Evening star., 1952-04-25
nSavingUp
Federal Leave
Hit by Truman
Senate Is Asked to
Defect unfair and
Harsh Amendment

President Truman today made q
strong plea to the Senate to kill
Ia House approved amendment
which bans further accumulation
of annual leave by Federal EN-.
ployes.
Mr.. Truman said the amendment
was particularly unfair : and
harsh" and would cost the Gov
Iernment money. His plea was in
a letter to Chairman Maybank of
the appropriations subcommittee
handling the 1858 independent
offices bill.
The House rider requires that
Federal workers use all of their
1852 annual leave by June 30.
1858. or else lose the unused por-
tion.
The Presidents letter follows:
Il am writing to urge your
careful attention to a matter Of
great Importance to the proper
management of the Government
and to the welfare of our many
Woodworking Federal employees.
Provision Reinstated.
This matter relates to the bill
before your subcommittee on the
independent offices appropriation,
which would have the effect Of
prohibiting accumulation of an
nual leave by reinstating a pro-
vision in the statutes which was
expressly repealed no longer ago
than November 80 of last year.
AFTER extensive hearings. and
careful study of the subject of
annual leave. the Congress en-
acted a new leave program expert
ly designed to meet the needs Of
the Federal service. This act, the
Annual and Sick Leave Act Of
1851, provided for a graduated
system of leave based on length
of service. Although these stat
utes reduced the total amount Of
leave earned year by most Fed
eral employees to 13 or 20 days de-
pending on length of service, 1t
was accept as a fair and reason
able approach to the leave problem.
This acceptance was based
partially at least on the fact that
as part and parcel of this system,
arbitrary restrictions on the accu-
mutation of leave up to the 60
days maximum were removed.
Called Unfair to Employees.
ut strikes me as particularly
unfair to Federal employees and to
those who were heard in Congress
on their behalf, to remove the ac-
formulation privilege and thus de-
Iprives these employees of their fair
consideration for the cutback in
the amount of leave earned. I'm
fortunately. however, this is the
effect of provision in the Inde-
pendent Offices Appropriations Act
of 1858. enacted by the House on
March 81. 1852.
Moreover, the effect of this pro-
vision is especially harsh inasmuch
as the accumulation of annual
leave is the only cushion Federal
employees have at the present time
against unemployment. Until some
form of severance pay or unem-
ployment compensation similar to
that required by Federal law for
private employees is provided for
Federal workers, the only protec-
tion against the hardships Of un-
employment which they can rely
on is whatever amount of annual
leave they are able to save.
Furthermore, I am convinced
that a careful study of the long,
range effect of this provision would
indicate that it would increase
cost to Government because it
would complicate emergency re-
Icruiting and would result in
amounts of overtime at premium
rates.
"1nasmuch as I know of your
long-standing concern for a
healthy and economical, Federal
establishment based on fair
standards. I am taking this op-
Iportunity to urge upon you the
Iadvisability of removing this un-
fair provision from the bill under
consideration"