The Oregon state employee., October 01, 1949, Page 8, Image 8

6
Address Before the OSEA General Council
By Lawson McCall, Administrative Secretary
To Governor Douglas McKay
O
When you consider there are? state
employees who have been in the state
service 50 times longer than I have,
you must think I have a lot of brass
to appear as an authority on public
employment. That isn’t my role today,
part of my job lies in the field of re­
presenting the governor at occasions
h e . can’t attend because of previous
committments.
His committment to appear at Drain,
of seven months standing, was dis­
cussed with the' possibility of making
a race to Drain and back up to this
Council meeting and although the Gov­
ernor was cooperative enough to con­
sider making this mad dash, Forrest
Stewart and I vetoed it, suggesting
there might be fog. Hence, Mr. Stew­
art and I do qualify as weather fore­
casters “par excellence.”
The Governor and I drove for near­
ly an hour last night to and from a
radio appearance, discussing his atti­
tude toward the,?State employee. It is
most favorable, to describe it in brief,
and I am sure Forrest will confirm
that 100 per cent.
Governor Familiar With Problems
discussionïiat this meeting. He is con­
versant with both sides of the ques­
tion of “overtime vs. time-off.” He is
conversant ?vÿith the desire of some
that the Civil Servi c o Commission be
given authority to order the reinstate­
ment of an employee who has been
discharged and whose hearing has
shown:?» 'miscarriage of justice. The
thinking on one side, of course, is that
the department head would be reluct­
ant to Rispose of an undesirable em­
ployee under this procedure, and that
inefficiency would be one of the. end
results. On the other side of the think­
ing, there S a c good argument which
says that state employees, in general
are entitled to the reassurance implicit
in this procedure.
S
Step-Up in Examinations Needed
Governor McKay, also is-aware that
only about 3fel^>f the employees in
fJhcv560 civil service^eategories,, have
taken \ examinations leading to perm­
anent ratings. It is; going to. cost the
g â te something to enlarge its examin­
ing staff to cover all 560 classifica­
tions. But the right to attain thè' se­
curity of a permanent rating is a right
essential to the success * of any ctyil
service program.
Governor McKay feels that good pay
stands for a higher-type of public ser­
The protection afforded both the
vant and, hence, is money well spent.
He likes the spirit of service that has employées and the state by such exam­
brought many of you into public 'em­ inations is needed now, more than
ployment; in fact, he^^ ^ ^ s ^ a w c a l, ever. The reasons:
with many of you. Hgias solidly behind ¿*.l.s State ^employment has reached a
civil service, even though he knows
period ^ O g h b iliz a tio n for I the
that our youthful S^tem in this state
first time since the inception of
has many bugs that have to be worked
Civil Service, in 1945.
fl
out.
2. Where there ^«j^s/oneela shortage
Governor McKay asked me to urge
in many classifications, ¿there, is
yqu to continue to support civiltservicC^
now a backlog of applicants.
and to work unceasingly; for its
For the first time since the start of
strengthening t h r o u g h legislative!
Civil Seryi^ein Oregon, there is now
change-for-the-better.
an oyerabundancej??ôf| stenographers.
Governor, McKay knows of. your That is ani outstanding /illustration of
problemsyjroblems that will be up for the change of conditions that has left