Hon. ARCHIE D. SANDERS, OFFICE OF THE POSTMASTER GENERAL, Chairman Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, House of Representatives. MY DEAR MR. SANDERS: In reply to your letter of the 11th instant, submitting copies of H. R. 166, H. R. 167, H. R. 2898, and H. R. 6603, providing for a shorter work day on Saturdays for postal employees, I have to say that these bills are along the same lines as H. R. 6605 and H. R. 9058, upon which a detailed report was made in a letter to you under date of January 7, 1929. The additional cost would be $13,626,000, and it is believed that the conditions in the Postal Service do not warrant the granting of compensatory time for service performed on Saturdays in excess of four hours and I feel that there is no justification for including substitutes in any such provision. Very truly yours, WALTER F. BROWN. If there is no objection, we will start the proceedings by giving those who are interested in H. R. 6603 an opportunity to proceed first. The Postmaster General is here this morning and, if he so desires, we will give him an opportunity to be heard first. STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER F. BROWN, POSTMASTER GENERAL Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I am not familiar with these bills by number. They all deal with the same subject, do they not? The CHAIRMAN. They are all similar bills. H. R. 6603 is a bill introduced by Mr. Kendall. The others are of the same import. Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the department believes this bill should be considered in connection with its general fiscal problem. Most of you know that for the fiscal year 1928 the operations of the Post Office Department showed a deficit of $32,121,095; that is, an excess of expenditures over postal revenues. In 1929that is, the fiscal year ending with the 30th of last June-that deficit had increased to $85,461,176.24—an increase in the postal deficit of $53,340,681 in the 12 months. The items that made up that increase in the deficit were the following: Additional pay to postal workers directed by Congress, $7,470,000; allowances to fourth-class postmasters for light, heat, rent, and equipment, $2,740,000; ocean-mail contracts under the Jones-White Act, the subvention, $7,390,000; foreign air-mail contracts, $750,000; additional pay to railroads, as directed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, $13,500,000; reduction in revenues by reason of reduction in rates directed by Congress, $21,528,000. That reduction in rates was changing the rate of the so-called private postal card from 2 cents to 1 cent, and the decreases in the secondclass and third-class matter. These items total $53,378,000, or within a few thousand dollars of the increase in the deficit of 1929 over 1928. So you will see that under the policy of Congress each year of increasing our costs of operation and whittling down our revenues the inevitable is happening. The deficit is mounting so that it is now well up toward a hundred million dollars. There are a number of considerations that we think are pertinent in considering this particular bill. There is a very substantial difference between the status of a postal worker and an industrial worker generally. The post-office work is regular, is steady; the department never closes down for inventory; we do not have short seasons; we do not lay off people; the employment is steady and continuous, and the pay is absolutely certain. Furthermore, we pay 12 months' wages or salaries for substantially 11 months' work, when you take into consideration the 15 days' vacation leave and the 10 days' sick leave. In industrial employment the law of supply and demand, in a considerable measure, regulates compensation. If there is a long cue of applicants for work outside of the employment office, the institution does not raise wages. It raises wages to get competent, skilled workmen. The Post Office Department has a long cue waiting. We would have little if any difficulty in filling most of the places we have very promptly if they should be vacated. This measure, in our judgment, is not justified at this time. In the larger offices where the work is the most exacting we are able to give considerable relief under our present practice on Saturday afternoons, because, necessarily, our work is geared to the activities of the community. When business generally slows down on Saturday afternoon, shops close up, the activities of the Post Office Department slow down; because, of course, we can not deliver mail to places that are closed and there is no occasion to distribute it, get it ready for delivery, if it can not be delivered. So that in the larger offices, where the men work the hardest when they do work, on Saturday afternoons frequently there is only a skeleton organization left and the practical benefits of this law are there the workers get relief. It is the policy of the department to divide that time up among them equitably and give to every man his opportunity to have his little holiday or his Saturday afternoon in addition to his regular leave. Mr. KELLY. May I interrupt there, General? Mr. BROWN. Certainly. Mr. KELLY. You say that some workers now do have relief in this matter of getting the Saturday half holiday? Mr. BROWN. Yes. Mr. KELLY. How many workers in the Post Office Department does that apply to under the present regulation? Mr. BROWN. I can not give the figures exactly, Mr. Kelly, but I can say this by way of illustration, that in an office where ordinarily there would be five or six people working in the money-order division, on a Saturday afternoon you will find only one or two, for the reason there is no work for them and we are very glad to let the others off in that office. Mr. KELLY. Are there some offices where that does not apply at all and where they do continue to work on Saturday afternoon? Mr. BROWN. There are some offices where that condition does not apply, and there are some offices where the men are not worked hard at any time. There are offices where it is more or less a rare occasion for anybody to come to the window and ask for a money order; but in the offices where the work is hard and continuous and exacting, the condition I have described obtains. Mr. KELLY. I would think it would apply the other way, that where there is this continuous stress and strain the men could get no relief at all; but in offices where there is not very much work to be done, they would be able to get relief. Mr. BROWN. No; the strain comes from the continuous operation and that applies in the large offices where, generally speaking, it slumps off on a Saturday afternoon. And, as I pointed out, our business necessarily is geared to the general business of the community. Mr. KELLY. I have in mind two offices, within five miles of each other in a great industrial district: One of them gives the Saturday half holiday to all of the employees possible; the other gives none at all, and a dissatisfaction grows up between those employees where they are mingling together all of the time. Mr. BROWN. We hear of those things, they are reported to us, and we are trying to correct them; but it is a very big service, a very big country. We are trying very hard to have a uniform policy everywhere and to treat everybody alike. Mr. KELLY. Can you get a uniform policy except through legislation by Congress? Mr. BROWN. Well, I think, generally speaking, we can get a universal policy. Of course, the application of it, perhaps, would not be absolutely certain without legislation, but we can have a general policy. We have it in many other particulars now. We estimate that this bill will place an additional burden upon the department of $13,626,000, which would be reflected in the next deficit. Mr. KENDALL. General, do you compute that on all the employees who are employed? Some are not employed on Saturday afternoon. There is a shifting around where not all of the employees are employed anyway on Saturday afternoons, and they would not count in your computation? Mr. BROWN. It is based on what it would cost us to supply the force that we now have working, in the event the bill was effective. Mr. KENDALL. Well, as a matter of fact, the entire force is not all employed on Saturday afternoons. Now, in my district, I know a number of post offices let the letter carriers off on Saturday afternoon. Mr. BROWN. That is the practice we are trying to have followed everywhere. Mr. KENDALL. The point I want to make is that the advocates of these bills do not believe the actual expense would be $13,000,000. Mr. BROWN. Well, the figures have been very carefully prepared by the department. We have access, of course, to all the factors, and we believe they are conservative. Mr. PITTENGER. How many more men would receive employment if this bill went through, Mr. Brown? Mr. BROWN. I can not answer that offhand-how many more men it would require; but Mr. Trotter, who is here, can speak for the first assistant's office, and Mr. Glover can give you some figures from the second assistant's office. Mr. Philp, the fourth assistant, is also here and can give the facts about the motor-vehicle service. He can tell you exactly for his department. I see the point of your inquiry, but I can only repeat the figures that have been prepared with very great care. Mr. KELLY. We had the same proposition involved in the night differential. At that time I recall distinctly that the post office went carefully into the cost and said in the Railway Mail Service the night differential would cost $3,700,000. We adopted the measure, which they said would cost $3,700,000, and the first year it showed the cost to be about one-half of that-$1,900,000. So that the estimate practically doubled the actual cost in operation. Mr. BROWN. I can not comment on anyone's figures but by own, Mr. Kelly. I was not here at that time and do not know anything about that. I believe these figures are conservative and accurate. Mr. KELLY. Have you a segregation for the Railway Mail Service, General? Mr. BROWN. No; I have only the compilations. Mr. Glover is here and he can speak for his office. I am very sorry that Mr. Coleman is not here; Mr. Coleman has been ill for several weeks, and I thought it was best that I let him get a little bit of rest; but Mr. Trotter, who is a veteran in that bureau, is here, and I am sure will be glad to give you any information he can. That is the only bill you want to discuss to-day, is it, Mr. Chairman? Mr. KELLY. Before you finish let me ask this: Is your opposition to this measure based entirely on the cost of the measure? Mr. BROWN. That and the fact that, in my judgment, it is not necessary from a business viewpoint. I am trying as hard as I can to operate the Post Office Department as though I were in competition with somebody else, as though somebody else would get my business if I did not do it as well as he can do it. It seems to me that in a business enterprise, as the post office is, we should have some regard for economic laws, and I can not see why we should go to a 44-hour week, or, rather, pay for a 44-hour week when we can get all the help we require under the existing schedules. Mr. KELLY. What is your attitude, then, toward the employees in the Post Office Department in Washington who are paid out of postal revenues and who now have a 42-hour week and, in the summer time, four hours off of that? How shall we justify that with these other postal employees? Mr. BROWN. Well, I do not think that condition exists, Mr. Kelly, about a 42-hour week. Mr. KELLY. Do your clerks up there work more than seven hours a day? Mr. BROWN. Well, I do not know about all the clerks, but I know that mine stay there until six and seven at night. I know that my office force has been down almost every Sunday morning since I have been in the department, until 1 o'clock. Mr. KELLY. Do you think that applies to all of the employees? Mr. BROWN. No; I do not think it does; but I frequently see other employees in the department as I come in and go out. I think the men stay there until their work is done. Mr. KELLY. Those men are paid out of postal revenues just as the others are, for the last four or five years, and they have 30 days leave of absence instead of 15, and then they have 30 days sick leave; so that it seems to me, on this idea of universal treatment, you ought to take that into consideration also. Mr. BROWN. Well, if somebody is being paid too much or given too much leave, it does not follow that everybody else should be put in the same class. Mr. KELLY. I do not agree with that interpretation. In private industry Mr. BROWN. I want to see our people well paid; I want to see them treated not only justly but generously, but I do think that the Postal Service, the actual business of collecting, distributing, and transporting the mails, ought to pay for itself. Mr. KELLY. Excluding the free service or including the free services? Mr. BROWN. I say the actual business of collecting, transporting, and distributing the mails ought to be self-sustaining. I think it is a sound principle; it is followed by every other Government. I am not talking about free services, subventions, or those matters, at all. Mr. KELLY. You have referred, however, to the fact that a cue of workers might be waiting for these jobs. Now, even in private industry you would not subscribe to the policy, "We will base the compensation of workers in industry wholly on the number of men looking for jobs," and let it be a matter of competition between job seekers? Mr. BROWN. I would not; but I say that when factories are filled with contented workers and there is a cue of people waiting outside to take the jobs of those inside if they leave, I do not know of any successfully conducted business enterprise that would consider the raising of wages. Mr. KELLY. Henry Ford is one of the most successful industrial leaders in this country and at the very time when there seemed to be a depression and the President held those conferences and made the request that wages be not reduced under those circumstances, he went back and increased his minimum wage to $7 a day. Mr. BROWN. I would rather not discuss what Mr. Ford did, because I do not think this is the time or place. Mr. KENDALL. And I understand the very next week Henry Ford laid off 100,000 employees. Mr. BROWN. I have so many troubles in the Post Office Department that I would rather not get into the automobile business. Mr. KELLY. At least, we ought to be in line with private industry. I think we ought to be the leader. Mr. BROWN. I can not accept your major premise about Mr. Ford, but I do not care to discuss just what he did do. Mr. KELLY. Let us take the printing-trade industry, which has to-day a 44-hour week and has had for years. Do you object to discussing the printing trades and building trades? Mr. BROWN. No; but in all those cases my recollection is that the men are paid by the hour or by the day. I am perfectly willing to go on a 44-hour basis, if you think I ought to, if I may go on the hour basis; but I do not want to pay unless I get the service. If you want to raise the postal rates, gentlemen, and give me the revenue, I am perfectly willing to disburse it as you please; but I have been brought up to believe that red ink is a badge of inefficiency and I am too old to change my views about it. Mr. KELLY. The reduction in the rates the last time, General, was made at the request of the Post Office Department. Mr. KENDALL. Some of them; not all of them. Mr. KELLY. All except one of the rates I have reference to. |