at a dollar a year, plus expenses, to sever their relations with private industries and devote all of their loyalty and energy to the Government. I am not insinuating that they are not loyal. I think that would remove them from possible public criticism. Do you feel that way about it, Mr. Emmerich?

Mr. EMMERICH. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And to that extent this would be in the interests of national defense.

Mr. EMMERICH. That is true.

Mr. JACKSON. I do not see why these dollar-a-year men should draw salaries from private industries if they spend full time here in Washington.

Mr. MANASCO. They are not subject to the draft and therefore we could not get them otherwise.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the answer. The Government would not be able to pay those salaries.

Mr. MAÑASCO. Mr. Knudsen used to receive a salary of about $450,000 a year.

Mr. BECKWORTH. If they cut down the manufacture of automobiles, Mr. Knudsen's company would not be able to pay him as much as he was receiving.

Mr. EMMERICH. I might say that Mr. Knudsen gave up his entire salary with his company when he came to the Government.

Mr. BECKWORTH. I understand that to be true.

Mr. MOSER. In line with what the witness said with respect to the salaries received, of course, the salaries of men like Mr. Stettinius, Mr. Knudsen, and some others are far beyond the scope of anything the Government in normal times needs. When they came here to serve the Government, they could not be paid salaries of consequence and therefore they received only a dollar a year each. I do not think they should be criticized for continuing to receive salaries from the companies with which they were once connected.

Mr. Knudsen severed all connection with the General Motors Corporation, you say?

Mr. EMMERICH. Yes.

Mr. MOSER. I noticed in the newspaper of last night that the stockholders of Republic Steel Co. are suing for sums advanced Tom Girdler as chairman of that company, it being alleged that they were excessive. Now the Vultee Aircraft Corporation has employed him as its head at the same time he is president of the Republic Steel Co.

Mr. BECKWORTH. As a general rule, do the dollar-a-year men devote practically all of their time to serving the Government, or do they constantly go back to their own businesses a day or two a week? I ask that to learn whether their connections prohibit them from rendering as full service as they would render if they were regular employees of the Government, in the ordinary sense of that term. Mr. EMMERICH. Many of them render absolutely full-time service. Mr. BECKWORTH. Would you say that a vast majority of them render a full-time service?

Mr. EMMERICH. Yes; I would say so.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now adjourn, to meet at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Thereupon, at 12: 10 p. m., Tuesday, December 16, 1941, the committee adjourned, to meet at 10 a. m., Wednesday, December 17, 1941.)

TO FURTHER AMEND THE CLASSIFICATION ACT OF 1923

AS AMENDED

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1941

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,

Washington, D. C.

The committee this day met at 10: 15 a. m., Hon. Robert Ramspeck (chairman) presiding, for further consideration of H. R. 6217.

STATEMENT OF ISMAR BARUCH, CHIEF OF THE PERSONNEL CLASSIFICATION DIVISION, UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

The CHAIRMAN. The first witness this morning is Mr. Baruch, Chief of the Personnel Classification Division of the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. BARUCH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I think it might be well and helpful to members of the committee at the beginning if I should try to explain the general structure of this amendment, H. R. 6217, to the Classification Act, so as to show at the outset that the design and the structure of the amendment conforms to the design and structure of the original Classification Act of 1923.

The Classification Act of 1923, which came about as the result of an inquiry made by a joint congressional commission, was enacted March 4, 1923; and it has been administered since July 1, 1924.

Among the reasons which actuated the Congress in establishing this joint congressional commission were the chaotic pay conditions arising out of the first World War, at which time there was no systematic method in existence for relating the pay of individual positions properly to the work involved in those positions.

The Commission developed a plan and method for accomplishing that, which plan and method were incorporated in the Classification Act of 1923.

That plan has a number of ramifications, but, briefly, it is like this: First of all the Congress placed in the statute a rough break-down, a rough occupational break-down of the positions in the District of Columbia, that is to say, in the departmental service. That first break-down consisted of five groupings called services in the act. That is where we get such names as the clerical, administrative, and fiscal services, the professional and scientific service, the subprofessional service, the custodial service, and the clerical-mechanical service.

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The Congress went farther with respect to those break-downs and took each service and broke it into grades of difficulty and responsibility of work. In other words, in the professional and scientific service, for example, all the positions ranged from the simplest and most elementary kind of professional and scientific and technical work up to the top, including the most exacting and responsible positions in the professional and scientific activities of the Government.

So that we have the whole range in the professional and scientific service covering all levels of difficulties and responsibilities. The Congress broke up that service horizontally so that a certain number of these zones resulted. There are eight in the professional and scientific service which the Commission can use at the present time, into which it may place positions; there are 15 in the C. A. F. service, and so forth. For each horizontal zone the Congress attached one and only one pay scale, one range of pay.

So that this particular type of action, the breaking down of the classification system by law into services and zones of difficulty and responsibility called grades, resulted in attaching to each zone a definite pay scale that was not variable. This gave Congress control over the pay plan involved in the Classification Act.

Administratively, in order to secure the objective of a proper relationship between pay and work done the Congress placed the duty and responsibility of placing individual positions in these grades in the Civil Service Commission; and that work is done by a job analysis process by classifiers who are members of the Commission's staff.

The Classification Act has this particular type of design: it has a service, grade, and salary range structure which you will observe is carried forward in the proposed amendment in H. R. 6217.

Another feature of the Classification Act is that it applies uniformly to all occupations and departments within its scope. All departments and all types of occupations are subject to schedules of pay scales properly related among themselves. That is another feature that H. R. 6217 endeavors to carry forward. So that, in brief, the amendment in design and construction and in what might be called general policy of legislative drafting conforms to the original Classification Act.

The advantage of that particular kind of design and construction has been shown on previous occasions when the Congress has desired to change the pay scales, as it did by the Welch Act of 1928 and the Brookhart Act of 1930, when the service and grade design and general structure were maintained, and at the same time the pay scales were changed. Without changing the classification of positions or their relation, one to the other in the classification scheme, the Congress, maintaining or revising the service and grade structure, can alter pay scales in the light of the fundamental relations expressed in the service and grade structure.

This amendment, H. R. 6217, has a number of objectives, all of which are devoted to correcting some inequities in pay scales that exist and have existed for some time. This is not exactly an emergency measure at all. It is one of the types of amendments which the Commission would favor if we had normal times before us. Since we have abnormal times, the proposition that is being set forth in H. R. 6217 is certainly accentuated.

It is my purpose, if the committee pleases, to explain the major things which this bill does, so that members of the committee may have a clear picture of what the bill will accomplish in terms of results. The things that the bill does may be listed something like this: First, it establishes a $1,200 minimum annual rate for all full-time adult workers in lieu of the present minimum of $1,020 a year in the subprofessional service and $1,080 in the custodial service.

It takes care of, in connection with the establishment of this minimum, the part-time char force, for which it is proposed to raise the present hourly rate of 50 cents an hour for charwomen to 55 cents an hour and the hourly rates of head charwomen from 55 to 60 cents an hour.

Second, it establishes a minimum annual rate of $1,500 for building guards in lieu of the present minimum of $1,200, and it adjusts the salaries of officers of the guard force, such as sergeants, lieutenants, and captains, so that those positions will remain in the same grade relationship if this amendment should be enacted as exists today.

Third, the amendment proposes to establish a minimum annual rate of $1,860 for journeymen mechanics in lieu of the present minimum rate of $1,680.

Fourth, in the light of these minimums, the proposed amendment would reconstruct the pay scales in all grades of the custodial service, which is proposed to be known hereafter as the crafts, protective, and custodial service, so that the rates of pay for all classes of positions in that service will be properly correlated among themselves.

Fifth, the proposed amendment would change the number of grades at the top of the CAF service and the professional and scientific service, so that there will be five zones of difficulty and responsibility to which the Commission can allocate positions instead of the three that exist at this time.

Sixth, the proposed amendment would establish appropriate salary ranges for these five zones.

Seventh, the proposed amendment would establish a top entrance salary of $9,000 a year in lieu of the present top entrance salary of $8,000 of the Classification Act as it now exists.

May I talk on each of those points consecutively, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. We should be glad to have you do so.

Mr. BARUCH. The object in establishing a $1,200 minimum for all full-time adult workers is to create what might be called a social floor for positions under the Classification Act.

All studies that have been made of family budgets and family expenditures indicate, I believe, that $1,200 a year is a rather conservative figure.

The committee may wish also to bear in mind that in certain other services not under the Classification Act the Congress has established for laborers a salary of $1,500 a year. That is true of the postal service and the customs field service by virtue of the Postal Reclassification Act of February 28, 1925, and the Bacharach Act of May 29, 1928.

Most of the employees affected by bringing up the minimum in the custodial and subprofessional services would be in the labor groups and in the hospital attendant group in the subprofessional service.

On the basis of a sampling we made, not of the full group of positions in the custodial service, but about 61,000 of them, we estimate there are about 17 percent of all employees in the custodial service who now receive an annual salary of less than $1,200 each a year. Counting about 25,000 in the custodial service and about 8,000 in the subprofessional service, this particular item would directly benefit about 33,000 employees. As indicated a moment ago, we have also in the lowest-paid group in the custodial service the part-time char force. I think there are about 4,800 of them, most of whom or the majority of whom work about 30 hours a week. Our present rates, as I have said, are 50 cents an hour for charwomen, which rate would be increased to 55 cents an hour; and for head charwomen 55 cents an hour, which would be increased to 60 cents an hour.

The second major thing which the bill does is to raise the minimum annual salary for building guards to $1,500 a year in lieu of the present minimum of $1,200.

I believe that when the original Classification Act was passed there was at the same time in the civil service rules and regulations a provision permitting the employment of building guards without regard to competition from among those who were retired enlisted men of the armed forces and who were receiving pensions from the Government by virtue of military and naval service.

It has been said many times that the lack of competition, the fact that the Commission did not have to go into the market to hire guards, and the fact that the guards were already receiving retired pay from the Government, had at that time a very important effect upon the fixing the minimum salary rate for guards.

The situation so far as competition is concerned has changed, of course, and guards are now recruited in the same way as are the other occupational groups.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the only change in grade that the bill provides for in this particular service?

Mr. BARUCH. In this bill and in the writing up of definitions of grades in the custodial service the exact language of the present grade definitions is followed in every instance except with reference to the phrases which key the guard positions to particular grades. With regard to guards the phrases which key guard positions to grades has been lifted up one notch. Guards now in CU 3 will henceforth be allocated by the Commission to CU 4. I am referring to building guards.

We have in the building guard group a position of assistant to sergeant, which is now allocated to grade CU 4 and would be according to the pending bill allocated to CU 5.

We have positions for sergeants in CU 5, which would be changed under this bill to CU 6.

The position of lieutenant, now in grade CU 6, would be placed according to this bill in grade CU 7.

Then we have two classes of captain, the allocation depending upon the size of the force. We have them in grades CU 7 and CU 8, and they would be allocated to grades CU 8 and CU 9, respectively, under the pending bill. Exactly the same grade relationships that exist would be maintained among all members of the guard force; but each one of those positions goes up one notch in