you with our statement for the record, which is an in-depth treatment of what we'll be discussing today:

1. The principles upon which the Executive order program is based, our experiences and our accomplishments with the program. 2. The special and unique characteristics of the Federal Government as employer.

3. The evolution and basic features of the Executive order program, our challenges and progress under the program and how we are moving forward to deal with problems the program is designed to resolve.

4. The other existing systems which promote bilateralism in Federal personnel administration, and the need to assure that personnel policies requiring governmentwide uniformity continue to be handled through a central agency in which labor relations is fully integrated.

5. The major deficiencies we strongly oppose in provisions of pending bills, and the fundamental concerns which must be addressed in any consideration of broad-guaged legislation to govern labormanagement relations in the Federal service.

6. The lack of demonstrated need for such legislation. And, finally, the basic philosophy of labor relations we strongly support for balanced employee, union, and management rights and responsibilities in the public interest.

The thrust of all our testimony is that the Executive order program is operating successfully and that there is no demonstrated need for changing to a legislated program-and certainly not to one with many great departures from tested methods.

Furthermore, it is our strong feeling that any serious consideration of legislation must come to grips with the fundamental issues inherent in any basic change in the overall program of Federal labor-management relations. To focus attention on these issues, we have provided you with Summary Charts on 17 identified issues. Of these, we would like to devote special attention to the following in our testimony tomorrow:

The central authority-its role and authorities.

Supersedure the impact of collective-bargaining legislation on existing laws.

The scope of negotiations-as it relates to established bargainingunit structure, to the current unavailability of economic trade-offs, and to congressional authority and oversight responsibilities.

The paramount need to protect merit principles and other expressions of the public interest.

The need to identify who the "employer" will be-for purposes of collective dealings.

In addition, we have furnished you with detailed background information on union recognitions and agreements, third-party functions and case handling, collective-bargaining experiences and results, structures for labor-relations effectiveness, comparison of private and public sector economic fringe benefit levels and section-bysection comparison of Executive Order 11491 and pending bills.

The climate for labor-management dealings and relationships in the Federal Government has evolved from the first principles on which the existing program is based. These principles are as valid

and timely today as they were when the Executive order program was formalized 12 years ago in Executive Order 10988 and modernized with the provision for third-party machinery in 1970 by Executive Order 11491, which has since been amended.

As the essential statutory framework of Federal personnel policy, merit principles provide the context within which collective dealings must operate. And the essential authority of public officials to meet their obligation to manage effectively must be maintained. What the Executive order reserves to Federal managers commonly referred to as "management rights"-are in reality those responsibilities required of Government to manage in the public interest.

A major strength of our program under Executive order is its ability to make the periodic adjustments necessary to accommodate to new conditions in an orderly and evolutionary process. The twin imperatives of "improved well-being of employees" and "efficient administration of the Government” under Executive Order 11491 have shaped the policy, the procedures and the direction of the Federal labor-relations program.

That we've come a long way as a result is shown by the overall record of accomplishment and benefit.

Unions have grown and stabilized. As of 6 months ago, nearly 1.100.000 employees, or 56 percent of the entire nonpostal Federal work force, had been organized into exclusive bargaining units. That's just about double the proportion in private industry, and it includes very close to the total population of eligible employees in the Federal blue-collar work force. See attachment 1.

More recently, a dramatic upsurge in negotiating activity has broadened agreement coverage to a very considerable measure. Our studies have shown that over 77 percent of all nonpostal Federal employees in exclusive units are covered by negotiated agreements, with an additional 17 percent on the verge of initial agreements. This overall total of 94 percent cannot be far out of line with the situation in private industry; and even if we assume agreement coverage there approaches 100 percent, the gap is narrowing all the time.

The collective bargaining process is at the heart of any labormanagement program, and the Civil Service Commission in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget recently undertook to determine just how it is working under Executive Order 11491. To distinguish fact from opinion-and to sharpen our perception of the total picture-we surveyed the bargaining experience. throughout Government. The returns are now in on almost ninetenths of our program's more than 3.400 recorded units, including virtually all of those under negotiated agreements. See attachment 7. What emerges is an overall record of bargaining achievements under the Executive order program, notably:

The parties are reaching final agreement in only a few months of negotiations-- within 3 to 4 months-in two-thirds or more of bargaining situations.

More important, they are learning and managing to settle their own problems across the table in their own way, and mostly on their own. Only 16 percent of bargaining situations required third-party

involvement and most of them involved only mediation-344 cases. With all other third-party involvement-the Federal Labor Relations Council, Federal Service Impasses Panel and Assistant Secretary of Labor-confined to just about 80 bargaining situations.

And these agreements incorporate a variety of matters every bit as broad and important as in private industry-with the exception of those areas where Congress has either retained direct control or has established a special statutory mechanism. The matters covered by agreements are amply documented in the Commission's new Labor Agreement Information Retrieval System, which for the first time ever gives us a current, automated handle on what's been negotiated in the Executive order program. See attachment 9. Included in the wide range of negotiated items are provisions which go beyond what's required in regulations, with bilateral-instead of unilateral grievance procedure because of their presence in agreements. We find, for example:

That more than 820.000 Federal employees enjoy access to negotiated grievance procedures-most of them providing final and binding arbitration.

That some 718,000 are covered by negotiated promotion policies. That about 712.000 are subject to negotiated overtime clauses. That almost 652.000 are under negotiated safety provisions. That over 589,000 are covered by negotiated disciplinary policies. These are only a few examples of the very real and tangible accomplishments produced through the collective bargaining process in the Executive order program. And they represent only a part of the total employee benefits package developed on a bilateral basis in the Federal service. There are other mechanisms providing for union participation in developing wage and fringe levels which must also be considered in the total picture.

But before going on to them, I would like to review some of the systemic reasons why basic pay and economic supplements aren't deferred to the bargaining table in the Federal sector-reasons that inhere in the nature of our system of Government.

The setting for labor-management relations in the Federal service has evolved from the special and unique characteristics of Government as employer-actually, a multiplicity of employers in some 70 departments and agencies employing some 2 million nonpostal civilians. Congressional control over taxation and the budget process, the monopoly character of much of Government's activities and the concomitant necessity for uninterrupted service, expression of the public will in Federal personnel affairs-these are some of the conditions that make us a very special and unique kind of employer, and distinguish us from employers in the private economy. They do tend to limit the scope of bargainable matters-in ways deemed to be vitally necessary in the public interest.

Notwithstanding these essential differences, however, some critics of the Federal labor-management program blindly favor a wholesale transplant of private sector law, precedents and practices into Government. This might work if Government were just another industry. It is not. The Federal program today is a product of the distinctive conditions that exist in Government, just as the private

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sector program is a product of the quite different conditions that prevail there. What makes the Federal environment so special?

Labor organizations enjoy long and very important relationships with the Congress. This hearing itself is an example of their impact in the legislative process. Unions in private industry do not lobby their employers for benefits outside and in addition to those negotiated across the table.

Federal employees benefit immensely from a wide variety of statutory and regulatory policies and protections. These have been achieved through significant union input to the political and administrative processes of Government.

The Executive order itself has fostered a positive approach toward union organizing and dealings. In contrast to the private sector, the Federal Government has adopted a position of neutrality on union representation of its employees. Government officials do not mount "vote no" campaigns in union elections.

The Congress has outlawed the strike among employees of the Federal Government--in recognition of the paramount need to ensure the uninterrupted delivery of services to the public. In its place, there is viable and effective machinery for determining economic and other major personnel benefits. While this removes concerted job action. as a lawful weapon in collective bargaining, the Government-as employer has no desire to deny to Federal employees the general level of rights and benefits secured through ngotiations in private. industry. On the contrary, the rights and benefits which Federal employees enjoy are fully comparable to-and in some ways better than those in the private economy. See attachment 10.

I think it is eminently clear that labor-management policy in the Federal sector cannot be the same as in the private sector. While we have some things in common with collective bargaining as it is practiced in private industry, there are basic and special differences which demand a special and different program for the Federal service.

The state of the program for Federal labor-management relations. today is a result of these essential differences as reflected in our continually evolving character. The Executive order has been revised substantially three times; even now, we are headed toward still another revision as a result of our current review of the program. As these revisions in the program suggest, ours is not a model of immutable perfection. There are problems, and we have made and continue to make the changes necessary to meet those problems. Some of the inevitable problems that would exist in any programstatutory or Executive order-have been blown up out of all proportion to create the impression that the Executive order program isn't working. To the contrary. I believe that the record in resolving problems amply demonstrates that the overall objectives of Executive Order 11491 are being met and that the machinery for dispute resolution is working well.

Over 370 grievance-arbitration awards have been rendered under the Executive order program; and, of course, this figure doesn't include the many worksite grievances which are settled in the negotiated procedure and which never reach formal arbitration. These

awards have resolved disputes in a wide variety of areas-including such areas as administration of pay and leave, promotion, discipline, work scheduling and representation. The majority of arbitrations have involved installations within the Department of Defense, where a total of only 12 exceptions to arbitrators' awards have been filed5 by management, 7 by unions-indicating the high rate of acceptance both parties have given to the arbitration process.

The Federal Labor Relations Council has closed 129 of its 146 cases of all types-negotiability disputes, appeals from determinations in representation and unfair labor practice cases, and exceptions to arbitration awards. The Council's appellate function has increased dramatically--with three times as many cases closed last year as in the previous year-and the leadtime in case processing has been shortened dramatically. See attachment 3.

The Federal Service Impasses Panel has closed 92 of its 105 requests for assistance in negotiations-with most of them settled informally. Only 18 cases involved issuance of a formal report and recommendations following fact finding, and 16 of them were accepted in toto by the parties; in the other two cases, the Panel's recommendations were used as a basis for settlement. See attachment 4. This is the Federal alternative to the economic or "contract" strike, and the record shows wide acceptance by the parties directly involved.

The Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor-Management Relations has closed 4,385 of his 4.962 cases of all types-representation, unfair labor practice, standards of conduct, grievability-arbitrability-while his Labor-Management Services Administration has supervised 2,063 representation elections. Year-to-year comparisons in the number of elections supervised reflect the recent leveling off in union organizing under the Executive order. And although the number of unfair-labor practice cases had shown a steady increase from 1971 through 1973, projections based on the first quarter of 1974 indicate there may be fewer such cases this year than last. See attachment 5.

These figures demonstrate that the third-party processes under the order are distinguished by their "successes"-that the loudly alleged "failures" in isolated cases are the exceptions that prove the rule. This is not to say problems do not exist; they do, and we are moving ahead to meet them. But they should be viewed in the true and broad perspective of Executive order experience-and this is one of overall and increasing successes in surmounting new challenges.

The total envronment of labor relations in the Federal Government provides a responsiveness to employee and union concerns that extends well beyond the Executive order framework-in many important directions. The Executive order program realistically cannot be viewed as the alpha and omega of formal and structured opportunities for collective participation in determining personnel policies, practices and working conditions.

Over and above what is derived through the collective bargaining process under the Executive order program, improvements in wages and fringes are obtained through a variety of bilateral mechanisms which represent a close first cousin to collective bargaining. Together, they provide direct union involvement on all the various "personnel policies, practices and matters affecting working conditions" of