NEW POSITIONS Mr. LUDLOW. As to the additional personnel, you estimate $8,075. We have covered that in a general way. How many positions are there in that amount? Mr. GIBSON. There are six positions. Mr. LUDLOW. In what grades? Mr. GIBSON. There is one Assistant Secretary in CAF-14. Mr. DODSON. That is the special assistant to the Secretary. Mr. LUDLOW. What is that salary? Mr. DODSON. That is $7,175. Mr. GIBSON. There are two assistants to the Assistant Secretary under the same scale, each of them in CAF-14. Mr. LUDLOW. Why are they needed at this time? Mr. GIBSON. That is because of the increased work load of the Department. One special assistant to the Secretary is needed because of the increase in the international work which the Department has to carry on in connection with the ILO, and also there has to be liaison with the State Department on problems of labor in foreign countries, and that has been tremendously increased. The need is very sharply recognized in our Department and in the State Department for somebody in the Secretary's Office whose full time will be required for that work. The other two special assistants to the Assistant Secretary are to assist him in the administrative work of the Department. The Assistant Secretary cannot sit down and read the volumes of reports that go over his desk and follow through the details of the work in the Department, follow the programs through, which the Secretary desires to be carried on by the chiefs of the bureaus. These staff employees follow those programs through and take care of the mass of detail work that is necessary to assist in the administrative affairs of the Department and attend conferences with other Government bureaus and agencies. In general, they will assist in carrying on the administrative work of the Secretary's Office down to the bureau level and following the programs through. Mr. LUDLOW. There were some others you referred to, I believe. Mr. GIBSON. They were just secretarial positions for these three officials, and, certainly, these fellows need secretarial assistance. Mr. LUDLOW. How many secretarial assistants? Mr. GIBSON. Three; one for each. Mr. LUDLOW. That completes the personnel? Mr. GIBSON. Yes. Mr. LUDLOW. When do you have in mind that the employment of this personnel will commence? Mr. GIBSON. Actually, immediately, because additional help has been borrowed from time to time from the other bureaus in the Department, and selection can be made and placed on the Secretary's staff without much delay. Mr. LUDLOW. Which of these would be more important, if the committee did not feel inclined to approve the request for the entire group? Which do you consider to be more important? Mr. GIBSON. We have to have somebody to work on the international labor problems, and the Assistant Secretary has to have somebody to help in taking care of and following through the adminis trative details of the Department. They are all three very necessary at this time because of our increased work load. Mr. LUDLOW. It is contemplated that you will start on a certain date with these different employees you want to take on? We should know for our purposes the date when each of them will be taken on, because if this bill is not passed until some time later we then should be able to make certain reductions in the item. When do you expect to take them on? Mr. GIBSON. Immediately; on March 1. Mr. DODSON. The estimate is based on the jobs beginning as of March 1. Mr. LUDLOW. I think we should have that definite information. Mr. DODSON. We are in the process of preparing a supplemental estimate for continuing each of those jobs. We will have that supplementary estimate in the Bureau of the Budget in a week or 10 days. I have every reason to believe that the Bureau of the Budget will approve these jobs in the 1947 supplemental estimate. This estimate was just considered less than a month ago by the Bureau of the Budget. TERMINAL LEAVE, WITHIN-GRADE PROMOTIONS, AND LAPSES Mr. LUDLOW. With respect to the item for terminal leave, of $7,500, it appears that there are more employees in the higher grades. Are leave records kept as to personnel, without regard to grade? Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir; we maintain leave records of personnel in every grade. Mr. LUDLOW. These periodic within-grade advancements amounting to $4,200 are statutory? Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir. Mr. LUDLOW. I think you might go further and tell us more about the decrease in estimated lapses, amounting to $7,825. How is it that you have set up decreases on estimated lapses. Mr. DODSON. At the beginning of the year we estimated that our lapses would approximate 5 percent, on the basis of our experience in filling jobs during the war period. We have found that there is not the volume of labor turn-over as there was during the war years, and therefore the amount of lapses that accumulated has been less than we anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year. We operate on a very close margin in the Secretary's office. But with this increased work load, we have not been able to force savings. Mr. LUDLOW. You think that is a very close estimate? Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir; we think so, because we operate on a very close margin in Secretary's Office. APPROPRIATION FOR 1946 FISCAL YEAR AND ESTIMATE, 1947 Mr. TABER. You had an appropriation of $395,691 last year for this particular item; is that correct? Mr. GIBSON. Yes, sir. Mr. TABER. You have a Budget estimate pending for additional pay under Public Law 106, amounting to $68,600. Mr. GIBSON. That is correct. Mr. TABER. Making a total of $464,291? Mr. GIBSON. Yes, sir. Mr. TABER. I notice in the justifications, on page 3, you set up in parenthesis (B) the figure of $472,659, which unquestionably should be $464,291. Mr. DODSON. We are making a statement with regard to that amount. Included in the $472,659 is an amount of about $8,000 for positions which the Budget Bureau has approved in the 1947 estimates for transfer from the Conciliation Service to the Personnel Office of the Department. Mr. TABER. This says that that is the man-year appropriation plus approved Public Law 106 costs. That unquestionably is the $464,291. Mr. DODSON. That is correct, sir. There is an error in that (B) does not include the amount of transfers, and this would be a transfar of about $8,000 from the Conciliation Service for the payment of salaries of people in the Personnel Office, which the Bureau of the Budget has approved in the 1947 estimates. This $472,659 is an error, and when we estimate our obligations, we also included the salary of those people paid from the transferred funds. Mr. TABER. Has the money been transferred? Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir; on our books. Our figure of $472,659 is made up by the original amount of $395,691, $68,605 under Public Law 106, and about $8,000 of money transferred. It is true we have a deficit at this particular time. Mr. GIBSON. I think it might be well to add that we have five major agencies transferred to the Department in this period, and that has made it absolutely necessary that we have enough personnel. Mr. TABER. What are those agencies? Mr. GIBSON. They include the retraining and reemployment administration; the apprenticeship training of the United States Employment Service, the Wage Stabilization Board, and the Shipbuilding Stabilization Commission. They have been transferred to the Department. UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE Mr. TABER. Is the USES doing any better than it did? Mr. TABER. In my territory everyone has been steered onto unemployment insurance instead of to jobs, and it has been a very serious situation. It has made everybody who thinks about it very, very keen for the return of the Employment Service to the States as an item of necessity if we are ever going to have any reconversion. I do not know how you are operating now, but it would seem as if there was lots of room for improvement. Mr. LUDLOW. When did the USES go back? Mr. DODSON. On September 18. Mr. GIBSON. Most of these agencies were transferred about the same time. I might point out that under the new stabilization program the work load of that agency has been tremendously increased. (Discussion off the record.) ESTIMATE FOR 1947 FISCAL YEAR Mr. TABER. It seems to me your organization is spreading out. What is your Budget estimate for 1947? Mr. DODSON. For 1947 it includes some reorganization in the Department, which increases the amount for the Secretary's Office. But for a comparison basis, the estimate we will present for 1947 will be substantially the same for the Secretary's office, plus this appropriation request, and also plus funds for the additional Assistant Secretaries and Under Secretary positions, if the pending legislation for those positions is approved. Mr. TABER. So you do not know what you are going to present to the committee yet? Mr. DODSON. Not in total. Mr. TABER. What was the Budget estimate sent down here in the President's budget? Mr. DODSON. That includes some of the internal reorganization, but it would only include provision for a slight increase in the set-up as it now operates. It does not materially change the set-up other than the internal reorganization involved. INCREASE IN MAN-YEARS Mr. DIRKSEN. What is the net increase in the man-years in the Department of Labor since VJ-day, or in positions? Mr. DODSON. In full-time positions it is around 35,000. Prior to VJ-day the strength report of the Department of Labor showed about 12,000 employees of all types. Of that 12,000 about 6,000 were fulltime positions. I would say that now the Department of Labor numbers around 40,000 positions. Mr. DIRKSEN. I wonder if you can insert a table at this point in the record breaking that down by bureaus and by functions? Mr. DODSON. Surely. (The table requested is as follows:) 1 Transferred to the Department of Labor by Executive order on Sept. 18, 1945. ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL DUE TO ADDED FUNCTIONS Mr. LUDLOW. You have taken over five major agencies. Of course, that is necessarily reflected by personnel integrated in the Office of the Secretary of Labor. I wonder if you could give us a break-down showing how many persons and the type of persons that it has been necessary to add because of these transfers. Mr. DODSON. We are still in the process of integrating, and we will submit to the Bureau of the Budget very shortly a statement and estimate covering such integration, and later we will be glad to show that to the committee. We will give you as good a picture now as we can show you. Mr. LUDLOW. Will you put that in the record? Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir. (The statement referred to may be found below.) Mr. LUDLOW. That should be balanced by the deduction of the expenditures of the employees transferred to you. Mr. DODSON. Yes, they will be transferred; that is, the positions in the other agencies' budgets will be transferred to the Secretary's office. Mr. LUDLOW. Will you give us a picture of the personnel necessitated in the Secretary's office by virtue of these transfers, with the number of persons affected by virtue of each transfer, and the type of personnel necessitated to be taken on in the Secretary's office? Mr. DODSON. When we talk about the appropriation for the office of the Secretary it includes certain over-all functions in the Department, such as personnel and procurement. What we are asking for today is for an additional staff for the immediate office of the Secretary. When we give you this picture we will give you the complete picture. Mr. LUDLOW. You might add an explanatory note, but we would like to have the complete picture of personnel necessitated by reason of these transfers. Mr. DODSON. Yes, sir; we will give you that. (The statement referred to is as follows:) The following table shows the number of positions to be transferred and new positions requested to be included in the budget estimate for the office of the Secretary for the fiscal year 1947. This table also shows from which agencies the positions are transferred. Estimate of positions to be transferred and new positions required in the Office of the Secretary for 1947 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL |