8
Employees Status Improved by O.S.E.A.
Mental hospitals throughout the
United States have been coining in for
their share of criticism during the last
few years. Crowded conditions, limited
equipment, critical shortage of person
nel and general neglect by legislators
and voters have been the chief causes
of undesirable conditions recently ex
posed.
The Oregon State Hospital in Salem
has been shown to be greatly over
crowded and very much understaffed.
Contributing factors to the shortage
in Institutional staffs has been the long
hours per week those employees are re
quired to work and the low salaries paid
to institutional employees. Many insti
tutional employees work 60 hours per
week.
Employees in Oregon state institu
tions are not covered by the 48 hour
law which makes it impossible to com
pensate them for overtime in excess of
44 or 48 hours per week.
N o compensatory time-off has previ
ously been granted for time worked on
holidays. Wages have been deplorably
low in many jobs and an unfair differ
ential existed between the salaries of
male and female Hospital Aides (ward
attendants).
The Civil Service Commisison has
contended that the proposed pay plan
is scaled to compensate for the long
hours institutional employees are re
quired to work. The General Council
of the O.S.E.A. does not feel that the
proposed salary ranges are sufficient
for 60 hours of work per week. Thus
the state institutions were specifically
included in a resolution concerning
working hours passed recently by the
General Council.
However, the status of the institu
tional employee is improving. Now
under the Civil Service the institu
tional employee who is required to work
on a holiday will receive compensatory
time off, added to his annual vacation.
Through the efforts of the Oregon
State Employees Association and other
friends of institutional employees some
salary increase has been provided in
the pay plan proposed by the Civil
Service Commission. This is a decided
improvement over the salary schedule
now in operation.
When the O.S.E.A. worked out the
Civil Service law it fostered the prin
ciple of equal pay for equal work.
Under Civil Service the female Hos
pital Aides will receive salaries within
the same ranges as the male Hospital
Aides.
The O.S.E.A. works for the “wel
fare of state and employee.” Certainly
nowhere else can the relationship be
tween the welfare of the state and of
the employees be more obvious. Fair
and quitable working conditions and
salary ranges will aid materially in
solving the number one problem of re
cruiting and retaining effiicent and
trustw orthy institutional employees to
care for our more unfortunate citizens.
TOURIST TRADE TH IRD
LARGEST STATE INDUSTRY
Oregon’s tourist trade, ranking be
hind lumbering and farming as the
state’s third largest industry, will total
$83,500,000 this year, the state high
way commission’s travel information
department estimated recently.
This new record amount is $32,500,-
000 more than tourists spent in the
state in 1941. The department made its
estimate on a survey of tourists con
ducted by a field party during August.
The average visitor to Oregon spends
$6.21 a day and an average of 8.1 days
in the state, w ith each car carrying an
average of three persons, it was esti
mated.