Then I would go to the Internal Revenue offices at 484 Lexington Avenue where there were row upon row of workers who reviewed the work of the people on Wall Street and they were all black.

The reason for that was that the black workers couldn't get employment in the Wall Street offices, but they found it possible to move ahead through the public employment sector.

Do you have a larger percentage of minority workers in your unions than private enterprise does? If so, do you think that that would create a problem in getting recognition in certain States?

Mr. WURF. You have hit on something that is very interesting. Let me answer your question, but just let me add to that something which is important.

When you asked me about the history of public employees and why these things develop and I talked about them being part of a privileged group, I talked about an era in which work was not available and workers had steady jobs and public employment.

It is also true that in that era most public employment was white, regardless of what level it was at.

Then something began to happen. By virtue of the conditions that were being achieved by workers in private industry through their unions, and by virtue of the upturn in the economy, and because of the repression that existed in the public service, we saw very large numbers of black workers entering the public service because of the lack of rights that public employees had. Therefore, the public jobs became less desirable.

For example, in a city like Philadelphia, the work force, when I started as an organizer, was practically all white for the blue collar titles. It is now practically all black.

When I started in New York-and I want to remind you I am not a young man, but I am not the oldest labor representative in America— that the work force has changed considerably.

Let me say that the majority of the members of our union I suspect outnumber the blacks, but there is a very large black membership in our union.

There is a very large Chicano membership in our union, and if I may say so, as you know, there is a large Puerto Rican membership in our unions in those places in the United States.

What is interesting about that, Mr. Badillo, is that, in essence, because we don't have rights, because we are supplicants, the jobs become less desirable. Let me point out that the nature of the jobs is not why they are less desirable. Let me point out to you that the men who pick up garbage in many, many cities are all black. Let me point out to you that in your city they are not all black. I suspect there are a substantial number, and the work force is probably representative of the city. But the reason white men have not left the job is because the job is a decent job, not because of the Taylor law, but in spite of the Taylor law.

Let me say to you, with this business of minorities getting into the work force because it is a less desirable job, and then because it is minorities, the hostility of those who have power in the community to public workers becomes another interesting dynamic factor in our relationships.

I am not going to stand here and wave a banner on behalf of our union. I think its reputation in this area is fairly well established. But

I do want to say that the whole problem of desirability of work, the influx of minorities, and then the hostility to the work force by some public officials is a very interesting syndrome worthy of some study and

some concern.

Mr. BADILLO. I have no further questions at this time.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Reid?

Mr. Rem. First, let me tell you, Mr. Wurf, I think your testimony has been most helpful. It will be studied very carefully by this subcommittee. I appreciate very much the clarity of a number of your

answers.

I would like to turn briefly to one other point you raised in your supplementary testimony. I don't think it has really been touched on this morning. On page 31, you talk about the purchases of goods and services accounting for the bulk of State and local government spending $120.9 billion in 1970 or 92.1 percent of total expenditures. In 1970, you point out, it is estimated that the State and local government expenditures for the purchase of goods and services will account for 12.4 percent of the GNP.

I know that many in your union have given some creative thought to the efficiency and effectiveness of government. Do you have any specific suggestions for the kinds of procedures that would facilitate making State and local government more effective or, for example, reducing some of the hospital costs to the average patient?

Mr. WURF. Here we go for the next 2 hours. If I turned it over to one of these guys sitting around me who know much more than I do, we could go on forever.

Mr. REID. I know it is a concern of yours, and I know you bring some expertise to this question.

Mr. WURF. Let me say this: In essence, the whole problem of productivity, the whole problem of the role of government, the whole problem of services, is increasing at a fantastic rate.

Let me say there has been much talking lately of contracting out. I remember attending a Republican Governors' conference and Governor Reagan was threatening to practically destroy our union by taking all public services and contracting them out. My sort of smart, boyish remark to that:

You do that and we will get the National Relations Labor Act up and we will be able to deal with you.

In any event, the other thing that has become clear is that the business of contracting out public services has not worked. On the contrary, you who come from New York know what I mean. You have more difficulties contracting out than you do having the services performed by public employees. Let me say don't feel oversensitive because it is not only a mess in New York but it is a mess in other places.

Let me say in passing quickly that much could be done by productivity in the public service. Our terrible problem, as my colleague Vic Gotbaum, in New York City, put it, is that goddamnit the employer never tried to renegotiate it or to work for it. He is just trying to use it as an excuse. I am paraphrasing it.

Second, one of the real problems in public service, which I hope does not become the responsibility of this committee, but I do hope becomes a concern of public administration in the United States, is

that our management is probably the worst in the world. In spite of the fact that the Congress is dominated by lawyers, I don't know whoever decided that lawyers are capable of running public works departments, that lawyers are capable of running a complex engineering mechanism, that lawyers are able to do almost anything in public service.

The kind of management and the kind of productivity is tragic.

The next thing I would like to talk about is that it is in the public services where we are opening up whole new vistas. For example, the business of taking people who are dropouts, even from grammar school, let alone high school, and giving them the nastiest kinds of jobs in the public service at very low range rates. What we have been able to demonstrate in recent years all over these United States-North, South, East, and West-by sensible career ladders doing remarkable things, of developing some of the difficulties we have in institutions of all kinds, developing some of the problems we have in public work situations, we have been trying desperately to convince people that the same kind of thinking should be used in the administration of justice from the police station to the courthouse to the prison.

As a result of the Attica situation, a least people are beginning to listen to us. But, in essence, we have been able to do remarkable things in taking people and having them acquire skills, taking a registered nurse's job and breaking it down into different skills, giving workers a sense of involvement and dignity, and to do fantastic things in terms of productivity, to do fantastic things in terms of using members of the work force that had been consigned to oblivion and consigned to frustration and so on. It is just pitiful that so little is being done about this.

Let me say that we are grateful that there is concern and interest in this matter, because I think we have an opportunity here to reach out to these guys who hang around the street corners, and these women whose lives are destined to be spent in somebody else's kitchen for a dollar an hour and give them useful, productive, meaningful work and all that happens to enhance a human being when he has useful productivity work. At the same time, it fills tremendous gaps in shortages and needs in the workforce in America.

I don't konw if that is what you were getting at.

Mr. REID. That is a very helpful definition and I was interested in your comments.

I am delighted to hear about your willingness to negotiate in this area and take a look at sensible management and career procedures and career leaders and all of the rest. I think that would be helpful.

Mr. WURF. First of all, this business of blaming our people for hospital costs is outrageous. Although the average hourly pay for hospital workers is $2.44 an hour, that is roughly $4,800 a year.

Mr. THOMPSON. I might comment parenthetically that I am virtually certain that this committee will report favorably another bill which includes the nonprofessional people working in private hospitals under the act. Proprietary employees are already under the act.

Mr. WURF. When I say $2.44 an hour, I am including the professions. So if one gets in the nonprofessionals that figure goes down. Let me point out that manufacturing earnings in the United States are something like $3.25 an hour. I would say, sir, that one of the

great mysteries of these United States is why it is cheaper to stay at the Plaza than Bellevue Hospital, if they found out you are able to pay for it.

The delivery of health care in America is an outrageous business. The delivery of health care in America is certainly worthy of the consideration of the Congress.

Mr. REID. I share your concern. You can obtain the most expensive suite in the Waldorf-Astoria more reasonably than the hospital room. The average person in America can't afford to get sick. The only medicine they know is in the room and the costs are outrageous.

That is one of the reasons I have been working with Ted Kennedy on a bill which may not be ideal but it deals with the magnitude of the problem. I think we have to get the costs down, and I think every American has a right to decent health care services. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. THOMPSON. I think Mr. Clay has a question.

Mr. CLAY. One short question, Mr. Chairman. In your opening remarks, Mr. Wurf, you mentioned the support you had from a coalition of public employee unions. I would just like to know what kind of support you have received from the Governors and mayors who have lobbyists here and what is the position of the present administration as it relates to this piece of legislation?

Mr. WURF. We sort of have something that is schizophrenic. Mayors and Governors who run in places where labor is effective and seek labor enforcement and labor support and labor money at least give us lipservice on collective bargaining, even if they don't give us specifics sometimes. As our union has grown and influence has grown, along with other organizations like ours, we get more of that.

But let me say to you that it is outrageous these same mayors and Governors pay their dues and go to these fancy conventions all the way from Atlanta to Honolulu and apparently pass resolutions and apparently instruct their staffs to lobby the Members of the Congress against minimum wages, against laws that would eliminate racial and sexual discrimination in the United States, against everything that has to do with decency in employment, from workmen's compensation toyou name it. In other words, we have a piece of hyprocrisy here, although at times we have worked with the Conference of Mayors, League of Cities, City Managers Association, Conference of Governors, county officials, and whatnot, we find individually in the backroom they are great fellows. On the political stump they are for justice. and morality and so on.

But their lobbyists circulate in the halls of this building and are opposed to a $2 an hour minimum for public workers. They fought us bitterly in our action to erase racial discrimination in employment and

so on.

I think this is a matter that needs a little more light and exposure, and perhaps these organizations will start reflecting the public views of their constituencies.

You know that when that lobbyist comes up to you from the Conference of Mayors or League of Cities or Conference of Governors, the dues don't come out of the pockets of the mayor or Governor or the city manager; the dues come from the city of New York, the city of St. Louis, or the county of Westchester or what have you.

In other words, the taxpayer, without knowing it, is subsidizing a lobbying effort to deny the most elementary decencies to these 10 million Americans.

Mr. CLAY. What is the position of the present administration in the White House?

Mr. WURF. Come on.

Mr. CLAY. Just for the record.

Mr. WURF. The present administration in the White House considered us a part of the work force. I was present in Miami and I want you to know I am still bleeding.

The point is that they are in favor of justice, decency, and morality. And if you elect good God-fearing conservative Republicans all over these United States, they will patronizingly treat us with the decency we deserve.

I am not being fair. There are men like Mr. Reid and there are Governors like the Governor of Oregon who have spoken out decently and morally for public employees. If you think you are going to get me to say that all Democrats are decent, you are dead wrong. Some of them are real bad.

Once, when Mr. Shultz was Secretary of Labor, I spoke to him on this matter on a couple of occasions. I once even had a few words with President Nixon. I think there is a concern that we do something about it. I am too fearful to think about what they think is the solution to the difficulties in the public service. I support the kind of thing we are trying to do to our brethren in the transportation industry is the way we would do it. They would have a society in which all rights and privileges would be assigned to those who have power and deny the rights and power to those of us who are on the other side of the table.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Wurf, thank you very much. This concludes the hearing for this morning. The subcommittee will meet again in this room tomorrow at 10 a.m. The subcommittee is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, March 9, 1972.)

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