Evening star., 1948-03-09
Revision Of Grades
To Raise Pay by $500
Proposed by Steward
Classification System
'FouIty,' NFFE Head
Tells House Hearing

A cost-of-living pay raise of at
least $500 a year for Govern
ment workers should be worked
into an immediate moderniza-
ton of Me faulty" old Classifi-
cation Act, Rouse subcommit-
tee was told today by the
National Federation of Govern
ment Employees.
Luther c. Steward, president of
the NFFE, oldest Government work.
ers' union, today joined with James
B. Burns, president of the American
Federation of Government Employees.
and other witnesses. in urging the
necessity of raising Government pay.
> Appearing before the Rees sub
committee of the House Post Office
and Civil Service Committee, Mr..
Steward declared his faith that Con-
gress at this session will act on be-
half of the Government worker and
asserted that to channel" living
cost pay raises into a simplified
classification system would neither
be difficult nor cause d delay in the
legislation.
Raises Proposed.
Mr.. Steward proposed that, the
minimum pay for classified work
ers be placed at $2,400 and that the
top pay be raised from the present
$4,000 limit to a new ceiling of
$4,000.
He urged that a single scale be
substituted for the present five serv-
ice classifications-which divide pay
groups into professional and scien-
tiflc, subprofessional, clerical, ad-
ministrative and fiscal; crafts, pro-
tective and custodial, and clerical
mechanical classes.
The abolition of overlapping
grades, so that grade lines will touch
but not overlap, was another pro-
posal.
Mr.. Steward said the existing
overlapping grades merely add to
difficulty and confusion of admin
istration and serve no useful pur-
pose."
Service Called Business.
He said the NFFE looks at the
Federal service mot as an elee-
mosynary institution and not as a
reservoir for political patronage, but
as business"
To secure the best possible re-
suits for the taxpaying public as we'll
as the employees, he added, pay leg
islation for Federal workers should
be considered from a business
standpoint"
He argued that the Government is
failing signally" to get the max
imum benefit from the manpower
on its rolls. The vast majority OF
positions, he went on, fall in the
salary range from s3,400 down.
Since it is an accepted principle
that employees continuing on the
same work acquire greater pro-
ficiency, he advocated that the low
est three grades be given three ad-
ditional annual stepups in pay.
$4,000 Ceiling Urged.
To raise the pay ceiling to SIS, 900
he said, would do much to check
the loss of valuable career men and
estimated that the few hundred
positions where the pay was placed
above $4,000 would not add more
than $3,000,000 to payroll costs.
In support of his plan to tie the
living cost pay raise into a revised
classification system, he said, 'it is
imperatively necessary that the rates
be brought into proper line and that
no further simple plaster treatment
be applied with its effect of further
distorting the whole salary struc-
ture and making its administration
difficult to the point of impossible
ity."
Mr.. Burns said Government pay,
as to purchasing power, had fallen
50 far below the cost of living that
&C. TEnFpAI phv papa A-6)