown in the column headed "total positions, 1945, 117 positions." They are all filled. Mr. TABER. And they are all positions that you have at the present time? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. We are fully staffed and expect to be fully staffed at June 30. The lapse that we anticipate for next year is related, some part of it, to these 117. Our turn-over rate is low. Of the additional 24 positions requested 20 are in the field and will be spread over 20 offices. We do not anticipate too much difficulty in filling these 20 positions, and accordingly the estimated lapse rate is low. I grant that if the number of positions, professional and others, were very high, certainly turn-over alone would reduce the actual number of man-years to approximately 10 to 15 percent below the number of positions. That is not true here, because we stay filled up. We are staffed right up to the limit. The work load in the field offices and in the central office is far heavier than any of the persons should be expected to carry. It is best indicated in the leave records of our professional employees. Very rarely do they take an extended vacation or anything of that sort, although the policy is to permit 2 weeks' vacation a year to keep persons in their jobs, only rarely do our professional employees take that much time. We have concentrated every effort upon keeping the offices fully staffed, so that we might avoid an accumulation of backlog and so we may spread as much staff as possible within our limited funds to handle the many problems that come before us. Last year when we appeared here we had not had sufficient experience in the field for one characteristic of our operations, a notable one, to appear. It is that of cooperation and assistance to other agencies. We based out estimate almost entirely upon the case handling function. We note that now, with over a year of operation, we are repeatedly called upon by other agencies and by private industry to assist them on problems on which we do not necessarily have a complaint or a case, but these are definitely situations that are within our jurisdiction with problems which, through our assistance, are readily solved and handled to the aid of the war effort. We estimate approximately 9 man-years for that function. It is a function that is contemplated and depended upon by the War Manpower Commission. They call upon us frequently to assist them in problems where we may not have a complaint. The Conciliation Service and others call upon us when they have problems. We do not inject ourselves into these matters; they come to us, and we are under an obligation to assist them because of the provisions of our Executive order and the specialized abilities that we have. REQUESTS FROM OTHER AGENCIES FOR LABOR Mr. Ross. May I suggest, Mr. Taber, that Mr. Fleming is the regional director in the Philadelphia area, and he is here today in case any experience in the field would interest you. Mr. FLEMING. In reference to the calls we get from other agencies for help, the particular region in which I am regional director includes the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. We have had numerous requests from the United States Conciliation Service, especially in the Pittsburgh steel area, from Army Ordnance, from the Labor Relations people of the Army and Navy, from employers themselves, and sometimes from the unions to come in and help in a disturbing labor situation or manpower situation, where in every case there has been practically a cessation of production. The Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation has used us several times. Most of those times it was the United States Conciliation Service which wired us or got us on long-distance telephone and said, "Many thousands of tons of steel will be tied up. There are some minority group workers involved, and we are sure you can help." We always sent a man into Pittsburgh before we had a regional office there, where 30,000 tons of steel might be tied up, or something like that. We got a request not only from the United States Conciliation Service, but from the directors of the Jones & Laughlin Co., one of whom happened to be in Washington and telephoned both the national office and our office in Pittsburgh. So we had a Government agency and a very responsible member of management asking us in that instance. We had to rush a man by plane to Pittsburgh. That is because it was felt that it was important. On at least two occasions when the Army and Navy labor relations departments had difficult cases, and the United States Conciliation Service, too, they have asked our men to go into plants. We have had at least one man who just stayed in a plant all night. I could list several companies; but that is the kind of request we get from Government agencies or management. Mr. CANNON. Is there anything further? Mr. TABER. I do not think I have anything more now. PRESENTATION OF ESTIMATES TO THE BUDGET BUREAU Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. When were your estimates presented to the Budget, Mr. Ross? Mr. Ross. About January, I think. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Why were they not presented before that time? Mr. Ross. That was their request, sir; they set the date. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. That is the only request you had from the Budget? Mr. Ross. Yes, sir. AMOUNTS EXPENDED FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS AND PENALTY MAIL Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You have furnished me, I think, with a statement of reallocations upward during the past year? Mr. Ross. Yes, sir. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I wish you would put something into the record that will show the amount expended for penalty mail and also for publicity and public relations by fiscal years since your organization was set up. Mr. Ross. Very well, sir. (The information requested is as follows:) STATEMENT OF AMOUNTS EXPENDED FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS, JUNE 25, 1941, THROUGH MARCH 31, 1945 The committee's entire responsibilities under Executive orders 8802 and 9346 are administered and made effective through persuasion and negotiation. In a froad interpretation the entire committee program may be defined as public relations; however, the data presented below covers only specialized informational activities. The costs include those for distribution of information within the agency as well as for external public distribution. All items other than personal services represent a pro rata distribution of direct and indirect costs. STATEMENT OF AMOUNT EXPENDED FOR PENALTY MAIL, FISCAL YEAR 1945 The Committee on Fair Employment Practice has been billed by the Post Office Department for the cost of handling penalty mail during the fiscal year 1945 as fodows: First quarter. Second quarter. Total (6 months).......... $117.00 183. 90 300. 90 Billings for the third quarter have not been completed, but the committee's volume of outgoing correspondence indicates that the rate of expenditure for the second quarter will be repeated in the third and fourth quarters of this fiscal year. FIELD OFFICES Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Your field set-up is represented by how many local offices? Mr. Ross. Fifteen. Nine of those are offices located in cities where the War Manpower Commission have their offices, regional offices. The others are in cities like Detroit and New Orleans, where we found that we needed people to process cases. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You say you have nine regional offices. What do you call the other six? Mr. Ross. Subregional offices. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You are asking for a total of 83 in the field. That means that you run around 5 or 6 per office on the average? Mr. JONES. This contemplates the establishment of a total of 20 offices. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You have 15 now, and you want to set up 5 Mr. JONES. Five additional offices. more? I would like to point out that we do not have in mind a fixed pattern of offices. Whenever the problem that we handle becomes stable in any area where we have a suboffice that office will be closed and moved to a more critical area. Our staffs, as you can see, run a little in excess of an average of four per office, including clerical. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Are they the present offices, or do they include the new ones? Mr. JONES. That list includes the new ones. Mr. Ross. The actual employment is on the left. for 1946. Mr. JONES. The blank items under "Actual" that are not now open. This is requested would be the ones Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Norfolk, Indianapolis, Memphis, Denver, and Seattle? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. OTHER OBLIGATIONS Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I notice that under "Other obligations" there is a 39-percent increase requested, and I think each and every item shows an increase over what you have been using during the current year? Mr. JONES. That is correct. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Where is that broken down in the justification? Mr. JONES. In the green sheets, which appear in the printed document of the Budget submitted to the Congress by the President. I can insert it in the record for you; that is, a comparison with other obligations by fiscal years for 1944, 1945 and 1946. (Informal discussion off the record.) TRAVEL, COMMUNICATIONS, ETC. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. There is a 20-percent increase in "Travel”; a 25-percent increase in "Communications"; a 25-percent increase in "Rents and services"; over a 25-percent increase in "Other contractual services," and a 15 percent increase in "Supplies and materials.” Mr. Ross. May I point out how really thin a coverage we have at the present moment. We have 37 field examiners covering 48 States and the District of Columbia. In visiting our Detroit office a few months ago I found 1 man there with a case load of 158. It is beyond the possibility of a man to process that many cases; and a delay in the processing of a case is serious. It can become aggravated. We simply had to transfer a man up there. We have comparable situations in a lot of places over the country. (Informal discussion off the record.) INCREASE IN SALARY OF CHAIRMAN Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Does this change reflect an increase in the salary of the Chairman from $8,000 to $10,000? Mr. Ross. The Chairman's salary was $10,000 at the beginning of his incumbency, but the Senate Appropriations Committee cut it $2,000 last year. |