that grade at the end of 10, 13, and 16 years in exactly the same manner as those of the other Federal classified employees.

Because these inequities have already been stoically endured for too long a time by the postal workers, it is only just that Congress take immediate action to correct them. For this reason, the bill I introduced will be effective as of January 1, 1962. It will have the additional advantage of putting added purchasing power into needy hands at a time when the economy as a whole needs stimulation. By paying the postal workers an adequate wage, it would make available many of their second part-time jobs at a time of continued high levels of unemployment.

Therefore, to raise the living standards of our postal employees to that of their fellow citizens, to correct the inequities they have endured through no fault of their own, to recognize faithful and competent service, to retain experienced workers and recruit capable ones, I ask unanimous support for the speedy enactment of H.R. 9531 or H.R. 10488.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.

The next witness is Hon. George P. Miller of California.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE P. MILLER, OF CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am very appreciative of your courtesy in permitting me to make these few remarks concerning the salary reform bill which you are here considering.

Our Committee on Science and Astronautics has just completed the quite detailed hearings on the national space program for fiscal year 1963. We had some 11 weeks of continuous hearings and took 2,298 printed pages of testimony. As I pointed out on the floor of the House, in all my years in the Congress no legislative measure with which I have been associated has received so much study and attention. During the course of these hearings we heard and we questioned the top officials of the NASA and its program managers. We were, again, impressed with the very great scale of national commitment involved, the extreme complexity of the technical problems we must solve, and the quality of the technical and managerial leadership that this major national enterprise requires.

We were equally impressed with the need to press on in this enterprise. Our national posture as a leading member of the world community has become identified with this effort in aeronautics and space technology. We dare not fall behind. Vast segments of our Nation's industry, its scientific talent, and its resources are committed to the successful achievements in this national program.

Our concern was, of course, to explore and consider the merit of the different technical programs and program alternatives. We were concerned, also, with the pacing of these program efforts and their costs. To the extent that we were able to do so, we checked on matters of basic policy and management practices. To assure a fully comprehensive picture of the status of this program, we inquired as to the problems which are impeding, or might impede, NASA in the conduct of its program.

Frankly, gentlemen, the Congress has been quite responsive to the authorizations and funding requirements proposed by NASA, both under President Eisenhower as the Agency's programs were formulated, and President Kennedy, as the programs were expanded in scope and accelerated last year.

We are, however, concerned with the critical importance of adequate personnel for the successful prosecution of this program. This is probably the largest scale and most complex engineering and technological effort in our Nation's history. In terms of public policy, the Congress stated, in the National Aeronautics and Space Act, that this effort should be planned, directed, and effectively managed by the NASA, as a public enterprise.

It is essential, therefore, that this governmental enterprise be able to secure and to hold men of exceptional, demonstrated ability and talent for their technical and managerial positions. Our exploration of the personnel requirements and program of NASA has underlined the critical importance of the two major principles in H.R. 10480 you are considering.

First, if we are to engage in complex and broad-range technical programs costing many billions of dollars and fraught with critical importance to our security and status as a nation, it is essential that we secure and maintain adequate quality and competence in the technical and managerial personnel required to plan and conduct the research and to plan and direct the vast industrial programs involved.

Second, to secure and maintain staffs of people with demonstrated, superior competence, we must have a pay policy and structure that will be as nearly comparable as possible with that prevailing in private enterprise.

Anything less than this invites serious risks for these major enterprises: The experienced and the most skilled will leave, often at the peak of their contribution. It is practically impossible to ask the experienced and most capable individuals from industry to come to Government at severely limited salary opportunities.

In this regard I should like to read into the record a letter sent to me by the NASA Personnel Director at my request for an illustration of this problem: NASA had established an excepted position for one of its key posts in the Lewis Research Center, at $16,500, a fair rate in terms of the salaries of other positions within the context of the Lewis Center's top-level structure. The offer was rejected, and the candidate wrote his friend and technical associate at the Lewis Center as follows:

Mr. J. HowWARD CHILDS,

Assistant Chief, Office of Project Management,
NASA-Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

DEAR HOWARD: Confirming our phone conversation of May 16, I greatly regret not seeing my way clear to accepting your offer to come to NASA-Lewis as Chief of the Auxiliary Power Generating Office. Certainly this position would be most acceptable from the viewpoints of technical interest and challenge, and of the caliber of the men I would be working with. My sole reason for declining is on the grounds of remuneration.

It is true that the salary you are able to offer-namely $16,500-would be acceptable as a minimum, seeing that it is the figure you had indicated right along. However, I have received several firm offers from industry at about $20,000, namely around the same amount that I had received in my two most recent positions in industry. The latter of these was in general considered to be a

$25,000 position, and my salary would have risen quite rapidly to that figure had I continued my association with that company. I might also mention that I was recently the leading candidate for a $25,000 post with another company, but withdrew my name on the basis of personal preference.

All of these positions involved the direction of technical efforts, work comparable as regards interest, challenge, and responsibility to the post at NASALewis. The companies are all leaders in their respective fields, since the only organizations I am considering are like NASA-first-class as regards the caliber of the people and the organization in general. In other words, NASA's well-deserved reputation can hardly be used to justify a lesser pay scale, at least in the case of these companies.

The Federal Governmen's pension plan is justly appreciated, but the 61⁄2 percent payroll deduction compares adversely with the zero to 21⁄2 percent deductions at the company I am considering, whose pension plans incidentally confer about the same benefits as the Government's.

I am aware that the position we have been discussing for me carries potential increases amounting ultimately to perhaps $1,000 per year. Here, too, I regret that industry's picture is more attractive, since generally raises are of the order of 3 to 5 percent per year for a number of years. In many instances industry also is able to offer bonuses or promotions for work of exceptional merit. Especially in senior positions, industry's salary ranges for a given position are far broader than the Government's.

I have kept in mind the President's request for a 30-percent increase in the salaries of senior scientists, and would presume that at least a part of this request may be approved before too long. Nevertheless, there is too little assurance as regards the outcome to sway the balance in my case. It is my hope that documenting my position may influence the outcome in some small way because-speaking for the moment as a taxpayer--the moderate investment would certainly be returned many times over in terms of attracting and holding the scientists you desire.

In a few days I expect to be able to decide as to which position in industry to accept, and will then write to you giving my new address in the hopes that I may see you and Messrs. Lundin, Johnson, and Manson again when you are in my vicinity.

With all best personal wishes,

Sincerely yours,

Recently NASA lost one of its senior technical directors-a man whose advice, counsel, and fresh ideas had long helped the former NACA and the United States hold its position at the front of worldwide aeronautical developments. He had, incidentally, been the initiator and prime mover of the very important experimental airplane program which currently is illustrated in the flights of the X-15. These combined airplane and space vehicles have attained the speed of five times that of sound, and have demonstrated the feasibility of the transition from aircraft to spacecraft. John Stack had been compensated, for years, at $19,000. He recently was brought to NASA headquarters from the Langley Research Center. In headquarters he was NASA's Director of Aeronautical Research, at $20,000. But he has left, after years of resisting very attractive offers from industry, for a figure over five times that of his Government salary. He is not lost to the country. However, proprietary considerations of industry will, in effect, deny him the freedom to contribute at the national level. He will not be contributing to all industries and to the Air Force and Navy at the level he has been during the past 20 years. As a leader with great attraction and support from his team within the NASA laboratories, NASA is concerned that additional keymen from NASA will leave. Such losses will seriously weaken the very important work in aeronautical research.

I have cited these two cases as illustrations of how delicate this matter of salaries is in the type of highly competent staff that is necessary in our aerospace program. I should like to turn, now, to the general problem of top-level salaries, as these are required for the attracting and retaining of key scientists, engineers, and managers for our space

program.

The bill merely continues the 425 positions which the Administrator of NASA may establish in the supergrade range. In our questioning of the representatives of NASA we discovered that whereas they had estimated their requirements for additional positions at 115 for this next fiscal year, this request has not been acted upon by the Bureau of the Budget. If not presented and acted upon this session, NASA will have serious problems with its top management positions during this coming year.

Specifically, the NASA has explained its needs for these higher level positions in terms of its program requirements. We have, in the past, reviewed such requirements together with the other resources needed. This committee's understanding and support in this matter a year ago when the NASA's program was so greatly increased is laudable. This year, the House of Representatives authorized a greatly increased space program. Much of this will be the result of plans and contracts developed during the past year. However, in several areas there will be needed expansion in the top-level staffing for which additional excepted positions will be required.

In this regard I should like to call your attention to the difference between these excepted positions in NASA and the use of grades GS16, GS-17, and GS-18 in other agencies. NASA uses the range from $15,500 to $19,000 in $500 intervals. NASA has established its top-level scientists, managers, and executives in various groupings at some eight different levels. Compressing these eight levels into three, GS-16, GS-17, and GS-18, would be difficult. GS-18 would, in most cases, be used only for the highest level institutional managers. This would leave only two broad grades or levels to cover what now are recognized over a range of eight or nine different levels. Frankly, in the NASA it is not so much the amount of money, in the range between, say, $16,000 and $19,000, but who are at $16,000 and at $16,500, who at $17,000, and who at $18,000 and $18,500. The two systems do not mix well. We believe, therefore, that NASA should be permitted to continue using these excepted positions, as provided in the Space Act and in the present bill. But, we also strongly urge that the number of these positions be increased to reflect significant changes in the scope of the space program and their requirements for additional top-level personnel in science, engineering, and management.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to close this testimony with a general reference in support of the pay increases for the rank-and-file employees of the post office and civil service systems. Many of my constituents in the 8th Congressional District of California are loyally devoting their services to the public interest. However, these individuals who are heads of households find it increasingly more difficult to cope with the ever-increasing cost of living on the salaries that they are currently being paid.

There is no question but what our public servants are discharging their duties in a well-trained and competent manner. I am certain

that efficient private industrial operation would be hard put to equal the efficiency of our public employees; however, when the pay scales of employees in the civil service or postal services are compared to private industry, it is rather difficult to reconcile the lower pay scales of the public enterprise versus the higher pay scales in the private

sector.

In view of these factors I believe it is imperative that we take action now to give an adjustment to these pay scales throughout all levels of employment in the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the opportunity extended to me to appear before your committee and I wish you and the other members of this committee well in the deliberations that face you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Miller.

The next witness is Hon. Eugene J. Keogh, of New York.

STATEMENT OF HON. EUGENE J. KEOGH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. KEOGH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for your courtesty and consideration in permitting me to make this statement in behalf of H.R. 9531, the postal pay legislation introduced by the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the Honorable James H. Morrison.

I don't think it is necessary to prove to this committee that postal employees are in desperate need of a pay increase. In my opinion, and I am sure it is your opinion, the case has been abundantly proved by the long list of witnesses that has appeared before you since the hearings began.

The present salary structure of a letter carrier or postal clerk which ranges from $4,345 to $5,305, with an average of $5,005, a year, is totally inadequate for present-day living requirements and, in my opinion, it is tragically out of line with the degree of intelligence and skill necessary for the adequate performance of postal work.

As you so well know, letter carriers work, for the most part, in metropolitan areas where the cost of living is extremely high. In the Borough of Brooklyn, where my own constituency lies, it is impossible for a man to raise a family decently on a salary of $5,005 a year. It just cannot be done.

A recent survey taken informally by employee leaders in the Brooklyn post office showed that 93 percent of the letter carriers employed there were either "moonlighting" by taking a second job at night, or, their wives were working full time to keep the family afloat. In my opinion, it is scandalous that the United States, the richest and most powerful Nation in the history of the world, does not pay its faithful and dedicated postal employees a wage sufficient to support their families without necessitating extra income. When a man works at two jobs, his efficiency suffers on both of those jobs. I am certain the mail service in every metropolitan area of the United States would be improved overnight if postal employees could afford to work exclusively at their post office jobs.

I also think, in a time of high unemployment, it is morally indefensible for the U.S. Government to force its postal employees to work at two jobs, thereby depriving unemployed workers from getting gainful employment.

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