The Washington times., 1913-04-11
CIVIL SERVICE WORKING HOURS.

For several years the civil service employees ol
the Government in Washington and elsewhere have
been urging the need of a revision of the salar,
schedules under which they work, and Of reclassi
6cation of tine service. 1t has been pointed out re-
peatedly that the present salary schedule adopt
ed in 1853, and has never been reorganized since.
Everything that the civil service employe needs
has been revised upward since that time-except his
wages.
Wages and salaries in every other division OF
Government service have likewise gone up. Army
officers and army privates; naval officers and pri.
Yates; the President and his Cabinet; the supreme
judges, and all the minor judicial positions; Con-
gress and its employes-all have mad their salaries
advanced, an average of about so per cent; but in
all this period there has been no revision of the wage
schedule under which the civil service people work.
Let this be stated so that there will be no room
for misunderstanding. The service is divided into
grades and the salary in each grade stays just where
it was more than falf century ago. True, the en-
ploye may be advanced from grade to another,
and thus get his compensation increased. But in
each grade, the pay is just what it was before the
civil war;
Is there any other occupation in the country of
which that can be said?
Not one.
Railway employees of given grade earn about 50
per cent more than in that same grade Fifty years
ago. More than that, they have vastly better oppor
unities for advancement than have the civil service
people. '-. -a
That is true throughout practically the entire field
of commercial employment
These conditions have long been recognized as
tending to atrophy the whole civil service. Men and
women of capacity youth and ambition want to get
out of it. There has been demand for recassication
and for a retirement plan that will make promotion
more easily attained when it is deserved. There
has been wenigh universal agreement, among
people who have studied the question, that these
things, including general readustmen of the salary
schedule are gravely needed and that they would in
the end increase the efficiency without adding to the
expense of the Government establishment.
These things having long been recognized as
necessary to proper efficiency of the service and to
fair treatment of the Governments army of workers,
what is now proposed?
Having asked for the bread of fair and equitable
wages and reasonable opportunity the civil service
people to be handed the stone of longer working
hours,
The report is that another nour per diem will be
added TO their stint, the rule to take effect in
all probability, before the end of the present fiscal
year.
1t seems impossible, in view of the complete
showing that has been made in support of general
reorganization of civil service conditions that such
move as this should be made now
Perhaps the increased hours of work may be
necessary and jusfable. But they ought to be paid
for The masses the rank and file of the civil SER
vice workers in this city are underpad. Comparing
them with people of like capacities in similarly re-
-,
living costs are as high as here il will be found that
the civil service people underpaid
1t is answer to this statement to say that there
are plenty of people the outside ready to take
the places of these workers at the same salaries
No doubt and if they should get the places and
learn as much about them as is known by the men
and women now holding them, these newcomers
would be mighty sorry they broke in.
Such move as adding an hour to the length of
the departmental working day ought not to be made
until after the most thorough examination of the
facts has justified it, No fair investigation will
Justify longer hours unless they be accompanied by
increase of wages.
The truth is that if Washington we're a great
city, with wdereaching opportunities of
EMPLOYMENT in other fields, the civil service COM
pensations would long ago have been readjused, be-
cause it would have been impossible to keep people
in the places, competent to do the work, at the
salaries paid.
Before making such an order as this will not
some member of the Cabinet look into the facts
surrounding the living conditions of his S72O, 5000.
and ST 900 clerks and tell the rest of the Cabinet
lust what he thinks of exacting another hours work
day from these people without an increase in their
wages?