The employees working under the current variety of wage-board systems want legislation and they want it badly. Some of these people that we have in this room have traveled more than a thousand miles in order to be here this morning. There is a substantial delegation that is not here; they will be coming in soon from the State of North Carolina. There is a delegation from every State on the east coast, and some in the Midwest, in order that they might point out to you by their presence what their desires are. They do not want the present unsatisfactory situation to be changed by means of regulations. They have had many unhappy experiences with administrative wage determinations.

Wage fixing by administrative action which is based on regulations can be modified too easily. Such directives can be violated and there is no effective appeal-no assured relief to which employees can turn. Under such conditions, correction comes slowly, if it ever comes. The group that is to develop and propose basic policies and procedures for the maintenance of the uniform wage-fixing system should directly reflect the operating level of the Federal service. This can well be accomplished in our opinion by a National Wage Policy Committee of 11 members, five of whom would be representative of Federal departments and agencies having the greatest number of wage board employees, together with five other members who would represent employee organizations representing the greatest number of wage board employees. An 11th member would be a public member, so to speak, who would come from outside the Federal service, a member who could serve as chairman.

All appointments would be finally made by the Civil Service Commission upon recommendation of these different groups. We approve the designation of the Civil Service Commissioners having an important role in the uniform system, but it is our conviction that such authority should repose in all three Civil Service Commissioners. This position is based on the belief that the unknown future chairmen may not possess the characteristics of the individual who can competently and impartially direct a wage-fixing system.

The Coordinated Federal Wage System developed by the Civil Service Commission would place responsibility for the establishment of wage areas with the Commission. We favor the determination of such areas by an agency wage committee which would be established by the Federal agency designated as a lead agency.

We favor placing the actual surveying of wage rates under the direction of a locality wage survey committee. This group, in turn, would report to the agency wage committee that would be established by the lead agency. Members of the survey committee would be Federal employees, one member designated by the lead agency in the local area and one member recommended by the labor organization having the greatest number of wage board employees in the area. The third member would be selected by the lead agency. Each member would continue to receive his regular Government rate of pay.

In collecting wage data, the rates collected should include not only straight-time rates, but also bonuses, incentive payments, shift differentials, and overtime rates. Whenever possible, at least 50 percent of the positions surveyed should be in establishments covered by collective bargaining agreements. Wage rate surveys should be con

ducted at least every 12 months or at such times as they would reflect significant or substantial wage-rate changes within a survey area.

The wage-rate changes should be made effective not later than the first day of the first pay period which begins on or after the 45th day, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, following the date on which the survey in question was ordered to be made.

I might say that particular provision is now a part of the law. Another important feature needed in this uniform wage-fixing legislation is to provide for the right of appeal for the employees subject to its provisions. Such appeal might well be directed to the agency wage committee with the right of further appeal to the top policy committee, and finally to the Civil Service Commission. The object of an appeal would be the evaluation of an employee's position or the rate of compensation assigned to his position. Included in this right should be the opportunity to inspect any official evaluation not only of his position but also of an evaluation of his efficiency or performance rating.

There should also be an appropriate differential for duty which involves a measurable degree of physical hardship or hazard in its performance. A schedule of such differentials could be established by the agency wage committee, the differential being not less than 25 percent of the basic rate of compensation for the position to which it is applicable.

At present this aspect of wage fixing is virtually ignored. The Navy Department under its own regulations has been enabled to pay a 100percent differential. It does not do so. Army can pay up to 50 percent. It has instead ignored real and undisputed danger faced by its employees who handle live ammunition.

On March 9, 1967, four men were killed in a flash fire in an aircraft bomb assembly room at the Picatinny Arsenal, at Dover, N.J. For risking their lives and finally losing their lives, these employees were receiving an additional 6 cents an hour from the Army-$2.40 a week as a hazard differential. The hazard they faced day out was valued at no more than 6 cents an hour. This and other tragic occurences have prompted the AFGE to urge and insist that the pay differential for hazardous work should be no less than 25 percent.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out in your home State of North Carolina, at Sunny Point where we load more ammunition into boats than any other place on the east coast, our people who are working side by side with contract people but receive no differential for loading live ammunition.

On the other hand, these contractor people receive 50 percent differential. Is that fair? I have taken this matter up with the Department of the Army, and up to this date there has been nothing done towards placing Federal employees on any kind of differential, not even 6 cents an hour.

The present wage schedules for the skilled craftsman or the trades helper are almost identical or vary only slightly in the four wage-fixing systems exemplified in the table of representative pay rates in the appendix to this statement. The difference in the method of developing rates for the skilled craftsman and trades helper and the rates for the semiskilled or unskilled types of work is a clear reason for insisting on uniformity within any given wage area.

At this point I would like to turn to that chart which I have appended to this statement. We have picked out several of the principal areas within the country, and we have used three types of work. For instance, a janitor in the State of New York, a janitor working for the Veterans' Administration, and a janitor in the General Services Administration, receives 35 cents an hour less than the same work being done in installations over which the Army or Navy or Air Force Wage Boards System applies. In Chicago, Ill., there is a difference of 39 cents an hour. In Washington, D.C., it is 75 cents an hour. In Detroit, Mich., it is 40 cents, Louisville, Ky., 75 cents an hour, Omaha, Nebr., 76 cents an hour. Phoenix, Ariz., 64 cents an hour, Los Angeles, Calif., 40 cents an hour. And yet these people working for the Veterans' Administration and the General Services Administration are paid by the taxpayer the same as the people who are working for the Army, or Navy installations in those particular areas. It just cannot be explained.

TABLE 1.-HOURLY RATES FOR 3 FEDERAL WAGE BOARD JOBS IN 8 WAGE AREAS

If such uniformity is achieved, the rate for janitor, for example, would be the same in the Defense Department, the VA, and the GSA, as well as any other agency having wage board employees whose pay is to be established under this legislation, and I might say at this point, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, that this coordinated wage board system does attempt to correct this particular condition.

Lack of uniformity has resulted from the Veterans' Administration and various other non-Defense agencies accepting the Army-Air Force rates for journeyman jobs, but making their own study for the purpose of fixing rates for service-types positions. I say that if they accept the Army-Air Force rates journeyman, they should accept the rates which are established for all types of positions within a survey area. Of course, under this legislation, the wage survey will be the responsibility of the Locality Wage Survey Committee utilizing uniform procedure for evaluating and identifying positions and collecting the wage data.

A further illustration of the cause of variation in the present pay rates and the need for uniformity of methodology has been the practice of the Department of Agriculture to accept the Army-Air Force rates but not until they have been cut 20 percent. This reduction was made despite the fact that the Army-Air Force Wage Board considered such positions worthy of the higher rates in the light of its survey and analysis of the resultant wage data.

Other differences in the methods used in surveying wage rates also have contributed to the variations in compensation for what should have been considered to be identical jobs. Navy has restricted industry coverage to manufacturing, transportation, and public utilities. The Army-Air Force system has confined its surveys to do the same industry coverage as Navy but has extended the coverage to other industries within thinly industrialized areas.

Most non-Defense agencies use Army-Air Force rates, which results in the same coverage as well, for skilled grades WB-5 and above, but they employ a much broader coverage for lower unskilled grades. These include such industry divisions as wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance, and real estate, as well as service industries of State and local governments. You and I know that they are some of the lowest paid people that we have in the country today.

It is this pressing need for uniformity in rate fixing which provides a rate of $2.78 an hour for a Navy janitor in Los Angeles and $2.38 an hour for the job in the Veterans' Administration and the General Services Administration. Of greater contrast is the $2.32 paid a Navy janitor in Phoenix, Ariz., compared with $2.19 rate for the same job in the employ of the Army-Air Force wage system. Of still greater difference in this same wage area is the $1.64 for janitorial work in the VA and $1.68 paid by GSA. The problem is not so acute for such jobs as trades helper in grade 5 or one of the skilled trades, such as electrician in grade 10 or 11, depending on whether the job is in Navy or Army-Air Force. Rates for these three jobs in nine wage areas are shown in the appendix which I called to your attention, attached to this statement.

The principle of "equal compensation for equal work" was set forth in the original Classification Act of 1923. This "principle of equal pay for substantial equal work" was repeated in the major version of the Classification Act of 1949. Surely we can expect no less than the elimination of disparity in determining how much the Government will pay its 700,000 wage board employees.

If there is to be equity, there should be a single pay rate schedule for all nonsupervisory crafts, trades, and labor occupations within the same locality wage area. This uniformity should be extended likewise

to those employees who are in the laundry and service work, as well as those who are paid in whole or in part from nonappropriated funds. I am surprised that the Civil Service Commission stated that they are unable to include the employees of nonappropriated funds because legislation would be necessary. Consequently, I am now asking for that legislation, because if there is any one group of people in this country that are being taken advantage of, it is the people that are now employed in these nonappropriated fund activities, such as your exchanges within your Department of Defense, and other nonappropriated fund activities.

They take advantage of the fact that the wives and the children of these servicemen have to work, and they pay them just as little as they can possibly pay them. And yet it is a well-known fact that these nonappropriated fund activities today, such as your post exchanges, are now enjoying a greater profit than ever before in history. In fact it is said without proof, that they actually don't know what to do with the profits that they are now making from these funds.

Among the other glaring inadequacies in the coordinated Federal wage system is the adoption of the Navy differential between the first and second and second and third rates for each grade. Navy has computed the second rate and then identified the first rate as 96 percent of the second and the third rate as 104 percent of the second rate. The difference between rates then is approximately 4 percent. Army and Air Force have used a 5-percent differential. Adoption of the Navy differential therefore means a cut in pay for Army and Air Force wage board employees.

Can you imagine adopting-where only about one-third of wage board employees of all DOD and less than one-third of wage board employees in the Government as a whole-a program that would actually mean a cut in pay for these employees, other than Navy employees? And yet that has been done under the coordinated wage board system.

We didn't expect such an injustice, and we hope that this Congress will correct that by enactment of adequate legislation.

In the House bill before this subcommittee, there is a proposed change in the wage-rate schedule heretofore in effect for wage board employees. It would provide for a pay step within each grade similar to the within-grade steps available to employees working under the Classification Act.

This would be an innovation, but there is no sound reason for not introducing such a wage board progression into the wage-board system. The pattern of waiting periods now in use in the Classification Act system may be applied with only one modification. In other words, a person would only have to stay in the first step for a period of 26 weeks as he does in the present time under the present system and under the proposed coordinated wage system. And then he would have to stay in step 2 and 3 for 52 weeks, and, I believe he would stay in steps 4, 5, and 6 for 2 years, and in steps 7, 8, and 9 for 3 years.

And this progression would not be fully automatic. There would be the requirement that the employee's current performance rating shall be "satisfactory" or better, with due allowance for service in the Armed Forces or in essential nongovernmental civilian employment in time. of war or national emergency.