The Oregon state employee., November 01, 1947, Page 20, Image 20

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ruptions. This was a pet bill of: two
Senators to take care of two particular
individuals. This bill was also adopted
by the Senate and the House on the
final day of the session:
, S. B. 332, prepared and sponsored by
the A. F. of L.j as adopted, provided
that state employees who were loaned
to the United States Government* and
who returned to state service, should
not lose their credit for state service.
WAGES AND HOURS
1 With the consent of your legislative
committee, no bills were introduced to
make into law a 40 hour, 5 day week.
It was considered better to allow that
matter to remain in the hands of the
Civil Service Commission and Board of
Control.
Likewise, with the consent of your
legislative committee, no bill was in­
troduced to create an emergency fund
to provide for increasein salaries in
case there is a sharp raise in living cost.
It was felt that such a bill would not
pass because it was not provided ¿for in
the budget, and the Ways and Means
Committee was definitely unsympathe­
tic toward such'a proposal.
H. B. 135. The A. F. of L. intro­
duced this bill which was adopted and
which provides that certain public em­
ployees, among whom are state em­
ployees, all receive periodical statements
of deductions and an annual statement
of compensation. g
H. B. 147, which provided for a
penalty if salaries were not paid on a
regular day, also introduced by the
A. F .o f L., died in the Senate. <
H. B. 470', sponsored by the O.S.E.A.,
provided for an appropriation from the
general fund to non-self sustaining de­
partments so that the effective date of
the salary plan as adopted by the Civil
Service Commission, would be March
1st, 1947 instead of July 1st, 1947.
With this decision, all those who were
being paid under, the minimum, were
immediately raised to the minimum.
This effected 2700 monthly employees.
It also gave an increase to 1100 hourly
employees with the Highway Depart­
ment. It also made those who were be-j
ihg paid over the minimum, eligible to
a raise four months earlier. , It is esti­
mated by Mr. Bob Johnson, Acting Di­
rector of the Civil-Service Commission,
that the aggregate increase to the state!
employees would be substantially in
excess of $400,0Q0 by >virtue of the
fact that the compensation plan was;
made effective March 1st, 1947.
H. B. 515 provided that if thé cost!
of state government should exceed
State revenues, there should be certain
reductions and state employees’ salar­
ies be reduced 5% and this money
turned into the general fund. Some of
you gentlemen will recall that. Senator
Walker advised that such a cut would
be at the discretion of the Board of
Control. However, the bill provided
that it would be mandatory for the
Board of Control to make the salary
tu t. It was also suggested to Senator
Walker that the amount appropriated
for salaries should be cut 5% instead
of each individual salary being cut
5%»,n The bill was drawn so that the
employees’ salaries and not the appro­
priation would be reduced 5%. This|
bill was hurriedly and secretly present­
ed to the House Taxation Committee.
The ground work was laid to press the
bill to final House passage within a
couple of hours after it was passed out
of the House Taxation Committee.
Enough House members were advised,
and were able to block the proposed
action and- the result was that the bill
was pulled back into and died in the
committee. I
You intended to request a clarifica­
tion to the over time statute. After
discussing this m atter further with Mr.
William Coleman of the Civil Service
Commission, I recommended to' your
legislative, committee, and obtained
their consent, to postpone this request.
MISCELLANEOUS
S. B. 134, sponsored by Q.S.E.A.,
authorizes payroll deductions for group
life insurance.
CONCLUSION
I wish to acknowledge the very help-