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