80TH CONGRESS 2d Session } SENATE {No. 1561 REPORT AMENDING THE VETERANS' PREFERENCE ACT OF 1944 TO EXTEND THE BENEFITS OF SUCH ACT TO CERTAIN MOTHERS OF VETERANS JUNE 9 (legislative day, JUNE 1), 1948.-Ordered to be printed Mr. O'CONOR, from the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. R. 5508] The Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 5508) to amend the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944 to extend the benefits of such act to certain mothers of veterans, having considered the same, report favorably thereon and recommend that the bill, as amended, do pass. GENERAL STATEMENT Public Law 396 (H. R. 1426) was passed in the first session of the Eightieth Congress. Public Law 396 was intended to extend the preference provisions of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944 to widowed mothers. Because of administrative interpretation on the use of the words "ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter" as meaning a widow is eligible to receive provisions only in such instance as she may have been bereaved in the death of her only "ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter," although the reading of the remainder of Public Law 396 would have indicated that there be no limitation placed on mothers having more than one such "ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter," the committee now clarifies the intent of the act by approving the purposes of H. R. 5508. It is hereby declared to be the meaning of Public Law 396, as conveyed through H. R. 5508, that no widowed mother shall, solely because she is or was the mother of only one ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter, be deprived of the provisions of section 2, clause 5, of the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944. By being limited to one ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter as the only basis upon which a gold-star mother could obtain mothers'-veterans' preference, the committee points to the fact that Mrs. Sullivan, of Iowa, whose five sons died aboard the same ship during World War II, would be ineligible because she was the mother of more than one ex-serviceman son. The committee proposes an amendment to H. R. 5508 by offering a revision in line 9 of page 1 of the bill, by striking out the word "legally". Because of some religious beliefs that divorce should not be recognized and because "living apart" need not be specified as being "legally separated," the committee takes full notice of as many circumstances as possible in order to assist in improving the administration of the present bill. The purposes of H. R. 5508, therefore, can be reduced to two points: (1) That the widowed mother need not be required to be the mother of an only ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter; (2) That the mother need not be a divorcee or be "legally" separated but that she may be a divorcee or legally separated from the father of such ex-serviceman son or ex-servicewoman daughter, but that she must not have remarried. 80TH CONGRESS 2d Session } SENATE { REPORT No. 1562 RELATING TO THE COMPENSATION OF CERTAIN RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS JUNE 9 (legislative day, JUNE 1), 1948.-Ordered to be printed Mr. LANGER, from the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. R. 5272] The Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 5272), relating to the compensation of certain railway postal clerks, having considered the same, report favorably thereon and recommend that the bill, without amendment, do pass. GENERAL STATEMENT In carrying out the purposes of Public Law 134, enacted July 1, 1945, the Post Office Department has found it necessary to make adjustments in the postal service to conform to the provisions of the act. In so doing, a number of railway mail clerks have been transferred to other assignments because of changes in the needs of the service. H. R. 5272 would simply permit Post Office officials temporarily to retain displaced railway mail clerks in their seniority status pending assignment to positions of their grade, meanwhile being allowed the same hourly rate for services actually performed. The bill further would enable the Post Office Department to continue to observe its long-established seniority rules in temporarily assigning surplus clerks without giving preference in such assignments over senior applicants. Under the bill, these unassigned clerks also could be placed in miscellaneous assignments, pending appointment to regular positions of their grade. The need for H. R. 5272 arose when the issue was raised with the Comptroller General's decision of January 20, 1947, to the effect that surplus clerks of the railway mail service, upon being given new assignments, would lose their present seniority status. The effect of the Comptroller General's decision was that clerks with many years' service credit must be regarded, for purposes of seniority, as having no higher standing than substitute clerks and, thus, allowed to be paid at an hourly rate no higher than that paid to substitutes. The Comptroller General's decision of January 20, 1947, was preceded by a decision of August 7, 1946, in which the Comptroller General concurred in the Post Office Department's ruling that surplus clerks would not be allowed advancement beyond grade 9. The January 20, 1947, decision invoked the final hardship by holding that surplus clerks must assume a substitute status. The Post Office Department is in agreement that the purpose of H. R. 5272 is meritorious and, hence, recommends its enactment. The Department offers no suggestion on the cost of the legislation, stating "it would depend upon the number of withdrawals or reductions that might occur in the future. However, it is believed that enactment of the bill would result in little cost." The proposal in H. R. 5272 appears to assure more specifically that transfers or reassignments of railway postal clerks, because of classification or changes in the service, shall not result in reductions in grade or salary, and that while serving in miscellaneous assignments, such clerks shall be carried on the roster of their own organizations and retain the promotion status of the jobs from which they are withdrawn, and that they shall be paid on a specified basis, until again restored to regular positions. This amendment, however, does not appear to prevent the Postmaster General from offering the alternative of a voluntary reduction in grade in order to avoid transfer or reassignment to another position of the same grade and pay as the one previously occupied. The committee suggests that the bill be considered also in the light of Farley v. Abbetmeier (Ct. App. D. C. (1940) 114 F. (2d) 569). In that case, under a statute providing that clerks in terminal railway post offices should be classified as railway postal clerks and progress successively to grade 4 (39 U. S. C. sec. 618a), and under the provision of the act of March 3, 1917 (39 U. S. C. sec. 632), above quoted, the Postmaster General provided for a transfer of grade 5 clerks out of terminals to road service at grade 5 unless the clerks voluntarily filed statements that they would remain at the terminals at grade 4. The court said: The underlying question is whether the Postmaster General had authority, in view of this statute, presently to abolish grade 5 positions in the railway terminal offices so far as he could do so by transferring their occupants to other positions of similar grade in other offices or by offering them a choice between accepting such a transfer and remaining in the railway terminal offices with grade 4 rank and pay. The court noted that the practice in the railway mail service has been to permit clerks, in organizations of that service which had been reclassified in such manner that they could not remain in such organizations at their then grade, to elect reclassification to a lower grade, in order to remain in such organizations, if they preferred to do so rather than transfer to other organizations. The court held that the Postmaster General had the right to order the transfers, and that the clerks had no vested right in grade 5 terminal positions, but orly a right, if any, that transfers to other offices should not reduce their rank or pay. The court further held that voluntary, uncoerced acceptances of reclassifications to grade 4 in order to remain at terminals were not reductions in grade or pay as contemplated by the law. The committee takes note of the above legal case and reaffirms its belief in the need to advance the purpose of a career Government service, mindful of the fact that a career program is best served by depriving no one of the benefits of his faithful and meritorious service through no act other than misconduct. The needs of the Government service, including that of the postal service and, in this case, notably the railway mail service, are such that there is a necessary change in requirements caused by ebb and flow in the tide of mail volume and in the stepping up of schedules of modern trains and the installation of new air-line facilities, to the end that the employee must not be held accountable for difficulties arising from circumstances beyond his control. |