Mr. LELAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Danis. I am sorry that we had to ask you to cut off some of your testimony, but I think we get the essence of what you are wanting to present.

I would like to ask you if you have any opinions as to why Dallas ranks so high in EEO complaints?

Mr. DANIS. OK. Very quickly, again I would like to mention what the letter carriers mentioned. We do not advise our people to file EEO's outright once they file grievances. It is not a duplication process. If they do feel they have an EEO complaint, we tell them how to do it, where to go and, of course, we have qualified people in our union to help them and be their representatives.

In the East Texas District they have a policy of 21 day letters. You will never see a counselor in the East Texas District prior to 21 days. Once you receive the letter and you do not pursue this matter, the case is dropped.

Why is there a problem? I think it's a problem with management. I don't feel that they treat each and every individual employee fairly. There is a lot of favoritism, as you can see just in my own installation where I am only the president of one installation, but there are no blacks promoted into upper management in my building. We have had quite a few that have been very qualified and they have been passed over by other applicants that came from former installations of the present officials in the BMC, itself.

Mr. LELAND. What about the situation at the Bulk Mail Center in terms of complaint volume?

Mr. DANIS. There is a large volume coming into the Dallas BMC. Now, Mr. Hudson had the pleasure of coming to the Dallas BMC back in August, I believe. I wasn't there. I was at a national convention. He had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Curtis and the director of support at the Dallas BMC. Certain statements were made to them as far as that, "We don't believe in EEO's. We will not settle an EEO at the initial step because once you have settled it at the initial step you will have another EEO in its place."

Certain remarks were made as far as Hispanic employees at the BMC.

My representatives were discussing a supervisor out there, and their remark on this issue was, "Well, you know the Latin temper of Hispanics." He qualified all Hispanics as having a Latin temper. And one admonishment is the executive vice president was present in that meeting, and he has since filed an EEO complaint on the basis of that remark.

Mr. LELAND. I understand we have made some progress in Dallas from the standpoint of safety. Do you think that's true?

Mr. DANIS. OK, as far as progress, within a week after we left Washington, D.C., there was a 1-week OSHA type inspection conducted by management for members. I have to give them a lot of credit at their great, fantastic job.

Let me say this inspection was not planned. OK. It was a direct outcome, in my opinion, of the investigation.

Every violation which we brought to Washington with us, which if I think you remember, the work was never completed, things of this nature, was completed within 1 week of the hearing.

Also there was the main staffing study in which we claim we were short 25 maintenance employees or more.

Well, they agreed now finally to give us three people, but now they are also in the process of reducing other areas in maintenance so we are back to the same problem.

Mr. LELAND. Well, in other words, oversight hearings do do good? Mr. DANIS. Oh, definitely. The hearing was a big success in safety for us in Dallas.

Mr. LELAND. I yield now to my colleague.

Mr. WILSON. I have no questions.

Mr. LELAND. Mr. Vogel, we have helped you with some problems that you referred to us in Washington in a report, and I ask you now if there is anything that the subcommittee can do to help you further with your problems?

Mr. VOGEL. No, you have helped us a great deal, Congressman Leland, on the problems we have brought to you.

Probably the most difficult one is the one I have brought before this subcommittee today.

We have a high level fight in the Government between the Postmaster General and the Secretary of Labor. The Postmaster General has sued the Secretary of Labor for impropriety of office.

The Secretary of Labor has turned and sued Postmaster General Bolger for discrimination and retaliation against his employees over certain policy decisions he issued on June 2, 1980.

The National Labor Relations Board will not get involved because the Secretary of Labor is involved.

The courts will not even address a temporary restraining order to halt the terminations again because the Secretary of Labor is involved. On October 17 I was able to meet with the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Ronald Elisburg, who authored that 26-page legal document which culminated in everything that's happened so far, and he seemed to indicate that there was a jurisdictional problem in that some of what is tied up with the Department of Labor actually involves contract interpretation and the meaning of certain parts of our national collective bargaining agreement.

He told me that he would meet with the General Counsel of the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board and see if they couldn't arrive at some possible way to release jurisdiction. So far I have heard nothing back from that and not a single day goes by in the Postal Service today that probationary employees are terminated who would not have been terminated prior to June 2.

There is a massive over reaction by the Postmaster General to some of the opinions rendered by the Department of Labor with respect to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Mr. LELAND. Thank you very much. We appreciate both of you gentlemen appearing before us. You are excused.

Let me ask those people in the audience who would like to testify to please stand so I can see how many you are.

Ms. ALLEY. If you would hold it at another time, I have six more that were not able to come to the meeting today.

Mr. LELAND. I understand. We have about eight people who wish to testify before us. We have left, 20 minutes on our schedule.

We are going to ask that each of you will take 22 minutes and I will ask my staff to please keep time.

Mr. HALL. May I make a suggestion?

Mr. LELAND. Please.

Mr. HALL. This Nation that flies that red, white, and blue flag, and this is why this is going on now because it means nothing. It's a dirty rag. You talk about time and we are talking about life, life and death matters, and here we are down to 21/2 minutes of time.

I suggest you give us a 30-minute lunch break and when we come back, since all of you gentlemen, I think the Government supports each one of you about $2 million a year to run your offices, so I assume you have plenty of time, and I suggest you give me time because I will need 8 minutes, myself, alone, to just get some of the highlights of my situation.

Mr. LELAND. May I suggest to you, sir, that the reason that this subcommittee is here today, is in fact to resolve the many problems that we see in the Postal Service.

However, it is not mandatory that any of us sit here and hear complaints or testimony from anybody. However, because we do care about you, we are here, and we are willing to work with you and to accommodate your testimony.

I was going to suggest that we take 22 minutes from you today. I would bring the subcommittee back to Houston again to take testimony. Your 8 minutes conceivably could not even be sufficient for the purpose that you want to set forth.

Mr. Wilson came from California. The staff is coming from Washington, D.C. There are certain time restraints that have to be measured, and it has nothing to do with the flag or the commitment on the part of the Federal Government or the $2 million that you referred to, that I have not seen, and I am not trying to be sarcastic. I think that you must understand that we are human beings, too.

Mr. Wilson has a particular problem. The fact of the matter is that even with the 30-minute lunch it would be difficult for us to reassemble. I am here in Houston and am willing to stay with you. For us to have an official hearing, it will be necessary for us to have two people here who are members of the subcommittee.

I want you to understand that I can, however, take your testimony, being here in Houston, as chairman of the subcommittee, informally, if you so desire, but I would like to accommodate my colleagues.

We have wasted quite a few minutes in responding, I know, but I would hope that you understand we are not trying to cut you off. We are in fact your advocates, and we do try to represent the best interests of our constituents.

Mr. HALL. Let me say one more thing.

Mr. LELAND. Well, I don't want to engage in argument, sir.

Mr. HALL. I am not arguing. I was just going to make a suggestion. Mr. LELAND. We are going to limit the discussion at this moment to each individual having 22 minutes. If we can accommodate a greater portion of time, we will try to do so.

I will announce at this moment that we will have another hearing where we will allow the public to testify rather than just having organized labor and, of course, we won't disallow for them to participate,

and management, supervisory portion of the Postal Service, to come in, of course. We will accommodate the entire hearing to the public's interest.

MS. ALLEY. At the time that you call another hearing, would we be able to get off from our jobs?

Mr. LELAND. Do you work for the Postal Service?

MS. ALLEY. I am a Postal Service employee and I am off today. The only reason I came down was to find out when the hearing would be.

Mr. LELAND. Let me ask you to come forward since you were the first one to raise your hand in the first place. You take your 212 minutes.

MS. ALLEY. My case is similar to the man in Dallas, and it could take take me all day. Instead of speaking on my behalf let me speak on the part of all of the postal employees.

Mr. LELAND. If you would just wait 1 second.

Ms. ALLEY. OK.

Mr. LELAND. Let me say that, yes, we will talk to your supervisor or the postmaster and allow you to come back to testify.

We hope, as a matter of fact, that management of the Postal Service here will allow for anybody to testify when in fact there is an official congressional subcommittee hearing.

MS. ALLEY. Well, in our office we have sexual favoritism, which is much worse.

Mr. LELAND. Let me ask you to state your name and whom you represent.

STATEMENT OF MARILYN L. ALLEY

Ms. ALLEY. I am Marilyn L. Alley. I am a letter carrier in Deer Park, Tex.

And I would like to represent all of the postal employees because I have been to Washington and have attended many hearings. I have tried to lobby with many Congressmen. All that the Congressmen can do is ask for a report and when the report comes back it's "You go through your grievance procedure."

I have done this for 6 years. I have spent over $10,000. I have been to Austin, Dallas, Washington. I have not talked to you because I have always thought that the Senators from the State were immaterial. I am sorry, I didn't mean to demean you, but I didn't think that you had anything to do with the Federal Government.

Mr. LELAND. You mean the Congress.

Ms. ALLEY. Yes. OK.

You are a Congressman from this State, right, not from the Federal Government? That is why

Mr. WILSON. He is a U.S. Čongressman that represents the Houston area, part of the Houston area. He is chairman of the subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the subject matter that we have been talking about.

Ms. ALLEY. I have not contacted him. I am sorry, I overlooked you somewhere.

But anyway, the Postal Inspection Service is made up from managers from the post office.

The Inspector Wausen, who is no longer with the Postal Service, so he told me, that he makes out his reports like the Post Office wants, hands them to the Postmaster and the Postmaster decides what to do with it.

In our case he ruled not guilty and we have been paying for 6 years for it.

But he said there will be no retaliation to anyone that comes forward and tells the truth. We have been paying with retaliation for 6 years.

We have a Postmaster that when he came he said, "I am going to get rid of all this old stuff and get me some nice young things." And he has tried. If you will ever come to our office you can see.

We have a secretary that when I was on the phone to Inspector Crowley she was on the other extension phone and told me to shut up. I was at one time the steward in our office. I was filing a grievance with the Postmaster. And she comes in and tells me to shut up, and I am the one that gets the letters of warning for disrupting the Postal personnel because I told her she was just a clerk and she had no jurisdiction over me.

Now, the EEO, I filed so many complaints that I am told by the EEO when I had an EEO adjustment hearing that they will not take my type of complaints to the EEOC. The EEOC does not take this type of complaint any more.

I cannot ask for anything against management because they are not going to do something to the other managers. I am told by Čounselor Sherky that if I persist in complaining about these managers that all I am going to do is get them promoted.

We have a president of our union that I have outwardly campaigned against, and we only have 20 in our office, and they have over 200 in Pasadena, and he is from that office, so we consequently lost, and he does not represent, he will not take any of our cases to the third step.

We take them to the first and second and we lose them.

Our Postmaster was a carrier with this president and they are buddy-buddy, and so we can get nothing out of the union. We can go no further with the union.

So I filed EEO complaints and this is why we file EEO complaints. I have a Labor Board case against the union and I have a Labor Board case against the Post Office, but all these things take time and in the meantime I am taken into the office about every other day and I am told this is a discussion, I am going to file-I am going to give you a letter of warning and then I am going to fire you. I am told this day after day.

Mr. LELAND. Thank you. Your time is exhausted.

I will ask you to talk to one of my staff people after the hearing to give us your name and how we can contact you for future hearings. Ms. ALLEY. I would appreciate it.

Mr. LELAND. Thank you.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, let me just ask the lady something. Ms. Alley, are you in disagreement with the statement of Mr. Wade, who was representing the National Association of Letter Carriers this morning?