VI. CONCLUSIONS 1. Employees should be encouraged to discuss their grievances with and wherever possible to seek full settlement of their problems through their immediate supervisors. Supervisors should be trained by agency officials to accept their responsibilities for receiving and settling employee grievances. 2. In all instances where an agency contemplates taking an adverse personnel action, the employee should be furnished with a written statement of charges stating specifically and in detail the reasons for such adverse action. 3. With the exceptions noted later, every employee should have a clear right to a hearing in his own agency before an impartial hearing board with an opportunity to produce witnesses in any matter involving a grievance or an adverse personnel action. 4. Agency boards for the hearing of grievances and appeals should be made up of three impartial members, each having one vote, to be selected as follows: The first member to be designated by the employee for whom the hearing is held; the second member to be designated by the management of the agency; and the third member, who will serve as chairman, to be designated by the Civil Service Commission. 5. Consultants in specialized subject matter areas should be brought in by agency boards as necessary to furnish advice. 6. The functions of hearing boards should be standardized so that they (a) assemble all the facts, doing this to the extent desirable and necessary by obtaining testimony at first hand; (b) reduce facts to writing and add personal opinions as to the credibility of the testimony received; (c) make recommendations to the line administrator as to action or decision to be taken by him; and (d) in those grievance cases where it is appropriate and possible, conciliate differences. Hearing boards should not make decisions. 7. A detailed and carefully drawn handbook for the training of hearing board members should be issued by the Civil Service Commission. 8. When adverse personnel action against an employee is contemplated, any hearing should be held before rather than after the decision is made; and the hearing should be held if either management or the employee thinks it desirable. This should be the only level of hearing in the agency. 9. In the handling of a grievance action there should be not more than three stages (informal, formal, and review) of consideration in a large agency and not more than two (informal and formal) in a smaller agency. The informal stage should contain only two steps: conference with the immediate supervisor and, failing satisfaction there, conference with the head of the highest organizational unit under the administrative official who will make the decision if the case goes to hearing. The formal stage should contain only one step: the hearing and decision. The review stage should contain only one step also: the submission of a request by the employee directly to the office of the agency head for review of the record, and the decision based on this review. 10. In the handling of an appeal there should be not more than two stages (formal and review) in a large agency and only one (the formal or hearing stage) in a smaller agency. The formal stage should con tain only one step: the hearing and decision. The review stage should contain only one step also: the submission of a request by the employee directly to the office of the agency head for review on the record, and the decision based on this review. 11. Time limits for the handling of grievances and appeals should be established by the Civil Service Commission and enforced on both the employee and on management which (except in rare circumstances) would insure the processing of a grievance action through three stages or of an appeal through two stages within a reasonable time. 12. Agencies should not be required to extend appeal rights in the following instances: (a) Where probationary, trial period, or temporary employees are proposed to be removed for failure to measure up to the requirements of the job for which employed; (b) in circumstances where the employing agency has no latitude for administrative discretion; (c) in circumstances where the employee is recognized by competent medical authority to be suffering from a mental disorder or may reasonably be supposed to be guilty of a crime punishable by imprisonment or in similar circumstances. 13. Except in rare and unusual circumstances, representation of an employee's own choosing should be permitted at any and every stage of the presentation of a grievance action or appeal above the level of the immediate or first-line supervisor. At the level of the immediate supervisor the employee should be encouraged to deal directly, informally, and usually without representation. If the employee believes representation to be necessary or desirable, it may properly be required by a fellow employee. 14. A copy of whatever record is made of a hearing should be furnished to or otherwise made available for inspection and review by the employee and his representative. 15. Under normal circumstances, and with adequate safeguards against abuse, employees should be granted a reasonable amount of official time for the preparation of an appeal or a grievance action which is to go before a hearing board in the agency. If the employee must travel to the point of the hearing, and contingent upon the availability of travel funds, the agency should pay the cost of travel. If funds are available and if responsible authority decides that it is necessary for proper adjudication of the case, the agency should pay travel costs for the employee's witnesses who are employees of the agency. 16. One formal channel for the processing of all of the following categories of cases should be established in each agency: Grievance actions; Removals; Other formal adverse actions; Performance ratings; Classification actions; Reduction-in-force actions. 17. The Performance Rating Act of 1950 (Public Law 873, 81st Cong.) should be amended to provide for the hearing of performancerating appeals under the consolidated procedure. 18. All appeals initiated under section 14 of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944 should be processed at agency level in accordance with the standard provisions of the consolidated appeals procedure. 19. For appeals under Executive Order No. 9980 having to do with fair employment, the method of establishing hearing boards and folding bearings at the agency level should be the same as for the six kinds of cases listed in conclusion (16). 20. The regulations of the Fair Employment Board should be amended to remove the provision that the agency's fair employment officer must approve the membership of an agency hearing board in a fair employment appeal. 21. The role of the personnel staff should be to conciliate grievances; to furnish information and advice to the employees, to the hearing board, and to the appointing officer who will make the decision; as called upon, the staff should make substantive recommendations for the disposition of a particular case. The practice of requiring the personnel director to make a decision in an appeals or grievance case is viewed as questionable. 22. The Civil Service Commission should continue its efforts at simplification of the handling of veterans' and other appeals to the end that duplicate hearings may be eliminated or greatly reduced. 23. It is inequitable and unnecessarily complicated to have one set of rights of appeal for veterans and a different and inferior one for nonveteran employees. Legislation should be enacted giving nonveterans the same rights veterans now have under section 14 of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944. APPENDIX A Statistics on various types of appeals decided by the Civil Service Commission in fiscal year 1952 1 A. SEC. 14 APPEALS 1 Total number of decisions by offices of original jurisdiction in the Commission-i. e., regional offices in the field service and the Office of the Chief Law Officer in the departmental service: Sustaining agency action.. Reversing agency action. Cases not acceptable as sec. 14 appeals____ Total 2. Number of decisions in cases involving removal: Sustaining agency action____ Reversing agency action.. Total.. 3. (a) Total number of decisions by the Board of Appeals and Review: Sustaining agency action (includes 106 decisions to sustain previous decisions in cases not accepted as sec. 14 appeals). Reversing agency action___. Total_ (b) Number of decisions involving removals by the Board of Appeals and Review: 800 180 359 1, 339 689 102 791 482 110 592 (NOTE. These decisions are on cases appealed from the group decided first by offices of original jurisdiction. However, at any point in time— the beginning and end of the fiscal year in this case-some appeals already settled at lower levels will not yet be decided at appellate levels. Therefore, the cases making up the Board's total for fiscal year 1952 are not all drawn from the group of cases decided by offices of original jurisdiction in fiscal year 1952.) 4. (a) Total number of hearings held by the Board of Appeals and Review(b) Number of hearings held by the Board of Appeals and Review in cases involving removals.. 5. (a) Total number of cases in which agency action was reversed by the final Commission decision _ _ (b) Number of removal cases in which agency action was reversed by the 6. (a) Total number of cases in which agency action was sustained by the (b) Number of cases involving removal in which agency action was sustained by the final Commission decision_. (See "Note" under item 5b.) 1 Certain statistics on performance rating appeals are available only for calendar year 1951. 79 53 161 96. 819 700 Statistics on various types of appeals decided by the Civil Service Commission in fiscal year 1952 1-Continued B. REDUCTION-IN-FORCE APPEALS 1. Total number of appeals decided by offices of original jurisdictionRegional offices in the field service and the Position Classification Division in the departmental service-- 2. Number closed out by offices of original jurisdiction (some of these cases may be appealed to the Board of Appeals and Review in fiscal year 1953).. 3. Number of cases appealed to and decided by the Board of Appeals and Review (see "Note" under item A. 3. (b))-- 1, 350 1,016 334 4. Number of hearings held by the Board of Appeals and Review (includes several group hearings). 5. Decisions reached: (NOTE. Decisions reached by all the regional offices are not available. This sample covers decisions by 2 offices of original jurisdiction and by the Board of Appeals and Review.) (a) Decisions of the fourth regional office: Sustaining agency action_-_. Reversing agency action.. Total__ (b) Decisions of the Position Classification Division: Sustaining agency action. 16 79 2 2 83 245 Reversing agency action_ 5 Canceled by employee.. 88 Canceled by agency action prior to Commission decision C. PERFORMANCE RATING APPEALS (NOTE.—These are statistics for calendar year 1951.) 1. Total number of decisions by statutory boards of review: Under regional office authority. 2. Number of decisions in favor of employee (in all cases "Satisfactory" ratings were raised to "Outstanding") 3. Number of decisions sustaining agency action.. (NOTE.-84 decisions were made in fiscal year 1952. The total number of decisions favoring employees and the number sustaining agency action are not available. Figures for two-thirds of the year indicate that about 20 percent of all decisions favored employees.) D. FAIR EMPLOYMENT APPEALS 1. Total number of agency decisions reported. 2. Number of cases appealed to and decided by the Fair Employment Board... 3. Decisions of the Fair Employment Board: (NOTE. The appellants include groups as well as individuals and applicants as well as employees.) 1 Certain statistics on performance rating appeals are available only for calendar year 1951. |