The Connecticut labor news., 1922-12-15
LOW WAGES BREED
 RED-TAPE WORM
By International Labor News Service.


 1 Washington, D. C., Dec 15.- Assistant Postmaster General John
 H. Bartlett got away to Richmond this week and startled conference convention (that's Westinghouse for
 meeting) of postal employees by say
 ing that the Postofice Department is going to become the most model employer in the world, in addition to
 being the largest, and that this will
 be done by paying higher wages to attract the best labor,
 1 Heretofore the reputation of the l department among the workers in l the field was that of a 'hard-boiled' and impractical aggregation skilled only in the manipulation of red tape" said MT. Bartlett This reputation l has, been certain per cent true, a certain per cent misunderstanding and a certain per cent justifable That which Is misunderstanding will dissipate through these conventions. That which IS true and unjustihab1e can only be cured by policy of pay ing wages and salaries to attract to Washington the best personnel in the entire country.
 "The disparity of salaries and wages which now exist in favor of the field workers, as against the de- partment employees has the effect of literally standing the postal business on it's head Every business man will readily concede as a fundamen- tally accepted principle of large business organization that the so- called home office of that business, where the directing brains are located for the entire activity, should be manned and officered by the best and most skillful of the personnel, and it may equally we'll be assumed as an axiom that the highest paid are gen orally the best. In other words, re- f5erring to our own postal business, the salaries and wages of the 33oooo employees should be so scaled that there will be a line of natural pro- motion from the field to the depart ment There should unquestionably be at all times salary inducement attracting the best in the field serv- ice to the departmental service.
 "As it exists now by law this we'll established rule of successful busi- ness is inverted. In the department clerks, for instance, are started at a salary as low as $72o per year, while in our postofhces scattered over the country, under the law they cannot be employed at less than $I,4oo a year and that initial salary is fol- lowed up by an automatic statutory raise of $1oo per year, until $I,8oo is reached. are now doing clerical and general work in the department for $72o per year, although they have families to support. This low salary they some times receive for several years before receiving a promotion. And all this too in Washington, where the cost of living is double that in many places in the field where a beginner starts with $1,4oo salary"
 All this Is the truth, but it isn't all as lovely as it might be if the spells system were not operating in full blast in the postoffice depart ment since pr. Hubert Work sue cceded Will Hays as postmaster gen craL The Civil Service Reform League, which met in annual conven- ton in Washington on December 8, insinuatcs that Dr. Work and Mr. Bartlett want the salaries of Wash ington jobs raised so that more de When Work was put in charge of the department he announced his pur pose of appointing republicans "when conditions were equal or nearly equal" and since then little regard has been paid to the question of who stood highest on the list Now, 1t l seems, the republicans who have not been rewarded don't want the jobs 1 remaining because of the beggarly l wages, and so pr. Work is on the l warpath to raise the salaries As l soon as they are raised good repub- licans will step in and take the jobs.
 The red-tape worm, according to ] the civil service reformers, is there 1 fore increased in number by politi- clans. "As soon as 1t was known ] that appointments went by favor,' says William Dudley Foulkc, former L. $. civil service commissioner, "those who had not political pull . would not compete at all and the , character of the applicants degen- cratcd."
 And that's the concealed card in the beautiful game of raising wages 1 for the postal employees.
 Maybe something good will come of 1t anyway, say the optimists.