Secretary BOYD. We don't understand that this language requires a separate suit for each violation. Mr. ADAMS. Well Secretary BOYD. We will be glad to submit you a memorandum. Mr. ADAMS. As to which way you want it to go, and what you think, and if the language, there, you believe, is adequate. Secretary BOYD. Yes, sir. (For information requested see DOT letter dated June 18, 1968, p. 246.) Mr. FRIEDEL (presiding). The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. KEITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, to what extent was this legislation, in its formative stages, discussed with representatives of the railroad industry, either labor or management? Secretary BOYD. Do you want to comment, Mr. Lang? Mr. LANG. If I might, Mr. Chairman, answer that. Mr. Keith, it was discussed in its formative stages on a couple of occasions with both representatives of the carriers and the brotherhoods. Mr. KEITH. Would you briefly outline how that was initiated, and followed through? Were they given a draft of the original proposal, that was the result of a committee appointed by some executive in your department? What is the genesis of this statement? Mr. LANG. No, sir; we did not give them draft language. We discussed draft language with them, and all of the substantive provisions of the legislation, at considerable length. Mr. KEITH. Roughly, over how long a period of time, and how many meetings? Mr. LANG. We had either two or three meetings with each group, over a period of a month or a month and a half, and this was followed by a lot of detailed draftsmanship by our staff in the Department, and also, other departments were involved in some of it. Mr. KEITH. I don't want to take the time away from these gentlemen who have been here earlier this morning. I reserve the right. Mr. FRIEDEL. Thank you very much. You are very kind. Mr. Kuykendall is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Do you have any recollection of whether or not the brotherhoods gave you any suggestions as to the drafting of this legislation? Mr. LANG. If I might, Mr. Chairman, yes, Mr. Kuykendall, they did. They gave us a number. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Do you have any recollection as to whether you in any way followed any of these suggestions? Mr. LANG. Yes, I think some of them were followed. Since we used these matters with them before much of the detailed language was actually drafted, I can't say precisely, you know, which of the ideas were theirs initially, and which were ours. They did, how ever, make a number of suggestions which we know that we did not follow. Mr. KUYKENDALL. May I suggest that you check the record of testimony on this subject? Do you have a rule of thumb as to roughly how much an employee costs your Department for a year? A high-level technical type of employee, like the ones you have put on this act? Secretary BOYD. We can give you an average grade. We will be happy to provide it for the record. (The information requested follows:) Hon. HARLEY O. STAGGERS, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Chairman, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I am providing the following information on the average employee cost in the Bureau of Railroad Safety as requested during hearings on H.R. 16980 before your committee. AVERAGE EMPLOYEE COST, BUREAU OF RAILROAD SAFETY, FEDERAL RAILROAD 1. Average salary- ADMINISTRATION 2. Average total cost (travel expense, fringe benefits, and salary). Sincerely, $11, 879 15, 720 A. SCHEFFER LANG, Administrator. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Well, of course, there is more than salary. It costs more than salary to put a man on the payroll. I realize that. To follow just a little bit on Mr. Brotzman, and here is one of the things that I think we need to clarify, I am not making an accusation here, because there is bound to be more than employees, because the first 2 years you have 53 man-years you are adding, for $11 million. That would come to $174,000 each, if that's all you were getting out of $11 million, so in other words, your answer to Mr. Brotzman's inquiry was never made at all clear as to what the $11 million for the first 2 years was going to be spent for. I know it is going to be spent for something besides employees, and I would like to have that clarified. Secretary BOYD. I would like to say, Mr. Kuykendall, Mr. Lang was responding to Mr. Brotzman, and Mr. Brotzman never got beyond personnel. I wouldn't want it to be inferred that we were not giving him an answer. Mr. KUYKENDALL. I know you were. Secretary BoYD. The fact is, he ran out of time before he got to other objects. Mr. KUYKENDALL. I was following him on his questions. Now, would you turn, if you will, to Mr. Lang's testimony, in attachment C, in the back? Mr. Lang, I know you have it. There have been so many statistics quoted up here, and we are trying to figure out how to compare apples with apples, as to what the meaning really is. Now, in this attachment, saying employee casualty rate per million man-hours worked, from all the tables that I have seen presented, other than the fact that productivity has increased, I believe this would be about the soundest of the tables that I see, because to me, employee injuries and deaths are the most important single thing in the matter of railroad safety. Now, we find here that, for instance, from 1962, to 1966, we have a slight decrease in deaths. Over the period, we go to figures like 12, 11, 12, 11. In other words, for all practical purposes, from 1961 to 1966, there in no increase in deaths. Is this correct, Mr. Lang? Mr. LANG. That is correct. Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right. Now, in injuries, we go just about the same type of figures. We had up in 1961, 1,189; went down to 1,158 in 1964; went to 1,205, and back down to 119. Now this is for all practical purposes no change. Would you say this is true? Mr. LANG. That is correct. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Now, I would like to get your clarification of your statement, either Mr. Boyd or Mr. Lang, it doesn't make any difference, that you say a drastic increase in accidents as affects casualties for employees. Does this chart substantiate your statement there has been a drastic increase? Mr. LANG. I don't believe that we said quite that. We said there has been a drastic increase in train accidents, which is a related by separate set of figures. Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right. Now, would you care to discuss the difference in how much railroad time or materiel that $750 would buy today, as compared to 1958? Couldn't you say that today it would take about an $875 accident to be the same as a $750 accident in 1958? Mr. LANG. I believed we addressed ourselves to that question in our original appendix. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Yes. I would like to know. Mr. LANG. In our original appendix, appendix A-3 Mr. KUYKENDALL. In your original statement? Mr. LANG. In the original statement, yes, sir, and if you will notice in column 4, there, we have computed and adjusted what we call an adjusted recording threshold. Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right. Now, how did you adjust this? I saw the "adjusted," but I never did Is that an inflation adjustment? Mr. LANG. That is correct, sir. Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right. I don't believe any of us understood this. I am very grateful that you did bring it out, because I asked the question the other day. All right. What was the rate of your adjustment? Mr.LANG. That is shown in column 3. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Would you put it in layman's terms, so I don't have to figure it out? In other words, 61 to a 100, is this your rate of adjustment? Mr. KUYKENDALL. In other words, so we are talking about all accidents between about $750 and right at $900, would have been taken out of these figures. Is that correct? Mr.LANG. That is correct. Mr. FRIEDEL. The gentleman's time has expired, and I hate to say that the first member that appeared before the committee is the last one to be heard, Mr. Skubitz. Mr. SKUBITZ. Mr. Boyd, being low on the totem pole, there are very few questions left for me to ask. I was quite interested, however, in Mr. Springer's statement that no one wants this bill-the railroads or the brotherhoods. Only the Department wants it. Yesterday, or the day before, Mr. Crotty testified in support of the bill. Shorty thereafter, I spoke to him personally about it. I reread his testimony. He makes this statement: Although he supports the bill, that before the brotherhoods could support such legislation, there must be revisions. One fear expressed by Mr. Crotty in his testimony was the possibility that legislation may end the functions or the negotiations under the Railroad Labor Act. My questions to you is: would you have the authority to override agreements that were reached at the bargaining table? Secretary BoYD. Yes. There is no question about that, Mr. Skubitz. In this sense-if management and labor were to agree on contracts which would provide for the employment of unqualified personnel, then the provisions of this act would be available to override that. Now, let me go on, sir, and tell you that the aviation, the airlines of this country, negotiate under the Railway Labor Act, and so far as I know, there has never been a problem on the question of overriding the agreements. Mr. SKUBITZ. Well, don't you think that the brotherhoods and the management would certainly have to reach some sort of an agreement with regard to employee qualifications before either would consent to an agreement? Secretary BoYD. Well, certainly I think this is in the hypothetical area. Mr. SKUBITZ. All right! Now let's take the next point. Secretary BOYD. All right, sir. Mr. SKUBITZ. Is there anything in this legislation, expressed or implied, that would result in a prohibition of a strike? Secretary BOYD. If there is, we don't know it. Mr. SKUBITZ. If there were something written into this bill to make sure that there wasn't, would you object to it? Secretary BOYD. I would have to see the language. Mr. SKUBITZ. The railroad workers indicate that they want to be exempt from this act. Would you favor this, or not? Secretary BOYD. Exempt from what? Mr. SKUBITZ. From this legislation. Secretary BOYD. The employees want to be exempt? Mr. SKUBITZ. Yes; they don't feel that the penalty provisions should apply to them. Secretary BoYD. I think this is an area where we feel the legislation provides the reasonable and proper approach. Certainly it ought to be subject to considerable discussion. Mr. SKUBITZ. Unless provision is made in this legislation whereby DOT could not override an agreement reached at the bargaining table, the brotherhoods indicate they are opposed to this legislation. I ask you this: Do you feel that this is a "must" in this bill? Mr. SKUBITZ. Thank you. Mr. FRIEDEL. I thank you, Mr. Skubitz. Mr. Menk, I understand you are leaving now, and we are not going to meet until Monday again, but I want to ask all members, if they wish to ask any questions, to submit them in writing to Mr. Menk, and you can answer that way. Is that all right, Mr. Menk? Mr. SPRINGER. Mr. Menk, is it not possible for you to come back at any time within the reasonable future? We are going to reconvene on Monday, June 3d. Is that correct? Mr. FRIEDEL. Yes, but we have Mr. Boyd back. Mr. SPRINGER. We have Mr. Boyd back, and I would guess we would probably have at least 1 more day besides then. I haven't had a chance to ask you any questions. Part of that was my fault, but I wasn't feeling well last week, and I couldn't be here on the day that you testified. Mr. MENK. This may seem sort of strange, but the next open date I have is June 12th. I would be delighted to come back. Mr. SPRINGER. That would be a little far down the lane, I am afraid. Mr. FRIEDEL. Do you want to ask questions now? Mr. SPRINGER. No, I don't believe so. There were several I wanted to ask. Mr. MENK. Let me look, here. Mr. SPRINGER. I say for your information that Mr. Boyd probably would take most of the morning, I would say, on Monday, the second time around, because we can ask questions at length, then. Mr. MENK. I think probably I could do some canceling around and get up here on June 6th. Would that be too late? That is next Mr. SPRINGER. I would have to ask the chairman about that. Mr. MENK. That is next Thursday. Mr. SPRINGER. We can do this. If we don't finish, could we be in touch with you, then, for Thursday, if we don't finish? Mr. MENK. Yes, sir. I am very anxious, as a matter of fact, to clear up some things that have been said in testimony, and give the members an opportunity to ask some questions. I feel very strongly, personally, and I think the industry feels very strongly about this bill. Mr. SPRINGER. Well, this is one we certainly want to exhaust all the testimony that we can upon. Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Menk, pardon me. If there are certain things that you would like to clear up, you can submit them for the record. Mr. MENK. Well, fine, we can do this. Let me say this: June 6th Mr. FRIEDEL. The chairman wants to try to finish it up by Monday or Tuesday of next week. Now, whether that can be done or not, I don't know. That is why I don't want to make |