employers and the labor organizations who have to do with the reinstatement process, because these reemployment statutes apply to all private employers as well as the Federal Government. We would now have a rising case backlog and it looks like it is going to continue to rise through this year. We believe we ought to do something about it and that is why we would appreciate the consideration of this committee in connection with the figure requested in the budget. TOTAL PERSONNEL Senator HILL. How many employees do you have now, Mr. Salyers? Mr. SALYERS. We have 41, sir. Senator HILL. If your request were granted in full, how many would this give you? Mr. SALYERS. This would give us 59. Senator HILL. Where are most of these employees? Mr. SALYERS. Most of them are located in the field. At the present time we have 8 in Washington, which has been our staff right along, and 33 in the field. We have field offices consisting in every case of 1 man and 1 secretary, except in New York, where we have 2 field representatives and 2 secretaries. For example, in Atlanta we have a field office with 1 man and 1 secretary who handles the 6 Southeastern States. We are able to do this in a large measure by utilizing the services of the State agencies. For example, in many States, such as the ones you gentlemen are familiar with, there is a department of veterans affairs which has county service officers. We designate them as our reemployment advisers, without compensation, and they handle a good many of the local problems for us. But there is a certain number that involve bargaining agreements, controversies between employers and employees, that have to be handled by the personnel of the Bureau. We believe it is important to get at these because when the man is reinstated with his preservice employer, it solves a lot of his other problems. Senator HILL. You mean, then, he does not have to ask for unemployment compensation and things of that kind? Mr. SALYERS. Yes, sir. TOTAL REQUESTS FOR ASSISTANCE Senator HILL. Do you have any idea at all how many veterans you helped in the matter of reemployment during the past year? Mr. SALYERS. We have figures on how many we have given direct assistance to in handling problems, cases, and inquiries. Mr. Bradley can give you that. We have no records of any handled by our cooperating agencies. For example, if a county service officer helps a man, of course we give him a handbook and provide him with materials, but we have no record of that. So that is all to the good. Of course, a very large number are reinstated by their employers. Senator HILL. What do your figures show there, Mr. Bradley? Mr. BRADLEY. For the 9-month period ended March 31, the total number of requests of all persons for assistance was 83,764. Of that number, there were around 25,000 of those with individual reemployment rights problems; that is, where there was a specific problem that you had to supply information and assistance on. And there were 5,665 different cases. Now the case is where a difference of opinion has already occurred and the Bureau must move in to assist the veteran and the employer to arrive at a determination as to the veteran's rights and what the pay would be and the proper reinstatement and things of that kind. The largest volume of the total workload is inquiries. PROBLEM-TYPE WORK As you see there, the second largest workload we have is the problem type in which we do not intervene but simply supply the information to the one individual that requested it and request him to settle his own problem without further intervention, if he can. It is when he cannot, on the problem type of thing, that the Bureau intervenes with all the parties concerned. Senator THYE. Primarily, the mere fact that you are in existence alerts everyone to the fact that in the event they tried to push aside a veteran that had been called in by selective service and had put in his 2 years, he comes back; and had he remained on the job he would have had promotions and so forth, and now he is not given that recognition. If he is not given that recognition, that of seniority and his rights, you immediately inform the employer. And by the mere fact that you inform the employer, in many instances it will straighten the question out right there? Mr. BRADLEY. Yes. Senator THYE. And if you were not in the field, all manners of abuses would take place which we could not appreciate or understand. So I think your services are just to safeguard that no abuses are brought against a young person who put in certain time in the military services and he is now back asking that he may have the recognition of time that he would have put in as an employee if he had not been called into the service. Mr. SALYERS. Yes, sir. There are many instances where because of a bargaining agreement or because of a personnel policy that covers a lot of plants, that even though the employer might wish to put him right back, the question is where and how because it is going to affect some other employees, too. So some of these questions get pretty deeply into the field of industry relations. Many of them we are able to work out with the headquarters of the various companies. Senator HILL. Are there any other questions, gentlemen? Senator STENNIS. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman to briefly contrast his work to what is briefly listed as the Veterans' Placement Service? SERVICE FUNCTIONS Mr. SALYERS. Yes, sir, Senator. The Veterans' Employment Service is a part of the Bureau of Employment Security, which, as you know, gives the States grants for the employment service. The State veterans' employment representative and the local offices are primarily concerned with the promotion of jobs for veterans and with the placement of all veterans of all wars. Our clientele-if you wish to call it that is in a sense a more restricted one in that we deal with those people who leave jobs to enter military service and who desire to return to their preservice employers. Senator STENNIS. I have just been down here to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where the Second Air Borne Division is in operation. If those men go back home now, your Department would be the one they contact to get their jobs back, would it? Mr. SALYERS. That is right. Senator STENNIS. And they could go to the service office in the county with some special problem. That office also represents you and they could contact you through that county office? Mr. SALYERS. Yes, sir. But we have one other very important relationship with the local employment service and the employment offices. By agreement with the Bureau of Employment Security, their local offices have State agencies and actually function, and the employment representatives function as information and referral points for us. For example, suppose one of those men wants to get his job back. He goes into the local office. Maybe he goes in to apply for unemployment compensation for veterans because he could not get his job back. They would give him the information on reemployment rights, which we supply. If that is all he needs, we probably would never hear more of it. On the other hand, if it gets into one of the industrial relations problems, the State employment agencies do not want to get into the area of controversy in industrial relations. Then they would refer the problem to us. COUNTY SERVICE OFFICES The difference is that the Employment Service's function is an information and referral service for us, and so does selective service. We have an arrangement with General Hershey whereby all the selective service offices have information on it. But the county service offices, we actually designate them as what we call a reemployment advisor, so they could contact the employer, if necessary, and render assistance. Senator STENNIS. On what basis do they function? Mr. SALYERS. It varies. In some states, such as New York, there is a setup whereby the States pay the veteran's counselor. In other States it is a hundred percent a hundred percent county, as in Wisconsin, I believe. In some States, it is a grant-in-aid. In Georgia, I believe, the State pays them all. I do not know the situation in Alabama and Mississippi. It varies from State to State, but we have had wonderful cooperation and could not operate the program with the small staff if we did not use these people. Senator HILL. Do you have any other questions, Senator? Senator HILL. We want to thank you, gentlemen, very much. The committee will stand in recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon. (Whereupon, at 12:10 p. m., a recess was taken until 2 p. m., of the same day.) AFTER RECESS BUREAU OF APPRENTICESHIP STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM F. PATTERSON, DIRECTOR; EDWARD F. GALLAGHER, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, BUREAU OF APPRENTICESHIP; AND JAMES E. DODSON, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR APPROPRIATION ESTIMATE BUREAU OF APPRENTICESHIP Salaries and expenses: For expenses necessary to enable the Secretary to conduct a program of encouraging apprentice training as authorized by the Act of August 16, 1937 (29 U. S. C. 50), [$3,100,000] $3,200,000. Full year cost of Federal employees life insurance program....... Activity 2: Extension of national industry promotion activities: Other costs_ +1, 000 17, 565 3, 935 Reduction in costs for employer's contribution for old age and Net change -1, 000 +100, 000 Bureau of Apprenticeship resources and maintenance workload, fiscal years 1948-561 1 Resources include total appropriations, not merely funds for this activity. Additional workload, not shown here, includes development activities with about 12,000 establishments, and general promotional activities. Also work in training other than apprenticeship was initiated in 1952. 2 Figures on establishments are collected twice a year. The figure nearest the end of the fiscal year is given. 3 Also includes suspensions arising from induction into military service, and transfers to workload of State agencies. Detail will not add to year-end total because of transfers from Bureau to State workload of 1,645 apprentices. 5 Estimate. |