travel expense per professional in our budget estimates for 1967. Similarly, we made it a point to change the provision in our reporting contract to allow cancellation without cost up until 4 p.m. of the day before the hearing rather than noon. This increased time for cancellation is expected to result in a decrease in cost of such cancellations. Some last-minute cancellations are necessary because it is still preferable to accept a last-minute settlement of the issues and pay the cost of cancellation rather than go to the hearing. We also estimated reductions in communications costs per professional and supply costs per staff member.

WASHINGTON OFFICE PERFORMANCE

The Washington Office of the General Counsel includes the Washington portion of the Division of Operations, which is responsible for field operations, the Division of Litigation, and the Division of Administration.

The Washington portion of the Division of Operations consists of the Assistant General Counsels who assist the Division Chief and his associate in directing field operations, and the Regional Advice Branch which assist the regions with substantive advice on case handling. The Advice Branch has been processing about 1,000 difficult advice questions a year in a most efficient manner. In addition, it is responsible for the quarterly case handling reports which my office issues to assist the public, and especially members of the bar, in understanding the development of labor law under the act. These reports represent a sampling of those cases which are handled in advice by the Washington Office of the General Counsel and provide guidance to our own staff as well as the public.

The Division of Litigation includes: the Appellant Court Branch which handles our court of appeals enforcement work; the District Court Branch which provides advice on district court litigation and handles all 10(j) litigation as well as some 10(1) litigation; the Supreme Court Branch which is responsible for all Supreme Court work; the Office of Appeals which handles appeals from regional director dismissals in unfair labor practice cases; and the Legal Research Branch. Most of the Division plans no increase in positions in 1967 and will handle increased work by means of increased productivity. The Legal Branch is adding two professionals as part of a general reorganization and improvement program designed to provide better service. The main increase in the Division is in the Appellate Branch which has been hit hard by the rapidly rising number of Board decisions requiring enforcement. This branch is planning a 5.2-percent increase in productivity in 1966 and 1967.

The Division of Administration is responsible for all agency administrative services including centralized budget, fiscal, personnel, management, and supply services. The Division is absorbing as much of the increased workload as it can, and will increase its staff as little as possible.

SUMMARY

With your help and understanding I have been able to make demonstrable progress in virtually all the areas which are significant in the operations under the supervision of the Office of the General Counsel. In cooperation with the Chairman and the members of the Board, but respecting our separate statutory functions, substantial progress has been made to fulfill the functions which have been delegated to the agency by the Congress. I look forward hopefully to a continuation of your understanding and assistance in our further efforts.

Mr. FOGARTY. Do you care to add anything to what the Chairman has said?

FIELD PERFORMANCE

Mr. ORDMAN. No. I might add only that we are rather proud of our field performance. We are relatively current. We have gotten rid of virtually all our overage cases.

We are suffering, too, to some degree, from this trial examiner shortage because they have been so overloaded with work that we have to wait from 10 to 12 weeks after issuance of a complaint for a hearing date. This is not a good thing. We feel that the relief we seek in the trial examiner area will help us not only with the proceedings that

go before the Board and the courts but will expedite our case-handling and bring the cases to trial or settlement quicker.

Mr. FOGARTY. How are you getting along with the Board?

Mr. ORDMAN. I can speak only for myself. Our relations are ideal, which is a demonstration that our operation can work, and very successfully, although there was some doubt about it before.

Mr. FOGARTY. Mr. Michel.

BACKLOG

Mr. MICHEL. What are your goals with respect to cleaning up this backlog of cases? If we come along and grant you all these additional positions will you come back next year and say, "We are sorry, but we haven't made any significant progress. We are in the same spot we were last year."

Mr. McCULLOCH. I almost hesitate to mention the goals, because they are so much better than the time periods we are currently achieving. But before my coming on the Board some goals were set, and we have set some additional internal operating goals since then.

In the initial stage of processing an unfair labor practice case, from filing of the charge to the issuance of the complaint the goal is 45 days for average elapsed time. From the issuance of the complaint to the close of the hearing, the goal is 45 days. From the close of the hearing to the trial examiner's decision, 60 days. And from the trial examiner's decision to the Board's decision, 90 days. That adds up to something like 240 days, and we are substantially above that.

But I looked recently at the backlog figures for the Board as of July 1, 1961-that is 412 years ago. They were roughly double what they are now. The Board has reduced its backlog over that 412-year period almost in half. A substantial part of the reduction was a result of the delegation we were permitted to make in representation cases to the regional director. In addition the Board has handled this rising volume of unfair labor practice cases which, as the General Counsel's statement points out, includes a higher percentage of merit cases. These, in very recent years, are the more complex cases which in turn mean longer trial examiner records, longer hearings, and longer trial examiner decisions. Many of these elements are not subject to our control. It depends on the nature of the cases that are brought to

us.

So I would not want to give any positive declaration that we can achieve any particular goal in a year; but we are bringing these backlogs and time delays down by every available means at our disposal. The Board itself, in increasing its issuance of unfair labor practice decisions by almost 200 last year, is being faithful to the assurances it gave you last year that it would strive to work more efficiently and reduce its time delays.

STAFF OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. MICHEL. The big bulk of these additional positions will be in what category? Will there be 85 on the General Counsel's staff?

Mr. ORDMAN. That is correct. There will be roughly 53, including both professionals and clericals, in our 31 regional offices. As has been pointed out, about two-thirds of the agency staff is in the field. There

will be 53 jobs there. Fifty-three is about a 3-percent increase in our work force in the field to take care of the field's share of a 6-percent estimated increase in the intake of cases plus a 2-percent increase in our backlog. So we are adding about 3 percent to take care of our portion of that 8-percent increase in estimated workload. I am optimistic that we can do this, simply because we have done so very well in the past. We think we can make it with 53 in the field.

The remainder are in the Washington part of our operations. We anticipate that if we can remove the bottleneck at the trial examiner level, the Board will need additional legal assistants and we will need additional personnel in our court section. Currently, 60 percent of the Board's unfair labor practice decisions go to court. The proportion requiring court enforcement has increased somewhat in recent months, so we need additional people in the litigation unit and we need 13, mostly clerical, in the administrative division.

RECRUITMENT OF TRIAL EXAMINERS

Mr. MICHEL. Where will you recruit the trial examiners? Mr. McCULLOCH. Trial examiner recruitment is initially the responsibility of the Civil Service Commission which administers a special qualifying examination and sets up registers for certification on request to agencies requiring trial examiners. Most of our selections are made from a register provided by the Commission. Under limited circumstances, qualified Federal trial examiners may be available for transfer between agencies subject to the approval of the Civil Service Commission. We have used both methods for hiring trial examiners.

Mr. Ordman can tell you more about the recruitment of field examiners and field attorneys.

Mr. ORDMAN. For examiners and attorneys, we have a very active recruiting program. We actually send people out, not only our regional office people but we have two people in Washington who scout both colleges and law schools for prospective employees.

Mr. MICHEL. Are they predominantly from those groups, fresh out of college?

Mr. ORDMAN. They are predominantly right out of college and law school. In this connection as our business increases we find our clients' businesses also increase and we are constantly being raided with the consequence that we lose some of our people.

AVERAGE TENURE OF EXAMINERS

Mr. MICHEL. How long can you keep these fresh-out-of-college folks before they strike out on their own?

Mr. ORDMAN. When I came in 22 years ago we were in a position where about 50 or 60 percent of our professional work force in the field offices had less than 2 years of experience with the agency. We are now up to between 70 or 75 percent of our people who have over 2 years of experience and we think we can now put it in terms of 3 years' experience. So our retention has been quite good. I will add that in the last month or two we are being raided quite heavily by the outside. In a real sense we cannot meet competitive standards.

The law firms we do busines with just ask what the employee's salary is and they offer him more. But we do hope our deserving people can be promoted as fast as possible within the limits of Civil Service regulations and Bureau of the Budget limitations and the like.

FLUCTUATION IN WORKLOAD

Mr. MICHEL. How do you account for the increase being greater in even years than in odd years?

Mr. McCULLOCH. As to the lower rate of increase in odd years, the fiscal year takes up the last 6 calendar months of an even year and the first 6 months of an odd year. This point you refer to was somewhat emphasized by the staff of the Bureau of the Budget, who noticed this fluctuation and called it to our attention. Our speculation is that some of the people who otherwise would be organizing employees, particularly in that first 6 months of the fiscal odd year, must be busy at something else, and I believe elections, realistically, have something to do with it.

VOLUME OF CASES FILED BY UNIONS

Mr. MICHEL. It must be something like that.

How do you account, referring to page 4 of of your testimony, the first paragraph, to the switch in the volume of cases that were filed predominantly by individuals rather than unions in 1958 and 1959? You make a point of saying the pattern has been completely reversed now in that 50 percent of all charges are being filed by unions whereas individual filings constitute about 35 percent of the total. What accounts for that switch?

Mr. McCULLOCH. We attribute it to the increasing organizing activity which, again, flows out of industrial growth and other factors that open up new plants that are not organized and open up new opportunities for organizing.

The level of charges filed by individuals, while it has dropped percentagewise, has remained about constant. Looking back, in 1965 it was 5,446; in 1964, 5,865; in 1963, 5,495; in 1962, 5,416; in 1961, 5,664. So that, in gross figures, the individual charges have remained about the same, but both charges filed by unions and by employers in this period have more than doubled.

If you go back to 1958, 2,759 were filed by unions and in 1965, 7,739. Again, if you go back to 1958 for employers, the charges they filed in that year numbered 1,091, and the charges filed by employers in 1965 were 2,617.

I think it is the result of the growth in the economy and the struggle to organize and in some respects to resist organization. Of course the employer charges stem out of alleged violations by the unions. Mr. FOGARTY. Mr. Denton.

CASES DISPOSED OF BY THE GENERAL COUNSEL AND THE BOARD

Mr. DENTON. I wish you would put in the record the number of cases disposed of at the General Counsel and at the Board level. Mr. MCCULLOCH. Yes, sir.

1 Totals of actions taken exceed number closed because several actions are often taken in the same cas e in 1 year.

2 Includes trial examiner actions and closings

3 Includes dismissals after appeal to the General Counsel.

Total includes consolidation of formal actions to proceedings for realistic workload measure, and represents disposition of 14.893 cases filed.

Total includes consolidation of formal actions to proceedings for realistic workload measure, and represents disposition of 326 cases filed. Since the Board's affirmative decisions are not self-enforcing and require compliance or enforcement in the courts by the General Counsel, a better measure of Board dispositions is the number of contested Board decisions.