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Mr. MCCAULEY. It was not complete coverage for civil defense workers as the proposal that was put into effect in 1942. It applied only to a limited class of persons. And it seems to us that since this is a liquidating program no new cases would be involved. The best way to handle it is to modify the benefits provided for at present under the civilian war benefit program rather than bring them in and put them through the process of workmen's compensation claims. They are already receiving these benefits. If they are inadequate why not just raise the limit on the maximum?

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. As I understand, Mr. Multer's bill a much broader question is involved than under Mr. Fino's.

Mr. MCCAULEY. It is; yes, sir. Under H.R. 856 we would be opening the way to coverage for all civil defense workers under State jurisdiction, State or local jurisdiction.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. And I apologize again for not having listened to your testimony. It was necessary for me to leave temporarily. Mr. MCCAULEY. That is all right.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Do I understand again this principle to which you referred earlier applies here?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Here just the same.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. This is stretching the definition of what is a Federal employee far too far?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Right.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. For that reason you would not be in favor of such an approach?

Mr. MCCAULEY. That would be the position I would take on this; yes, sir.

Mr. GOODELL. If that be true, the justification in the President's original program?

Mr. MCCAULEY. The original program apparently was taken as an emergency measure. It covered various things, one of them being this group of people we are talking about. If I recall correctly, it also included aid to persons who were stranded overseas at the time the war broke out and others who suffered because of the capture of, say, the wage earner by the enemy. There were a number of different kinds of relief provided, one group which involved the ones we are talking about here. As I say, there are only about 40 cases left in this liquidating program. It seems to me that if we want to provide relief for them all we have to do is raise the benefit scale of the present plan.

Mr. GOODELL. Let me ask you if there would be any differences in groups covered under the Fino bill and under this Presidential program.

Mr. MCCAULEY. The Fino bill deals with the group covered.
Mr. GOODELL. Just that group?

Mr. MCCAULEY. That group alone.

Mr. GOODELL. Is there any other particular advantages that would accrue to them being under compensation rather than under the President's program you refer to?

Mr. MCCAULEY. I don't think so. They are presently eligible for medical care. The disabled are. They are drawing benefits. And the present limitation on benefits is $85 a month. If you wanted to raise it you could raise it to whatever figure you might deem appro

priate.

Mr. GOODELL. When we speak of the President's program, what is the official designation and the statutory authority for it?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Under the Fino

Mr. GOODELL. No, this other war program, relief, where these people were overseas and civil defense injuries.

Mr. MILLER. I don't know what the name of it is but Congress gave the President a sum of money at that time to do with as he saw fit. He took a portion of that money to take care of these so-called relief cases, hardship cases.

Mr. WIER. He took it out of his contingent fund.

Mr. MILLER. It was a sort of war fund.

Mr. WIER. That is right.

Mr. MILLER. That he could spend any way he wanted to. As I recall, one of these cases involved, for instance, a man who was engaged as a guard when the President was going up to New Jersey, up in that direction. He was a guard and he was injured by either a railroad train or something of that sort.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Not in my State, I hope.

Mr. MILLER. It was up there some place. New Jersey. Maybe I better include all the States up there. New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Up in the general northeast section of the country.

Mr. MILLER. That is the class of cases it took care of. He was really not a Government employee or civil defense worker or anything of that sort. He was just a man that was hurt on an occasion when he was assisting the local authorities to guard the President when he came in.

Mr. GOODELL. Are there continuing authorities and appropriations to this fund?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. MILLER. Every year, I understand.

Mr. GOODELL. President Eisenhower now uses for the same purpose?

Mr. MCCAULEY. We get funds each year for payments of benefits and include that item in here. It is such a small item we don't get a separate appropriation.

Mr. GOODELL. Apparently somebody thinks there is some advantage for their being under the compensation program.

Mr. MILLER. Probably go on and on if it was under that program instead of ending sometime.

Mr. WIER. We will pass over the Fino bill.

I find the chairman of the subcommittee in an embarrassing position here with a bill that I introduced on January 7. If there are any questions that the members would like to ask I shall attempt to answer. (H.R. 1196 follows:)

[H.R. 1196, 86th Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To provide an additional method for computing certain benefits payable under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act to persons who continue their employment after sustaining injury, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) section 40(f) of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, as amended (5 U.S.C., sec. 790 (f)), is amended to read as follows:

"(f) The term 'monthly pay' shall be taken to refer to the monthly pay at the time of the injury, or the monthly pay at the time disability begins, whichever is greater, except when otherwise determined under section 6(d) with respect to any period."

(b) The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply only with respect to benefits payable on or after the first day of the first month following the month in which this Act is enacted.

SEC. 2. The first proviso in section 303 (d) (1) of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act Amendments of 1949 is amended to read as follows: "Provided, That where the injury occurred before such enactment, except in cases specified in subsection (b) of section 5 of such Act, as so amended, the injured employee shall not be entitled to compensation under the schedule unless within one year after the date of the enactment of this amended proviso or one year after the date disability begins, whichever is the later, he elects to receive compensation under the schedule if so entitled:".

Mr. WIER. Is there a report on that bill, maybe, that will take care of me?

Mr. MCCAULEY. No, sir, you introduced a bill but you asked for no report.

This is one of the items that we have been working on in connection with the review of the law generally and I think you probably intended to go a little bit beyond what you provide in the bill to include in this same category the cases which there is a recurrence of disability after the man has returned to work. In the bill, as you have drafted it, the compensation would be based on the monthly pay at the time of injury or at the time disability begins, whichever is greater.

That appears reasonable but it does not deal with another class of cases; namely, those in which a man is able to return to work. He may work several years and then suffer recurrence of disability. At that time, his wage is higher than it was at the time of original injury. So any change in the law along that line should take care of the recurring injuries as well as the cases where the disability begins at some subsequent period after the original injury.

Mr. WIER. Mr. McCauley, personally I am not going to defend or speak for the bill. I introduced it by request of Mr. Mason. I shall have Mr. Mason come up here to testify if there is any question.

Mr. MCCAULEY. There is merit to the thought, and as I say, that is one of the problems that we were dealing with in this proposal that we are working on now.

Mr. WIER. What you have said is about true. When we write bills we do not ask for less than we want.

Mr. MCCAULEY. Section 2 of the bill deals with another problem. As you will recall in connection with the 1949 amendments, Mr. Chairman, there was considerable discussion as to how far back we would go retroactively and make a schedule effective. So for minor permanent disabilities we made the schedule effective to injuries occurring 1 year prior to the amendments, and the person qualifying for such benefits had to make an election as to whether he wanted the schedule benefits or whether he wanted to continue to receive compensation for loss of pay. So, under section 2 of this bill, the time for making that election would be further extended to 1 year from date of enactment of this bill. There have been a few cases occurring in which private legislation was enacted to extend the time for making election. Mr. WIER. Let me ask you, as author of the bill, since you said there is no report on it, will you make available a report? I will have people particularly interested in this bill appear before this subcommittee.

Mr. MCCAULEY. I see.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, on that point I wonder if departmental reports on a number of these bills would not be

advantageous to us on the committee, especially the new members. If we are going to give them active consideration, whether it would not be good both to summarize the significance of the bill, to of course state the position of the Department, and the Bureau of the Budget and as an easy way in which we can evaluate when the time. comes to dispose of these one way or the other. I should think we might well consider the advisability of submitting formal request on a number of these in addition to yours.

Mr. WIER. While you were out, Mr. Frelinghuysen, that question came up. I learned that we do have some reports on some of the bills. Mrs. Bosone got them over in the files. I think I made the statement that if the committee desires reports a motion is in order. If you committee members feel we ought to have a report on all the bills we are hearing it is OK with me.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that, if that is necessary and I imagine it is, that we submit formal request for reports on the various bills which we have had under consideration today or which we may be taking up in the immediate future in cases where we have not already requested and received such reports. If that has to be in a motion, I suppose

Mr. WIER. All pending bills?

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Ön which reports have not already been rec

ceived.

Mr. WIER. Is there a second to that?

Mr. GOODELL. I will second it.

Mr. WIER. It has been moved and seconded that the subcommittee request of the Department Employees Compensation Department a report outlining the significance of the bills in relation to adoption by the Congress of the bills pending before this subcommittee as of today.

All in favor signify by saying "Aye."
Those opposed.

That authorizes you to get a report.

Mr. MCCAULEY. We will get busy on them. I hope the reports when they come up will not be too inconsistent with what I have told you already.

Mr. WIER. Mr. Teague has a bill in here, H.R. 1967.

(H.R. 1967 follows:)

[H.R. 1967, 86th Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To amend the Federal Employees' Compensation Act to establish an additional wage basis for computing compensation in cases of recurrence of disability and in cases of death occurring subsequent to such recurrence

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 12 of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act is hereby amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

"(e) In any case in which disability resulting from an injury recurs after the date on which an employee resumes employment with the United States, or death occurs subsequent to such date, the monthly pay shall be whichever of the following amounts is greater:

"(1) The monthly pay received at the time of the injury;

"(2) The monthly pay received on the date such disability recurs, computed as if the injury had occurred on such date; or

"(3) The monthly pay determined in a recomputation made under section 6(d)."

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SEC. 2. Section 40(f) of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act is hereby amended by inserting immediately after “(d)" the following: or section 12(e),”. SEC. 3. The amendments made by this Act shall not apply to compensation paid or accrued prior to the date of its enactment. Any person who is receiving compensation on the date of enactment of this Act, and who is entitled to an increase in such compensation by reason of the amendments made by this Act, may obtain such increase by making application therefor in such form and manner as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Labor. Any such increase allowed shall be effective on the date of enactment of this Act, if application therefor is made within one year after such date, or on the date of such application if it is made thereafter.

Mr. WIER. What is the report on that? Have you a report, Mrs. Bosone?

Mrs. BOSONE. No, sir.

Mr. WIER. Here is one that has not been reported?

Mrs. BOSONE. No.

Mr. MCCAULEY. This deals with the same subject covered by your bill in parts. As I say, that is one of the provisions of existing law that we have been reviewing and which will probably be covered in ourMr. WIER. All right, then. We shall pass over to H.R. 2873. (H.R. 2873 follows:)

[H.R. 2873, 86th Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To amend the Federal Employees' Compensation Act to eliminate the provision by which United States citizens born in Puerto Rico are denied certain benefits rights assured under such Act to other United States citizens

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the fourth paragraph of section 42 of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act is amended by striking out the last sentence.

SEC. 2. The amendment made by the first section of this Act shall apply only with respect to monthly compensation for disability or death payable (regardless of when the disability or death occurred) under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act for months after the month in which this Act is enacted.

Mr. WIER. Here is a Puerto Rican bill, apparently. This has been introduced before under another number.

Mr. MCCAULEY. We filed a report on that bill March 17, 1959. Mr. WIER. That is what I thought. He has been trying to get that legislation for several years.

Mr. MCCAULEY. The report was favorable.

Mr. WIER. That is what I thought. We will pass that one over favorably. Mr. O'Neill, of Massachusetts. That is related to my bill, 3055.

Mr. MCCAULEY. That deals with the same general subject as your bill. This, I might comment, would be impractical as far as we are concerned because to keep pace with the current wage changes in 15,000 or 20,000 cases on the rolls would almost be an impossible task. Mr. WIER. You would have to increase your force.

Mr. MCCAULEY. The wage changes are not uniform. The classified personnel and postal personnel probably receive wage adjustments at rather infrequent intervals but the wage board group have their pay adjusted from time to time and not on a uniform time basis either. Adjustment to machinists operating in New England might be adjusted at a time far different from machinists on the west coast or in the gulf or other areas.

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