REAL ESTATE
AND
(Copyright, 1917, by The Record and Guide Co.)
NEW YORK, JANUARY, 19, 1918
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON SHORTAGE OF LABOR
Investigation by American Federation of Labor Indicates
Plenty of Labor, but Poor Housing Accommodations
THE labor policy of the United States
during the war depends upon the
supply of wage-workers. If there is a
sufficient number cf men to answer the
demands of any branch of industry usu¬
ally employing men, there is plainly no
need to call upon women to replace men.
If by efficiently distributing the unem¬
ployed to the points where labor is actu¬
ally needed, the supply can be made to
equal the demand, no extraordinary
measures need be taken anywhere to
obtain needed human power.
It is of fundamental importance to
this country to start right in this mat¬
ter of national policy. Every step to be
taken now and in the future in the
course of the war depends on getting
at the undeniable facts relative to the
supply of labor. So long as there is an
unemployed, or partially unemployed,
reserve to be drawn upon, there will evi¬
dently be no need to depart from the
present standards of wages, hours, con¬
ditions and undilutions, as recognized
by organized labor.
Reports Show Sufficient Labor.
To come at once to the facts: The
October number of the American Fed-
erationist contains a review of the labor
situation of the country, made up of the
substance of reports from' Federal De¬
partments, State Labor Bureaus, State
employment agencies, and competent
public observers, which warranted the
conclusion that the cry of a scarcity of
labor was false, lacking in particulars
that could be substantiated, and untruth-
' fully promoted for selfish purposes. Fur¬
ther, to ascertain the facts in the mat¬
ter, President Gompers sent out a let¬
ter on October 12, to a certain number
pf Central Labor Unions, especially in
the industrial cities, and to international
unions, particularly those making war
supplies.
Replies have been received to date
from twenty-eight international unions,
with a paid-up membership of 922,400 in
the American Federation of Labor.-
Members of your Committee of Inquiry
have also consulted during the sessions
of this convention, with the delegates
of unions probably representing 500,000
other members. The written replies,
without exceptions, state that there is
no shortage of labor among their mem¬
bership. The great unions whose mem¬
bers are to supply the skilled labor in
construction, in making uniforms and
in transportation, all declare that they
have unemployed members who may be
turned to the service of the Government
at any point at any time. There are
mining districts on partial time, many
boot and shoe and other factories either
closed or on part time, cantonments and
other building operations just finished or
nearly finished, garment factories with
tens of thousands of unemployed manu¬
factories avoiding the employme.it ot
skilled machinists, while each of the
trades concerned stands ready to supply
labor from the ranks of its unemployed.
From sixty-six cities the Central Labor
bodies report no shortage of labor sup¬
ply. These cities represent all parts of
the country, from coast to coast, and on
estimate of the wage workers in the
By JOHN TOBIN
area of each city the total number
reaches nearly one million. Not repre¬
sented in this list are the largest cities :
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Bos¬
ton, Baltimore, St. Louis, in each of
which laborers by the thousands can
be gathered at any time for any work.
Letters from State labor bureaus and
employment agencies and other authora-
tive sources fully confirm the statements
of the labor organizations. From Ohio
comes: *'The Ohio employment bureaus
raised 20,000 men for building the Chilli-
cothe cantonment; practically all of
these men were secured from the State
of Ohio and without exception the in¬
dustries of the State were not at all
disturbed. If Ohio can take 20,000 men
and center them in one place in the
course of a few weeks without dislocat¬
ing the industries of the State, there is
no reason why the Federal Government
should not be able to raise 100,000 men
in the same time." During the month
of September the twenty-two State em¬
ployment offices in Ohio received 45,796
applications for work from the unem¬
ployed, of whom 26,576 were placed, leav¬
ing nearly 20,000 on the registry. A Fed¬
eration organizer reports at one of the
munition plants in New Jersey between
200 and 300 men can be seen any day
waiting at the gates to apply for work;
one morning 318 were counted.
Many Applicants for Jobs.
At the office of a Newark evening
newspaper, at the time of the issue of
the noon edition, 108 men were counted,
waiting to be first to answer the "help
wanted" advertisements. Several of the
reports from organizations declare that
companies are by settled policy hiring
foreign labor and refuse to take on
Americans. From our Building Trades
Department in Washington the state¬
ment comes that a local contractor and
builder who advertised for 600 carpen¬
ters, when waited upon by a labor rep¬
resentative said : "We have 100 now and
we do not want any more."
The Commissioner of Labor of Cali¬
fornia and the President of the Cali¬
fornia State Commission on Housing
and Immigration both reported in the
summer no lack of labor in California
for permanent employment.
The Director of the New York State
Bureau of Employment says: "There
is plenty of labor in this country to do
the work there is to be done, and there
will be plenty of labor as long as the
war lasts, even if it lasts five years."
The Public Employment Bureau, of
Newark, N. J., was recently asked to
furnish 1,000 men for skilled and un¬
skilled work at a cantonment. Within
forty-eight hours the needed men were
gathered and on their way to the work.
Nothing more significant in the abun¬
dance of unemployed labor in this coun¬
try can be had than what is shown in
the "labor turn-over" of many of the
large firms which strive to obtain and
overwork clicap labor. (Labor turn¬
over is a soft phrase meaning the merci¬
less hiring and firing of workmen). The
following testimony has come from the
managers of works, from employment
agencies, from trade union officials, from
published reports of labor inspectors
and similar authoritative sources;
Curtiss Aeroplane Company, of Ham-
mondsport and Buffalo, N. Y.: Labor
turn-over of 30 per cent, a month during
several months preceding November 19,
1917. Pierce-Arrow Automobile Com¬
pany, of Buffalo, N. Y.; labor turn¬
over from 15 to 22 per cent, a month
for nine months, previous to this date.
The Amoskeag Manufacturing Com¬
pany of Manchester, N. H., employing
from 22,000 to 25,000 help, labor turn¬
over averaging for five years from 54
to 79 per cent. The G. E. Keith Com¬
pany, of South Boston, Mass.: One
plant has a labor turn-over of 20 per
cent, a month. The Dennison Manu¬
facturing Company, of Framingham,
Mass., labor turn-over of 46 per cent, a
year. The Fore River Shipbuilding Cor¬
poration, of Quincy, Mass.: Hired 5,200
men between May 14, 1917, and August
14, 1917, to increase its labor force from
3,600 to approximately 7,000. The Austin
Company Building Corporation em¬
ployed 80 skilled mechanics in a single
day to increase its working force 9
men.
Shortage of Other Essentials.
This practice was kept up over a
period of several months. So common
in Buffalo was the practice of adver¬
tising for the semi-skilled, or unskilled,
to come to fill places, presumably avail¬
able, that skilled mechanics, of which
there were an abundance in that city,
were forced to find employment two
thousand miles away on Government
jobs. The Detroit United Railways in
nine and one-half months engaged 2,612
men, a labor turn-over of 300 a month,
the men usually leaving because of un¬
satisfactory working conditions. In the
same city, at the Ford plant, employing
38,000 men, the labor turn-over is only
seven a month.
That which employers and their public
spokesmen represent as "shortage of
labor" is, when sifted to the truth, al¬
most invariably a shortage of other
essentials in industry. For example, a
shortage of materials in the navy yards
during the past year has been trans¬
lated into a shortage of labor. In the
new munitions works in the course of
construction, or nearly finished, there
is frequently a shortage of the ma¬
chinery necessary to put labor at work.
Great new manufacturing establish¬
ments have been erected at points to
which the transportation of the em¬
ployes is most difficult or impossible.
Uniforms are not finished at the time
expected, simply because of a lack of
dyes or looms to produce the duck for
tentage and leggings.
The lack of housing and not the lack
of unemployed labor, keeps men and
women away from the manufactories
and farms, which have joined in the
shout of the shortage of labor. The
following are extracts from testimony
taken before the Housing Committee,
Committee on Labor, Advisory Commis¬
sion, Council of National Defense,
October 3, 1917:
Owing to the lack of housing, the
Remington Arms Company, Bridgeport,
Conn., lost two to three hundred men
every week and had to send agents out
to replace them. A man would come
in with his kit, work for two days and