(The statement referred to follows:) REPORT BY THE LEGISLATIVE SECTION OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FEDERAL ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS, WASHINGTON, D.C. Problem: To hold qualified people in the civil service and to encourage professionals to join civil service. The National Society of Federal Engineers, Scientists, and Allied Professionals, after studying the many bills introduced and from reports by qualified professionals on or near the scene of action, wish to report that the most functional of the bills would be a combination of H.R. 10480 and H.R. 5563. While each of the bills that have been submitted do cover a phase of the deficiency now existing, the two bills, H.R. 10480 and H.R. 5563, seem to be more corrective and will solve much more of problem as outlined above. The society realizes that a general pay raise is in order to put the Federal employees on a level with the employees in private enterprise. From the news items labeled as quotations by the heads of most all the Federal agencies, it is quite apparent that the Federal Government is losing many qualified professionals to private enterprise. Reason given, "To accept a better position." Bill H.R. 10480 can partly correct those generally underpaid civil service employees who fall in the lower brackets (e.g., GS-1 through GS-11). From GS-12 through GS-20, the Congress should insert guidance for the Civil Service Commission to the effect that only those persons be certified and appointed to professional category positions who have been registered as professional by any of the State boards or nonprofit organizations that examine and register professionals. (NOTE.-Only part of the professionals are now covered in the present H.R. 10480.) Section 103 of H.R. 10480 should have a clause "that such a report shall be made and signed by the registered professional into whose category the report may fall." The registered professional has a responsibility to the Federal Government, the employee, and the public. That section 104, paragraph B, should be stricken and leave the power of raising or lowering of the basic compensation of civil service employees to the U.S. Congress. That all appointments to the GS grades 12 through 20 be open and competitive and to be subject to such regulations that will not invalidate the career development plan that was put into effect to compensate for the inadequate compensation for the professionals during the past few years. Since all agencies report that professional employees are leaving the Federal service, it is recommended that in addition to a general pay raise that H.R. 5563 giving recognition to professionals be incorporated as an addition to the present H.R. 10480. Recognition is of upmost importance in order to enhance the image of the Federal professional. That sections 705 and 706 of H.R. 10480 be amended to include the words "registered professionals" before each category mentioned. In no case should the career development plan be invalidated or be circumscribed as the plan is a contractual relation that was given to professionals in Federal service in lieu of the inadequacies at the time career development plan was installed. EDWARD G. BATTY, P.E., Mr. BATTY. We are making a definite suggestion here that may help you to separate professionals from the others. We realize there is good in all the bills to cover certain points. We do have an obligation as professionals to the Federal Government as an employee. As a professional, we have an obligation to the public which puts us in the middle of the sandwich. Our recommendation is that you incorporate parts of these many bills-H.R. 5563 which has certain basic changes in the civil serviceby putting the professiontls in a class by themselves. Our society covers all professionals the same as organized in civil life now-as in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and other States. All of the professionals have started an allied professional organization because they are intertwined in ordinary life so they cannot tell one from the other. Mr. JOHANSEN. It is dangerous to cite Michigan as an example. Mr. BATTY. I do not cite Michigan as an example, but I am like the preacher who asked the chap to come up and show what happens if you do not follow the straight and narrow road. The organization of professionals, by putting them in two different brackets, I think will correct a lot of the faults, not next year, but perhaps over a 5-year period, and will give the Congressmen a chance to look at this situation in the true perspective. The president of the society, Mr. Carl Wesley, has a certain phase of this that he would like to explain. Mr. WESLEY. For the record, my name is Carl Wesley, Jr. Our organization is rather young; it is just a little over 2 years old. One of the purposes of our society was to raise the status of the professional in the Federal Government, not only the engineers, but the scientists and other professionals as well. Like the man said, there are a lot of things more important than money, but right at this time I cannot think of anything more important. We feel we are highly in favor of having a raise for the people in Government. That is one way of raising professional status. The two main points we have in the résumé are to hold qualified people in the civil service, and to encourage professionals to join the civil service. We not only want the professional people to join the civil service, but we want to hold the professionals when they get in. I have been with the Government for the last 12 years. I am a senior engineer for the U.S. Army in the Engineering Research and Development Laboratory at Fort Belvoir, and I have seen a good number of professional people go to private industry because private industry would pay them more money. I think this pay raise, in order to hold professional people as well as other qualified people in the Government service, is an important thing to our national security. In our work, we work with the Army, Navy, Air Force, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Department of Agriculture, and the Veterans' Administration. Our main mission, of course, is to develop equipment and material for the man in the field. It is mighty hard to develop something that the GI cannot tear up, but we want to have the best people we can get to help develop this equipment because we want to have the best equipment to furnish our men, our GI's in the field. It seems it is very important that the professional be recognized in Government as he is recognized in industry. The engineers, the doctors, the lawyers, and scientists are all recognized and they are making more money in private industry, and that is one of the reasons we are losing them. I think it would be superfluous for me to keep rambling on. It is all in the manuscript presented to you. The committee we have appointed has gone over this and condensed our viewpoint on this question. Mr. GROSS. May I ask you a personal question? You can answer it or not, as you see fit. Why do you stay in Government? Mr. WESLEY. Let me give you some of my background. My professional education was pre-med at Emory University in Atlanta. I had to leave school after 1 year because of money. My father died when I was young. There is no use going in all this detail. I went to work with the city of Atlanta and went to Georgia Tech and studied engineering. I was commissioned in the Army as an engineer. Then I went to the U.S. Public Health Service because I thought I had more future than I did with the city of Atlanta. At that time the only two people over me were the chief and assistant chief, who held elected jobs, and I did not want to get in politics. Mr. GROSS. Why do you stay in Government? Mr. WESLEY. The reason I stay in Government is the reason I saw with the Public Health Service more opportunity than I had with the the city of Atlanta. I think the Government has a lot of good fringe benefits. Just this past year, when we had a reorganization, I was offered a job with private industry for a few thousand dollars more than I was making, but I was thinking of the different other benefits I got with Government. I was thinking of the enjoyment I had working in Government and the people I knew in engineering research and development that I have worked with for the last 10 years. There are a lot of other good things besides your pay that you have to look at. Mr. GROSS. You also have job security. Mr. WESLEY. You have hospitalization and Government insurance. You have some good fringe benefits. Mr. GROSS. You have job security that you may or may not have in private employment. Is that not true? Mr. WESLEY. I do not know whether we have job security or not. Mr. WESLEY. Next to the top of a GS-12. Mr. WESLEY. They would have to show my work was not competent. They would have to show adequate reasons for removing me. They could make it miserable for me. They could abolish the job. There are several other ways they could get rid of me if they wanted to. Mr. GROSS. You do have job security you would not have in a municipality? Mr. WESLEY. I thought of that. When this company offered to put in my bank account money for the first year's work, I thought, at the end of a year they can fire me. Mr. GROSS. Can you shed any light on the reason why, with the substantial increases in the appropriations for the National Defense Education Act, that we are getting fewer and fewer engineers. Mr. BATTY. I think I can answer that. Mr. GROSS. This works both ways. I am not talking about engineers coming into Government. I am talking about engineers coming out of the colleges and going into private employment and Government both. So let's not predicate this on Government employment because an engineer can be educated under the National Defense Education Act, and go into private employment, can he not? Mr. BATTY. That is right. He does. The closing statement here is, we do not want to see the career development plan obsoleted by any new legislation. We request that in our closing statement. 84357-62-pt. 1-44 Mr. GROSS. I note that. You do not want them to be treated on a political basis. You want them kept under the Classification Act, is that not what you are saying? Mr. BATTY. That is precisely it. They call it career development in civil service. Mr. ICHORD. I wish to commend the gentleman for some of the thoughts he has expressed. This is referred to as a pay reform bill rather than a pay raise, though it does have some features of a pay raise. I think the gentleman is to be commended for some of his remarks. Efficiency, competency, and dedication should be rewarded with a little more of the material things in life. The civil service system, as much as anything else, is a conglomeration of good and bad, and one of the bad features of the civil service system is the difficulty in getting rid of undesirables. We have those in Government as we have them in any other professional fields. Do we have anything in this bill to discourage inefficiency and incompetency? Mr. BATTY. The civil service has always had ways of doing it. Mr. BATTY. I do not remember any. Mr. ICHORD. I am speaking of this bill. I am speaking of rewarding efficiency and competency. One of the ways private industry discourages inefficiency is very effective they fire them. We do not do that under the civil service system because we want to get away from politics. That is a very difficult thing. Do we have anything in the bill to discourage inefficiency and incompetency? Mr. BATTY. I do not believe there is anything pointed out in this bill above what the civil service already has. Mr. ICHORD. Thank you. Mr. WESLEY. May I introduce the president-elect, Mr. Raffensperger, chairman of the public relations committee for the society. Mr. RAFFENSPERGER. I would like to preface my statement by saying I am a Government employee, a Government engineer, and I have been for nearly 26 years. I have worked in private industry previous to that. Regardless of inadequacy in the pay, I am not about to go out in private industry because I do appreciate the fringe benefits working for the Government, and I am gratified to work for the Government, not being a flagwaver, but I feel I can do more good and find more challenges for my engineering ability in the Government service. I am with the Veterans' Administration who have an annual spending of around $15 million a year. Mr. Wesley takes care of the boys while they are still in the service; we take care of them after. Last May in one of our local papers, there was a statement that Representative Udall suggested to Mr. Keating, when he was testifying here, that he get behind his proposals for the mail carriers and give the scientists and engineers and other key employees the equal of a better salary that he is asking for the lower paid men. Mr. Keating said, rightfully so, he is tired of the professionals riding on his coattail. We are such an organization. We heartily endorse H.R. 10480, however, with an amendment, or some suggestion. We respect fully suggest it be changed to modify the bill introduced by Mr. Anfuso. On page 4, starting on line 4, include in the bill 10480 the professional engineers scientific schedule of that type, not necessarily to follow the exact cost. When I first came to the Government we had a professional scientific rating. At that time, we saw no professionals leaving as they do now. It seemed there was a more adequate pay scale for the professionals. We had the professional image. Since the 1949 reform, the image is being lost in the Federal service. We would like, therefore, to suggest that the Anfuso bill, H.R. 5563, in portion be introduced in H.R. 10480, which we heartily endorse, with that modification. Mr. JOHANSEN. I wonder if any of the three witnesses can respond further to the question raised by the gentleman from Iowa as to the apparent failure of the National Defense Education Act to encourage and increase the number of students entering the engineering, scientific, and professional fields. Mr. RAFFENSPERGER. In the Government, sir? Mr. JOHANSEN. No, entering the universities and taking training preparatory to professional service, whether in Government or out. Mr. RAFFENSPERGER. I feel recently it has. I think the engineering training has increased. However, we are naturally interested in which engineers are channeled into Government service. We have a very short supply of qualified engineers, or qualified trained personnel, because they are given a very rosy glow, and a lot go for the glamor jobs. We are not in electronics, missiles; we are just building hospitals. They go for the outside glamor jobs where the money shows. After 25 years, they are going to do better in the Federal service. That is the way I feel about it. I do not feel the Federal service has made it attractive enough for these new engineers to come in with us, although I do believe the engineering profession has received, as it were, a shot in the arm. I think this administration has given that shot in the arm. We just want to make sure we get, rightfully so, the cream of the crop. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Paul H. Robbins. STATEMENT OF PAUL H. ROBBINS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS Mr. ROBBINS. My name is Paul H. Robbins. I am the executive director of the National Society of Professional Engineers with headquarters in Washington, D.C. The society is a nonprofit membership organization composed of professional engineers engaged in virtually all branches of the engineering profession and all fields of professional endeavor. Each of the society's 58,000 members is qualified under applicable State engineering registration laws which certify that registrants thereunder have met the prescribed qualifications for engaging in the practice of professional engineering. The society's membership is affiliated through 53 State and territorial societies and approximately 450 local community chapters. The National Society of Professional Engineers is firmly dedicated to the basic proposition that the Federal Government is entitled to and should have the best engineering and scientific talent obtainable. This attitude has been enhanced and strengthened within the past |