The average employment increases provided in the budget request for 1974 are distributed organizationally as follows:

Board Members and Related Units

Board Members and Staff

Administrative Law Judges

Office of the General Counsel

Field Staff

Washington Staff

Total

2. Reporting Service

Increase in Average Employment

Another large increase in funds, other than for employment, is an additional $1,800,000 required for reporting costs, above and beyond work increases, as a result of P.L. 92-463 which requires that all agencies honor requests for copies of hearing transcripts to be provided at the cost of duplication. Our current contract with our reporting service allows the reporter to sell transcripts at a price which is similar to what they charge us. That price allows the reporter to secure a return on sales

which helps pay for his cost and provides a profit which, in turn reduces our contract cost. This area of income now having been lost the reporter is expected to increase his price to us, thus adding to our reporting request by the $1,800,000 noted above.

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS

Fiscal Year 1973

The Agency is absorbing the entire 1973 cost of the pay act increase effective January 1973, an estimated $1,010,000 within the $50,456,000 requested for 1973.

We expect estimated employment in 1973 to drop by 62 man-years from 2,459 to 2,397 as a result of the absorption. The entire reduction in estimated employment has been applied to Washington staff to reflect the current flow of work.

Thus, during the first four months of F. Y. 1973 settlement of formal unfair labor practice work was at an unusually high rate (69% of hearings requested as compared to 65% in 1972) reducing the need for formal hearing and decision by Judges and by the Board, but retaining the need for field personnel to process cases to the hearing stage. As a result we have been able to continue processing our cases on a current basis as is shown in Table B, page 15, even though we have kept employment of Judges and of the Board's legal assistants at close to 1972 levels.

. Fiscal Year 1974

We have estimated an increase of 11% in unfair labor practice work in 1974 plus an increase of 6.4% in representation work. The 5% increase in employment (before pay act) provides the employment levels needed to keep the Agency's work current.

INTAKE

General

The Agency's entire workload consists of unfair labor practice charges and representation questions filed voluntarily by employers, unions, and employees. The Agency has no control over these filings and estimates its workload each year in arriving at its budgetary needs.

Fiscal Year 1973

The Agency received 26,582 charges in F. Y. 1972 and has estimated a 7.7 increase in 1973 to 28,920. In F. Y. 1972 the Agency received 14,187 representation questions and has estimated a 5.6% increase in 1973 to 14,990.

During the first six months of 1973 charges rose by 5.5% and representation questions by 5.0%. However, our recent experience indicates far heavier filings durinc the second half of the fiscal year. For example, in F. Y. 1972, charges rose by 20.5" and representation questions, by 14.7% in the second half of the fiscal year. that 1973 intake will be close to estimate.

We believe

Fiscal Year 1974

The Agency has estimated that 32,000 charges will be filed in F. Y. 1974, an increase of 11% over 1973. In addition, we have estimated that 15,940 representation questions will be raised, an increase of 6.3% over 1973.

The 1974 rise estimate is higher than the 1973 estimate but in accord with 1970-1972 experience. The rate of rise in the filing of charges was 12.8% in 1970, 13.0% in 1971, and 13.0% in 1972.

Other factors supporting the estimate include our experience that the rate of rise normally increases after an election; and the expiration of the postal contracts in July 1973. The expiration of the postal contracts is expected to produce an increase in representation filings as well as charges related to organizing as well as bargaining.

WORKLOAD PROCESSING PROGRAM

General

As indicated the Agency expects case intake to rise substantially above present levels. We can handle the expected increases with the employment and funds requested by the President. Thus, as the following review reveals, we are current in our case handling so that the requested increase will be sufficient to deal with our projected increases in cases.

Field Office Operations

The field offices investigate all cases and complete about 90%. The other 10% are processed for handling by Judges, the Board, or both.

The field is accomplishing its mission by keeping up with case intake and will continue to do so in 1973.

In 1974, with an increase of about 7% In employment, (the field is receiving the major portion of the Agency's 1974 increase) the field is expected to keep up with the 11% rise in unfair labor practice intake (our main workload) as well as the 6.3% increase in representation work.