EXPLANATION OF THE BILL This legislation is based on an official recommendation of the Postmaster General, and introduced by the chairman of the Submittee on Postal Operations, the Honorable Robert N. C. Nix, H.R. 11060. This bill would have changed the ratio of five regular employees to one career substitute employee in the postal field service, to a ratio of 4 to 1. During the course of the hearings, representatives of employee organizations recommended that several additional features be added to this legislation. The recommendations would (1) Exclude supervisors from the ratio computation; (2) Establish a maximum term for temporary appointments of 90 days; (3) Prohibit temporary employees, with certain exceptions, from serving more than 90 days until an intervening period of 90 days has expired; and (4) Include hourly rate regular employees within the career substitute employee quota on the basis that the hourly rate regular employee is usually designated to work a fixed daily or weekly schedule, but usually less than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. The Post Office Department does not agree with the exclusion of supervisor employees from the computation, but raised no objection to a legisltive restriction on the period of service of temporary employees, provided it was for a period of not less than 120 days and that several specific exemptions from the restriction were included. The Department also objected to the inclusion of the hourly rate regular employees within the computation. The bill reported by the committee (H.R. 14934) represents a compromise between these two positions, and meets the Department's recommendations except for the provision excluding supervisors from the ratio computation. The first section of the bill amends section 3302 of title 39, United States Code, to change the 5 to 1 ratio to 4 to 1, and to add two new subsections. A new subsection (f) excludes supervisory employees from being counted in the number of regular employees in determining the 4 to 1 ratio. Subsection (g) limits the authority of the Postmaster General to appoint temporary substitute employees at a first-class post office in any of the categories subject to the ratio for a period greater than 120 days, and requires that a period of at least 120 days elapse between such appointments. This limitation on temporary appointments does not apply (1) At post offices at which there are less than 25 employees; (2) During the Christmas period, which begins after November 14 and expires before January 1 of the immediately following year; (3) Where there is not available a register of a sufficient number of eligibles for a particular category of employees; and (4) Where appointments are made with the concurrence of the Civil Service Commission for the purpose of providing part-time employment to special groups of persons. H.R. 1085 Section 2 of the bill corrects an oversight as a result of which the Superintendent of Garages of the House of Representatives did not receive a pay increase granted all other legislative employees by the Federal Salary Act of 1967, Public Law 90-206. This section will grant the 4-percent increase in compensation to this employee and assure him of any increase that may be granted in July 1969 and July 1970, pursuant to section 212, Public Law 90-206. Letters setting forth the position of the representatives of employee organizations and the Post Office Department on the points in controversy are set forth below. UNITED FEDERATION OF POSTAL CLERKS, AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C., January 25, 1968. Hon. ROBERT N. C. NIX, Chairman, Subcommittee on Postal Operations, House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: We appreciated the opportunity to discuss H.R. 11060 with you which is presently pending before your committee and several amendments to the legislation which we are suggesting for your consideration. You will recall, I am sure, that we questioned the authority of the Post Office Department to include supervisory employees within the postal clerk complement for purposes of determining the number of substitute clerks which could be employed in a post office under the existing substitute-regular ratio of 1 to 5. We requested you and your committee to amend H.R. 11060 to specifically restrict supervisory employees from being included with the clerical complement for purposes of establishing substitute clerk-regular clerk ratio of employees. This could be accomplished by amending 39 U.S.C. 3302, with language which would make clear the intent of Congress to exclude supervisor employees from the compliments of the eight categories of postal employees indentified in section 3302. There is no inclusion of supervisor personnel presently in this section which would even suggest that the Post Office Department has existing statutory authority to include supervisor personnel for substitute postal remployee ratio determinations. We also suggested, Mr. Chairman, that if the Post Office Department insists that auhority should be granted to permit employment of temporary employees for a permissible period of employment of up to 120 days, then we urge the committee to restrict the reemployment of such temporaries for a period of 120 days. The Post Office Department also insists that temporary employees hired for the pre-Christmas period must be available for employment commencing November 15 rather than December 1. We believe the Department employment of temporary employees, more properly identified as "seasonal assistants," should be restricted to the month of December and career regular and substitute employees be utilized for any increased workloads during the month of November, particularly November 13 to November 30. In regard to the employment of temporary employees, we suggest appropriate language be drafted as an additional amendment to 39 U.S.C. 3302, by adding a new paragraph (f) as follows: H.R. 1085 "(f) No temporary employee can be appointed to a position in the categories listed in paragraph (b) for a period exceeding 90 days. No one having served as a temporary employee for 90 days in one of the above categories shall be eligible for reappointment to a temporary position until a waiting period of 90 days has elapsed." An additional paragraph (g) should also be added to section 3302 as follows: "(g) No temporary employee can be appointed to a position in the categories listed in paragraph (b) in post offices of the first-class, except during the month of December.' We also recommend, Mr. Chairman, that you insert the necessary language in 39 U.S.C. 3302 and 3573, and any other section of title 39 deemed appropriate, to provide that the number of "hourly rate regular employees" authorized for employment in post offices shall be included within the career substitute employee quota or ratio provision established by law. The Post Office Department's utilization of the hourly rate regular employee is comparable in many respects to the substitute employee. The hourly rate regular employee is usually designated to work a fixed daily or weekly schedule, but usually less than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week which places this type of employee in practically the same category as the substitute employee for all intents and purposes. Our unions do not condone the employment of temporary personnel in the postal service. Basically, we believe the postal service should be operated by career employees and ultimately by only regular postal employees. However, if you and your committee do report this legislation, we sincerely hope the suggestions which we have outlined in this letter will receive favorable consideration. We appreciate your consideration of our views and the suggested amendments to H.R. 11060 which we have outlined in this letter. It is our hope that you and your committee will include these amendments in any final legislation which may be reported. With best wishes, we are, Hon. ROBERT N. C. NIX, PATRICK J. NILAN, Legislative Director, United Federation of Postal Clerks. President, National Association of Letter Carriers. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF PERSONNEL, Washington, D.C., December 6, 1967. Chairman; Subcommittee on Postal Operations, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: In accordance with my telephone conversation of October 18 with the counsel of your subcommittee, Mr. Kennedy, he graciously forwarded to me a copy of Mr. Nilan's letter of July 17 to the subcommittee. H.R. 1085 The proposals contained in the letter have been given most carefu[ consideration, to the end that the passage of H.R. 11060 might be expeditiously accomplished. Mr. Nilan urges three amendments to 39 U.S.C. 3302 to be included in the proposed legislation. I will discuss each separately below: Proposal 1.-"*** specifically provide that supervisory employees in the postal service shall not be included within the complement of the eight categories of 'rank and file' employees for purposes of determining the number of substitute employees authorized under the substitute ratio law." Discussion The Post Office Department cannot agree to this proposal because it will sharply reduce the number of career substitutes who might be appointed under the provisions of H.R. 11060. It is estimated that 6,000 fewer clerical positions will be available if the proposal is approved. This will change the total figure of 23,000, which I submitted to you in my testimony, to 17,000. In that testimony, I stated that our total goal is to stablizie employment and reduce turnovers, and that one avenue to achieve this goal was to increase the number of substitutes. Since Mr. Nilan's proposal would reduce the anticipated benefit of the bill by almost 25 percent, we must urge that the proposal be rejected. Proposal 2.-(f) "No temporary employee can be appointed to a position in the categories listed in paragraph (b) for a period exceeding 90 days. No one having served as a temporary employee for 90 days in one of the above categories shall be eligible for reappointment to a temporary position until a waiting period of 90 days has elapsed." Discussion Combined with discussion on proposal 3, below. Proposal 3.-"Add new paragraph (g) as follows: '(g) No temporary employee employed can be appointed to a position in the categories listed in paragraph (b) in post offices of the first class except during the month of December.'" Discussion By letter to you of July 7, 1967, I submitted a draft of a proposed change to 39 U.S.C. 3302 which encompassed the bureau's position on the two remaining issues in Mr. Nilan's letter. In essence, the Department concurs, albeit reluctantly, to the restrictions on prolonging the employment of temporaries and their rehire, subject, however, to these changes. (a) The permissible period of employment must be 120 days. This will permit the hire and continuous employment of temporaries over one of the most critical periods of annual employment, the summer months. Because this period is so highly desirable for vacation purposes, and because the granting of leave requests for summer vacations is an important factor in preserving employee morale, the Department must have the flexibility to employ temporary personnel for the entire period. It would be most wasteful of Government effort and funds to be compelled to utilize more than the minimum number of employees needed to cover this period. (b) A similar critical period, and one which Mr. Nilan does recognize, is the pre-Christmas period. The Department does employ many H.R. 1085 temporary employees for this season alone. Again, to give us more flexibility in hiring and to meet the requirements of the season, we require that the exception to the amendments commence on November 15 rather than December 1. The draft of the proposed change forwarded by my letter of July 7 includes three other provisions which should be contained in the legislation. We again urge that they be included. They are: "*** That the limitations of this subsection do not apply"(1) to any category of employee at a post office in which there are less than 25 employees; "(2) "(3) with respect to any category of employees for which there is not available a sufficient register of eligibles for probational employment, and "(4) to appointments made with the concurrence of the Civil Service Commission for the purpose of providing part-time employment to special groups of persons.' The pattern of postal operations has changed since section 3320 was first promulgated. To reflect the realities of the present situation, and to assure that the Department's actions are not unnecessarily criticized, we recommend a minor change to paragraph (c), as follows: Delete "post offices" after the initial word "In" and substitute "postal installations.' Sincerely yours, COST RICHARD J. MURPHY, Assistant Postmaster General. The additional cost to the Post Office Department for agency contributions for fringe benefits available for regular employees but not for temporary employees, such as retirement and insurance contributions for an additional 17,000 career employees will be approximately $2 million. AGENCY REPORTS There is set forth below the official recommendation of the Post Office Department for enactment of this legislation. Hon. JOHN W. MCCORMACK, THE POSTMASTER GENERAL, Speaker of the House of Representatives, DEAR MR. SPEAKER: There is transmitted herewith a draft of a proposed bill, to reduce from five to four, the ratio of career substitutes to regular employees in the postal field service. We recommend that the proposed bill be referred to the appropriate committee for consideration, and that it be enacted. The ratio of one career substitute to each five regular employees, or fraction thereof, as provided for in subsections (b) and (c), of section 3302 of title 39, United States Code, was enacted into law in 1955. The present restriction on career substitutes has, by necessity, forced the Department into hiring temporary employees for reasons explained more fully below. H.R. 1085 |