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CAPITOL SKETCHBOOK

CAPITOL SKETCHBOOK; Plan to Cut House Costs Puts Private Hands at Barbers' Chairs

CAPITOL SKETCHBOOK; Plan to Cut House Costs Puts Private Hands at Barbers' Chairs
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June 29, 1995, Section A, Page 18Buy Reprints
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In the grand scheme of Speaker Newt Gingrich's Contract With America, the plight of Nurney Mason, newly slated to be privatized out of his job as a barber in the House of Representatives, merely amounts to a little off the sides.

"Never thought it would happen to me here, right here in the Capitol," said Mr. Mason, snipping at the hair of a Congressional politician and pondering the termination notice he received, which read like a sound bite from a campaign brochure.

It said that the 65-year-old barber, six years from full Federal retirement, was being let go in favor of private contract bidders "consistent with the belief that privately owned facilities will strive to derive profits through superior service and reduced administrative costs."

Until this, Mr. Mason said, the only big change in his three-chair shop was when Congressmen shifted from those Bob Forehead blow-dry haircuts a decade ago and went back to less puffed short hair.

"You want to talk change," Mr. said. "Well last November was change, and that's when I'd say the family spirit of this shop was set to be broken."

But this spirit -- and dispensing $10 haircuts -- was too costly, according to the new Republican House leadership, which claimed that the shop was running $6,000 in losses a month and so ordered privatization.

With the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate after decades in the minority, bright new brooms have been put to work in the Capitol on changes big and small. The Federal budget is still in the legislative negotiating stage, so the nation at large has yet to feel the tangible results of the Republican turnabout.

But Mr. Mason and workers in some other Capitol warrens are getting an early taste of efficiencies and cost reductions promised by Republicans eager to demonstrate change, with about one-third of the estimated 1,000 House support workers expected to lose their jobs.

The House Folding Room, where 119 workers prepare Congressional mass mailings, is being phased out, with the task shifting back to individual Representatives' offices. The traditional hand delivery of buckets of ice to each Representative's office, a throwback, has been discontinued. Now Representatives send staffers to get ice and some Capitol Hill denizens complain that they leave hazardous splashes of water on the Capitol's polished marble corridors. A crankiness is in the air.

"Is there any thought given to loyalty in all this?" Mr. Mason asked in the House's snug old-style barber shop.

The Republicans are offering no special severance pay, but promise job retraining and resume writing help. "We're going out of our way to help these folks," said a spokesman for Representative William M. Thomas, the California Republican responsible for them as chairman of the House oversight committee. "They're basically good people, have worked hard and we don't want them to take this personally."

Mr. Mason is beginning to take it personally. He said he has learned a lot about politicians in cutting their hair. "Talking to me, not one of them says this is a good idea," he said. "But it's happening."

As he cuts hair, he has formulated one final strategem: Nurney Mason, who has doubts about the Republicans' estimate of losses at the Federalized shop and profits under privatization, will be among the private bidders when the contract proposals are opened next month.

"Why not?" he asks, yearning to win the contract and keep the shop more or less as it is, even if the Republicans call it privatized. "This is a long shot, but I got faith."

At this, he was offered encouragement by the freshly barbered politician in his chair. The man arose, beaming at himself in the mirror and pronouncing the whole privatization scheme cheap symbolism. "I don't want my name used," he added self-protectively, and the House barber silently awaited the next politician.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the National edition with the headline: CAPITOL SKETCHBOOK; Plan to Cut House Costs Puts Private Hands at Barbers' Chairs. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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