TIME CREDITS FOR CERTAIN RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS

MAY 3, 1935.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. SWEENEY, from the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 5723]

The Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, having had under consideration the bill (H. R. 5723) to give certain railway postal clerks the same time credits for promotion purposes as were given others who were promoted on July 1 when automatic promotions were restored, report the same back to the House with the recommendation that the bill do pass.

This bill proposes that those terminal clerks who had earned promotions up to grade 5 on April 1, 1934, but who were prevented from receiving such promotions on account of the economy laws, be advanced to grade 5 regardless of the act of June 14, 1934. The number involved is approximately 550. Had the classification of the terminals not been enacted until after July 1, 1934, this group would have been in grade 5, and except for the prohibition on automatic promotions, which was later lifted and credit given for all time served during that 2-year period, they would also have been in grade 5 on April 1, 1934. The suspension of promotions under the economy act penalized these employees doubly. They suffered the pay cuts and the loss of promotions. Had not the act of June 14, 1934, been passed, these employees would have received these promotions, but that act permanently deprives them of these earned promotions that would have been made prior to or on April 1, 1934, except for the temporary suspension of promotions under the economy act, which temporary suspension was lifted on July 1, 1934, and promotions were made on July 1, giving credit for service between July 1, 1932, and July 1, 1934, toward earned promotions. Such should be done with all promotions earned but withheld and finally annulled by the provisions of the June 14 act and the decision of the Comptroller General (A-55507).

To accomplish this requires the passage of this remedial legislation contained in H. R. 5723.

The act of June 14, 1934, otherwise known as the "Terminal Reclassification Act", amended that part of the February 28, 1925, act classifying terminals and in effect reduced the maximum limitation for successive promotions from grade 5 to grade 4. The June 14, 1934, act reads:

That the terminal railway post office system shall be maintained for the purpose of handling and distributing mail not handled or distributed in railway post office lines or post offices, and the clerks in said terminal railway post offices shall be classified as railway postal clerks and progress successively to grade 4. Clerks in charge of terminals, tours, or crews consisting of less than twenty employees shall be of grade 5. Clerks in charge of terminals, tours, or crews consisting of twenty or more employees shall be of grade 6. When a terminal railway post office is operated in three tours there shall be a relief clerk in charge: Provided, That the clerk in charge of terminals having seventy-five or more employees shall be of grade 7: Provided further, That no employee in the Postal Service shall be reduced in rank or salary as a result of the provisions of this Act.

This act went into effect on June 14, 1934, and the change in the classification took effect on that date, thereby precluding the successive promotions that were due on July 1 when the act of June 27, restoring automatic promotions as of July 1, went into effect.

Section 201 of the act of June 30, 1932, reads:

All provisions of law which confer upon civilian or noncivilian officers or employees of the United States Government or the municipal government of the District of Columbia automatic increases in compensation by reason of length of service or promotion are suspended during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1933; but this section shall not be construed to deprive any person of any increment of compensation received through an automatic increase in compensation prior to July 1, 1932.

Section 24, title II, of the act of March 28, 1934, provides as follows: (1) Section 201 (suspending automatic increases in compensation) of part II of the Legislative Appropriation Act, fiscal year 1933, is amended by inserting at the end thereof the following: "This section shall not apply during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1935, except to the extent that it suspends the longevity increases provided for in the tenth paragraph of section 1 of the Pay Adjustment Act of 1922. This amendment shall not authorize the payment of back compensation."

The report of the Post Office Department on the bill (H. R. 5723) reads as follows:

Hon. JAMES M. MEAD,

POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, Washington, D. C., February 25, 1935.

Chairman Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads,

House of Representatives.

MY DEAR MR. MEAD: The receipt is acknowledged of your letter of the 16th instant, requesting a report on H. R. 5723, a bill to give certain railway postal clerks the same time credits for promotion purposes as were given others who were promoted on July 1 when automatic promotions were restored.

This measure is objectionable for a number of reasons, some of which may be enumerated as follows:

1. It would defeat the purpose of the terminal reclassification law by adding about 550 more clerks to our surplus list in the terminals. We now have more than 1,800 grade-5 clerks in terminals to be placed in grade-5 assignments. 2. It would cost approximately $82,500.

3. It would be in the nature of class legislation in that clerks due for promotion to grade 5 July 1, 1934, or later, could not be included.

4. It would, for the most part, benefit junior clerks appointed in connection with the 44-hour-work week law in 1931 after serving only a short time on the substitute list.

5. It would prevent the proper application of our seniority rules. Substitutes, now being appointed to terminals with longer service records and entitled by the rules to road duty, would be held in the terminals until these junior clerks could be placed in grade-5 assignments. A special group of junior clerks would, therefore, benefit to the detriment of a senior group.

The enactment of this measure is therefore not recommended.

Very truly yours,

W. W. HOWES, Acting Postmaster General.