"In the first place, of course, quite generally, we are interested in any legislation which improves the orderliness of personnel administration or salary administration and which would tend to increase the effectiveness or morale of government employees. . . The Commission favors this Bill because it believes it to be a necessary supplement or complement to the Classification Act of 1923 . . .” In the same way, using the same words, I request that your Subcommittee incorporate the ten-step system into legislation for the wage board employees. This would be an action "which improves the orderliness of personnel administration or salary administration and which would tend to increase the effectiveness or morale of government employees". I know also that today the overwhelming majority, more than 90 per cent of all wage board employees in fact, are in the third and last step of each grade. Most of them got there after one and a half years of satisfactory service. Are they then supposed to stay there all the rest of their lives, never moving higher? This is not a rational approach to developing incentive; this is not good personnel administration of a career system. As I stated earlier, the situation is even worse than that. When we compare the pay range in the classified service grades with that of the wage board, we find that, in the ten-step system of the classified employees, the range of pay between the bottom and the top is thirty per cent; and in the twelve-step system of the postal field service, it is 36% per cent. But the range of pay in the three-step system of the wage board between the bottom and the top is only 8 per cent. I say that this is rank discrimination. But we are not through with odious comparisons. I should like to add one more. Today the wage board supervisory grades have five steps and not three. Moreover, the range of pay between the lowest and the highest of these averages to 15 per cent. Here then we find that the present state of affairs discriminates not only between the classified and postal workers, on the one hand, and the wage board employees on the other; it even discriminates within the wage board system itself in favor of the supervisors and against the non-supervisory employees. I think this is the most abysmal kind of discrimination; it is shameful and intolerable and should be ended at once. OVERTIME, SHIFT DIFFERENTIAL AND TRAVEL For a good wage board system, one should also have appropriate differential for duty which involves a recognizable degree of physical hardship or of hazard in its performance. These Bills provide that the National Wage Policy Committee shall make recommendations for such a schedule of differentials. This provision is necessary because the Federal government largely ignores this consideration today. The Navy Department under its own regulations could pay up to 100 per cent differential. It pays a piddling twenty cents an hour, even for the most dangerous kind of work. The Army could pay up to 50 per cent. It pays 30 per cent of the Navy differential, that is, a "flat" six cents. It is incredible that these rates of differentials are paid when employees of private contractors working alongside the Federal employees actually get up to a 100 per cent differential. I think I should also call attention to the fact that the Congress has itself authorized the payment of a 25 per cent differential for classified employees intermittently engaged in hazardous occupations. Yet, ironically, no differential at all has been authorized for wage board employees engaged in regular and recurring hazardous duties. Similarly, the Bills stipulate that the night shift differential now paid to classified employees, amounting to 10 per cent, will be paid also to wage board employees. Another important provision of this Bill relates to travel time. Today, management takes advantage of wage board employees by requiring them to travel to distant places of work on their own time. Most often this situation arises because the supervisor has scheduled the work of his activity improperly or dispatched and assigned his employees to work sites inefficiently. This is an abuse of the right of the wage board employees to their own life and it is an invasion of their privacy through the invasion of their private time. To correct this situation, the Bill requires that "whenever practical travel will be scheduled during regular duty hours". It then stipulates that when "impractical, and travel is scheduled outside normal duty hours, all hours involving travel, including necessary layover time, shall be construed as duty time and compensated accordingly". I am sure that as soon as these Bills are enacted and supervisors will be required to justify paying for their poor scheduling of travel time, the abuses will end. Then travel will be authorized only when and if it is actually required in the public interest and not solely because the supervisor had not worked out his plans properly. CONCLUSION Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, there are many other worthy items in these Bills on which I have not had time to comment. However, I believe that the principles and the concepts which I have invoked apply equally to them. Basically, what I have been saying is that the wage board employee and the non-appropriated fund employee should be treated equally with the classified service employee and the postal field service employee. We should deal fairly and justly with them. We should not discriminate against them. I know that these Bills will end this discrimination. Once it is passed, the "forgotten men" and the "forgotten and deprived men and women" of the Feteral service will know that discrimination has ended at last. I appreciate most sincerely the privilege you have extended to me, Mr. Chairman, in allowing me to appear before you today. I thank all of the Subcommittee members for their patience and generosity in listening to me for this length of time. And finally, I ask you once again to enact wage board legislation this year. Mr. GRINER. Now I would like to ask for an exception. SPECIAL CASE OF ALASKA I have just come back from an extensive survey trip to Alaska during which I tried to isolate the special problems which affect all employees there, private enterprise as well as Federal, State, and local government. One fact is clear. There are so few large private enterprises employing 300 or more workers that the provision in S. 231 and associated bills limiting wage surveys to private establishments with 300 or more employees cannot be effectively carried out in Alaska. I therefore recommend that the State of Alaska be specifically exempted from the provisions of subparagraph (c) (4) of section 5343 of S. 231 and other associated bills appearing on lines 16 through 18 of page 6 of the printed text of S. 231. The CHAIRMAN. Does the Senator from Alaska agree with the proposal? Senator STEVENS. I certainly do. I think it shows what might result from a trip if we could take the whole committee up there this year. John has traveled throughout the State. He spent a great deal of time with our people, and I think he has come back with several good recommendations. Mr. GRINER. To my personal knowledge, the Senator from Alaska has a number of other problems up there, which I am sure this committee would be interested in. The CHAIRMAN. Are their problems related to this legislation? Senator FONG. Are you trying to get him reelected, John? [Laughter.] Mr. GRINER. I don't know of a better man. Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, if we are having general comment, I said earlier good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I was trying to move the hearing along at that time. I did not address myself particularly other than a general good morning. But I would now like to do so with an even more pleasant good morning to the West Virginians who are here. I want at this time to recognize them. Although I cannot see them, I know they are here. There are several in attendance. Seriously, Mr. Chairman-and I have not been able to be here during all of the hearing-I think it is significant that John has just mentioned the hope the President would sign legislation of the type that you have introduced. I of course share that hope with him. I do think that he will consider carefully any new proposal, and more carefully than he did last year the legislation which he vetoed. You remember, Mr. Chairman, that that legislation had unanimous support when you reported it to the Senate. There were some differences of opinion during the hearing and executive session process which was understandable. But we reported the bill unanimously to the Senate, and you recall, further, Mr. Chairman, in your comments, that the bill was passed without opposition in the Senate. I think this is noteworthy at this hearing as we begin the discussion of the bill for this year. The House of Representatives, as I recall, passed legislation similar to the Senate bill in 1970, by a vote of 231 to 90. I have often wondered why the President with that mandate from the Senate and with such substantial majority in the House did not sign the legislation into law, or allow it to become a law. I accord to the President the very best of intentions, and I want the record to so reflect. We can disagree with him then as we can disagree with him now, if he holds the same viewpoint, or opinion. However, I have a feeling that the President, given more time to study the legislative proposal, if it comes from the Congress early in this session, will not give the answer of a veto which he gave in 1970. I want to say again that I think the President should not be criticized too severely, because of the veto he may make of a certain piece of legislation, as of a certain date. I have been disappointed many times in these vetoes. Other Senators have been disappointed also. We must remember now that this is a new day. We must give to the President and to his advisers the benefit of a searching analysis of what we believe can be good and worthy legislation which can be placed on the President's desk after action by the Congress. This will strengthen our case. [Applause.] The CHAIRMAN. I might add there, Senator, in my judgment the President probably had no real chance to examine all of the inequities in the system, that he had very bad advice from somebody down below. [Applause.] I will not tell you how low that came from, but it must be awful low in terms of the action [laughter], but I would like to emphasize the objectivity on this question now of this committee, which is speaking out in various ways, that is it is a unique committee in one way, a majority of the committee, five of the nine were just re-elected last November, so we are statesmen now, and we are not under this kind of pressure, and yet we feel the inequity in this in itself is such a heavy pressure that weighs upon us, and that is the reason we made this our first order of business in this new session. That is why you find such strong support for you. Senator FONG. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, prior to the veto, it was a nip and tuck affair. I think if this bill was presented again to the President, I think he would sign it. The CHAIRMAN. Even the same bill? Senator FONG. The same bill that was agreed upon. Mr. GRINER. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said this morning about the veto. Some of my grapevine has told me about what happened, and I have never criticized the President for not signing it, but I am very critical of some of his advisers, because I do not think he knew what they were talking about. I hope that some of us might have an opportunity to help to advise the President at this time, to be sure he knows of the facts. Senator STEVENS. Mr. Chairman, those of us who are not yet statesmen might want to do that a little bit also. Mr. GRINER. Now, I want to touch on a subject which is- The Senator from North Dakota. Senator BURDICK. Your testimony on this exception for Alaska, are there any other States in the Union that would have a similar situation? Mr. GRINER. Not that I know of, unless it is possibly Puerto Rico. Of course, that is not a State, but we do have a survey there, but Alaska is the outstanding situation. There you have mostly smaller employers with very few employees. In the whole State of Alaska most employers have less than 300 people working for them. If you eliminated vast numbers of employers in the State, you would have to go over to, let's say, Seattle, and accept the survey which was made in Seattle. Then certainly, there would be an injustice to most people who live in Alaska, where the cost of living and wages are among the highest of any place in the country. There are, of course, other States in which in the future areas would need to be considered for exemption. That is, legislative language for this exception might be general so that it could be expanded when it should be expanded. The CHAIRMAN. But we have to count the antelope in Wyoming to qualify. Mr. GRINER. We have the whole State of Wyoming in one area, and we got a very nice raise for you out there. The CHAIRMAN. And they responded in a very meaningful way. Mr. GRINER. I want now to talk about the nonappropriated-fund employees. NONAPPROPRIATED-FUND EMPLOYEES Since the issue of nonappropriated-fund employees is a crucial one, I should greatly appreciate the record incorporating also my remarks made on July 29, 1970, before the Special Subcommittee on Exchanges and Commissaries of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Chairman, I request that that be added to the record at this point of my presentation. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be added. (The statement follows:) STATEMENT OF JOHN F. GRINER, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, JULY 29, 1970 I appear before you, distinguished members of the Special Subcommittee on Exchanges and Commissaries, with a sense of deep appreciation for the opportunity you have given me to speak to you on behalf of the thousands of employees of military post and base exchanges and naval stores who are paid from nonappropriated funds. Our organization represents more than 650,000 employees of the Federal government who are organized into exclusive recognition units all over the world. We have a dues-paying membership of approximately 325,000. Our members include Federal officials and Federal employees in every Federal department and agency, including diplomats, executives, lawyers, custom officials, barbers, clerks, automobile mechanics and food inspectors. Our members also work in base and post exchanges and in commissaries, here in the United States, in our territories and in foreign lands. Our union won the first exclusive recognition unit for exchange employees back in 1964, and today we represent the largest number of these employees. Consequently, we know intimately the vast diversity of conditions of toil of employees working for Federal agencies and instrumentalities, whatever the source of the appropriations or of the non-appropriated funds that generate their pay. And with all this knowledge and background, I can say to you in full candor without any reservation that the worst conditions of Federal employment and pay are experienced by the employees of non-appropriated funds activities, including not only those who work at the various military exchanges but also such other military instrumentalities as the Stars and Stripes, and officers and noncommissioned officers clubs and open messes. We all know from press reports the nature of the allegations which preceded the opening of hearings by your Special Subcommittee. These do not need particular repetition and I shall not refer to them. We all know that the hearings you are conducting are designed to produce the necessary salutory reforms to correct these alleged abuses and to result in corrective changes. They are designed to provide the basis for better legal safeguards of the interests of the public, the military services and the beneficiaries of nonappropriated funds. What is not known, however, because it has not been reported adequately in the press, are the abominable conditions of employment of the people working for non-appropriated fund installations. I am gratified for your Subcommittee's decision to investigate these conditions also and, therefore, I shall devote my comments primarily to the reforms needed in that area. THE LEGAL STATUS OF NON-APPROPRIATED FUND EMPLOYEES The first major obstacle in safeguarding the interests of the employees of nonappropriated funds is their ambiguous legal status. They are treated simultaneously both as being Federal employees and not being Federal employees. So far as their duties and obligations are concerned, we find that they are subjected to just about all the burdens of other Federal employees. So far as their rights and perquisites are concerned, they are treated as not being Federal employees at all. Thus, we find that whether or not these employees are recognized as Federal employees seems to depend upon the authority interpreting the Federal law and whether or not it is administratively convenient to apply that law to these employees. These employees pay Federal income taxes, even when stationed abroad. They are fully subject to all military and civilian laws governing appropriated fund employees, but do not have any of these rights. Their rights to organize and to bargain are controlled and limited by the same conditions as appropriated fund employees. For example, just as in the case of appropriated fund employees, they may not legally strike. They do not have even the right of appeal to the Civil Service Commission or to other Federal authorities for redress. They do not participate in the Civil Service Retirement program, nor in the Federal health benefit program, even though many of them have been working alongside other Federal employees for as many as ten to fifteen years. Such pension plans and other fringe benefits as they have fall far below the levels of those provided other Federal employees paid from appropriations by Congress such as employees in Commissaries. In short, employees of non-appropriated funds work in the world of the double standard. The justification, or pretext, for this discrimination and double standard derives from the word "non-appropriated". It was held by the Executive Branch that the source of their revenue, coming from funds not appropriated by Congress, excluded these employees from the status of Federal employees, including the setting of pay for wage grade employees according to surveys for appropriated fund employees. It was held in the next breath that even though they are not |