And, I reiterate, that was 3 years ago. The cost of living has risen since then. If the Bureau of Labor Statistics were to make the test all over again today, the disparity between what a working man needs and what a letter carrier or clerk gets would be even greater than it was in 1959.

I might add that a basic salary of $5,005 a year-for a married man with two children-breaks down to a take-home pay of $78.18 a week before State, city, and county taxes are deducted.

This is not enough. It is far from enough. This is a starvation wage for a man working in one of our large industrial cities. Our letter carriers and our clerks do skilled work. They perform tasks which require unimpeachable honesty and unwavering dedication. They perform dangerous work. The injury frequency rate in the postal service is the highest, by far, in the entire Government service. The statistics issued by the Bureau of Employees' Compensation of the Department of Labor prove that a letter carrier's position is more hazardous than even the job of an FBI man or a man working in the Division of Narcotics, or even a workman in a Navy shipyard. But for doing this difficult work we are paying starvation wages.

The U.S. Government is simply not paying its postal employees enough money. And we are not paying enough money to attract the kind of recruit that is needed, either.

In his testimony before the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service of the other body on February 15, William C. Doherty, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, painted a highly disturbing picture of what he called "the coming crisis in the mails. He pointed out that the salary structure of the postal service is so unattractive to young men of talent and ambition, that postmasters are literally forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get recruits. Where, he asked, are the supervisors of tomorrow coming from? Where indeed?

The New York World Telegram of May 10 and the Chief, the official weekly journal of the civil service employees of New York City, on May 11, carried the news that the standards for entrance into the postal service in New York City, Jamaica, Flushing, Long Island City, and Far Rockaway are being drastically and dramatically lowered. Why? Because the Post Office cannot get enough applicants smart enough to get a passing grade in the civil service entrance examinations.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, New York City represents one-tenth of the entire postal service of the country. Its mail volume is far greater than the entire mail volume of Canadaor of many other great nations in the free world. If the postal service in New York City collapses, the entire economy of the Nation will be seriously affected and affected badly.

The Post Office Department talks about the days of automation and mechanization that lie ahead. This is a wonderful prospect. Automation has been too long coming. It should be here already. But, when it does come, who is going to operate these vast electronic systems? Who is going to manage these highly complex machines? Who is going to supervise these magic brains of the future? Men who cannot even pass the present civil service examinations? If the Post Office Department thinks this is possible the crisis in the mails. will become a catastrophe sooner than we think. Far sooner.

The stories I have mentioned say that if the experiment in New York City does attract more recruits it will be attempted elsewhere. This downgrading will go nationwide-and the collapse of the mails will become a major disaster.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this is a deadly serious matter.

We cannot in all good conscience imperil the entire mail service of the country-upon which the entire national economy depends-simply because we want to make a better show of budget balancing. This is the very ultimate in shortsightedness.

Last year, Mr. Chairman, I am told, almost 88,000 letter carriers and postal clerks left the service out of a work force of about 550,000. This is an enormous turnover, and, although there is no way of proving this, I feel in my heart that the men we lost were among the most ambitious, the most desirable employees we had. In other words, the "quits" came from off the top of the carrier and clerk force, and not off the bottom.

We cannot permit this attrition to go on unchecked. The postal service is the network of communications upon which the prosperity, the happiness and, indeed, the freedom of this Nation, to a great extent, depend. If we are to maintain this service at its present level of achievement-let alone improving it so that it will be as efficient as private enterprise then we must make the career far more attractive to those who are already in the service, and we must make it far more attractive to those who are about to embark on a career. We must compete with private enterprise in the matter of retaining and attracting talent.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I introduced my bill, H.R. 10609, which is a companion bill to H.R. 9531, introduced by my distinguished colleague from Louisiana, the ranking majority member of this committee. I consider this bill fair and equitable. It will not make economic royalists of our loyal postal employees but it will give them a substantial pay raise and it will give it to them not 27 years from now, not 3 years from now, not 6 months from now, but now. The postal employees need a pay raise now and they should have

one now.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

The next witness we will hear is Hon. Torbert H. Macdonald, our colleague from Massachusetts.

STATEMENT OF HON. TORBERT H. MACDONALD, EIGHTH
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. MACDONALD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I wish to express my strong support of pay reform legislation for Federal employees at all levels. This is not a partisan issue, although I am of course pleased that this administration has taken such progressive and forthright action in meeting a very serious national problem.

There has been a thoroughly unwarranted and costly downgrading of the worth of the Government employee by opponents of a Federal pay reform program.

The Federal Government is facing a constantly deteriorating position in its effort to recruit and retain qualified employees in many categories of employment which are vital to the welfare and indeed the very security of this Nation. Pay and fringe benefits in progressive business and industry, and in many States and municipalities as well, are above the levels found in the Federal Government. The result is that the Federal Government is constantly losing competent employees to those more progressive employers, both private and public. The Federal Government also is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit the ablest of our young people from the colleges and universities. Mr. Elmer B. Staats, Deputy Director of the Bureau of the Budget, recently asserted:

Federal white collar salary rates have fallen so far behind private enterprise levels that substantial adjustments are needed.

The Federal public servant has been characterized by some as being adequately paid and possessing greater job security than workers in private industry. The facts do not bear out this contention. Job security in the Federal service is actually less certain than in most progressive businesses and industrial firms. Executive orders and congressional legislation determine the status of Federal jobs. Wholesale reductions in force are not uncommon. Each year, approximately 18,000 Federal employees are fired for cause. This statistic demonstrates to me that firing is not a prerogative exclusively used by private employers.

The number of Federal employees has been stabilized for a long period of time although our population has risen substantially as have the number of Government services rendered. The increased volume and variety of services have been made possible because of the increased efficiency of the Federal service.

Mr. Chairman, this committee is cognizant of the contents of the report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Pay Systems, which was headed by Mr. Clarence Randall, the distinguished former chairman of the Inland Steel Co., who pointed out that the problem of attracting and holding within the Federal Government men and women possessing superior skills and capabilities is a problem which must be faced squarely. "To accomplish this," the report stated, "we believe that the Federal Government should take steps to insure that career employees from the lowest to the topmost levels should receive compensation comparable to the average paid in non-Government jobs doing like work."

The principle of comparability put forward by the President is sound. It provides a reasonable and more realistic basis for Federal pay than exists at the present time under the rates of the Classification Act. I am firmly convinced that a Federal pay reform program is very much in the interest of the Federal Government, and the people of the United States, which the Government serves. Mr. Chairman, I hope that your committee will take early and favorable action on this much-needed legislation.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Macdonald.

The next witness is Mr. Daniel Jaspan, legislative representative of the National Association of Postal Supervisors. He is accompanied by Mr. Fred J. O'Dwyer, president, and Mr. Don Ledbetter, secretary. You may take your seats at the table, gentlemen.

STATEMENT OF DANIEL JASPAN, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POSTAL SUPERVISORS; ACCOMPANIED BY FRED J. O'DWYER, PRESIDENT; A. L. SELLERS, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT; AND DON LEDBETTER, SECRETARY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POSTAL SUPERVISORS

Mr. JASPAN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Daniel Jaspan. I am the legislative representative of the National Association of Postal Supervisors, composed of 26,000 supervisors in the postal field service, including supervisors in the motor vehicle and maintenance services. We have members in each of the 50 States and in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. I am accompanied by our national president, Fred J. O'Dwyer, who is the chief accountant in the San Francisco post office, our first vice president, A. L. Sellers, superintendent of postal services in the Fort Worth post office, and by our national secretary, Donald N. Ledbetter, who is on leave from the Memphis post office, where he is the superintendent of delivery and collections.

We are grateful to the chairman and members of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee for giving us the opportunity to present our views on salary bills that have been introduced in the 87th Congress. We appreciate the interest of the many Members of Congress who have introduced salary bills and are hopeful that this committee and the Congress will consider legislation that will not discriminate against any group of postal employees, no matter how small their membership in the various postal associations may be.

The majority of the salary bills this year are identical with H.R. 9531, introduced by Congressman Morrison. We know that Mr. Morrison and the other Members of Congress are interested in equitable salary increases for postal employees and that the portions of their bills that discriminate against any members of the postal family were not intended to do that. We cannot stress too strongly that we are not opposed to equitable salary increases for any group of postal employees, regardless of their present salary level. However, we must enter strong objections to bills that are not equitable or just to those in supervisory levels.

THE MORRISON BILL

Before analyzing H.R. 9531, we feel that we must set some past records straight. We have all heard statements that supervisors have always received more than other employees. Let's look at the record. We find that percentagewise, supervisors have not fared as well as suggested, and there are instances where supervisors have not come out ahead dollarwise. Since 1925, there were no permanent salary

adjustments until Public Law 134 in 1945. In 1945, clerks and carriers received a $600 increase, plus a maximum of three meritorious grades of $100 each, or a salary increase of 28 percent, plus one, two, or three meritorious grades, for a maximum total of 42 percent. A foreman of mails received an additional $500 or $700, with no meritorious or longevity grades, or an increase of 20 to 25 percent. A superintendent of mails in a $3 to $7 million office received $400, or 9.9 percent. This was followed by a series of flat dollar increases of $400, $450, and $120, with percentage increases ranging from 2.2 to 9.1 percent for the same superintendent of mails; 2.7 to 12.5 percent for the foreman of mails, and 3.3 to 14.8 percent for the clerks and carriers. Public Law 204, enacted in 1951, helped put salaries in their proper perspective by granting increases of $600 for the superintendent of mails and $617 for the foreman, compared with $400 for the clerks and carriers, or 10.9 percent for the clerk-carrier and superintendent of mails and 14.8 percent for the foreman. This is all shown in appendix A at the end of this statement.

The salary compression is pointed out in Report No. 224 on H.R. 4644, which led to the enactment of Public Law 84-68. The House Post Office and Civil Service Committee reported as follows:

Congressional committees, as well as the task force of the Hoover Commission, have repeatedly directed the attention of the Congress to the need for a more realistic appraisal of salaries in the postal field service. They have pointed out that the present postal salary system completely ignores the principle of equal pay for substantially equal work and makes no provision for recognition of substantial differences in the difficulty of the work to be performed, the degree of responsibility to be exercised, the scope and variety of tasks involved, and the conditions of performance. In the search for efficiency and economy in the postal service, it is essential that supervisory officials be accorded adequate recognition.

The Senate Advisory Committee, authorized by the 83d Congress, stated, in Senate Report No. 1086 of that Congress, that "Supervisory positions are not adequately recognized in existing pay schedules.

It was the series of flat dollar increases, with supervisors receiving less, percentagewise, than nonsupervisors, that led to the enactment of Public Law 84-86, which corrected some of the inequities. Since that time, the salary increases have been based on percentage increases which did not throw the basic structure out of line.

H.R. 9531 would undo all the good that has been done in the past 10 years and would again completely distort the salary structure. Although H.R. 9531 is supposedly based on an "average 14 percent increase," the following chart shows the inequitable spread of the "average 14 percent increase." The increases proposed range from 22 percent in level 1 downward to 2.3 percent in level 16, and then take an upward turn to 14 percent in level 20. The column on the right shows what an "actual" rather than "average" 14 percent increase would do. When compared with the column preceding it, we find a graphic illustration of the inequities.