There is not only the loss of time incident to the change of men, but no man can be thoroughly efficient in his job until he has become familiar with his machine, his shop, the characteristics of his shopmates and foreman, and the hundred and one other details that go to make up the sum total of his shop surroundings. Turnover is the individualistic strike. It represents the unorganized workman dissatisfied with conditions, or the organized workman unable or unwilling to interest his fellows in a collective protest. It produces in the aggregate much more loss of time than is involved in all of the strikes of trade-unions, or spontaneous collective protest. The causes are numerous and vary with different shops and different communities. They may exist within the shop itself or in the conditions outside the shop. The lack of proper housing and transportation facilities increases the movement of workmen from job to job. Instances of this sort are on record in which the turnover has been as high as 100 per cent a week for a prolonged period. No efficiency can be obtained under such circumstances. The conference recommends that some agency in every establishment be specifically intrusted with the duty of inquiring into and, as far as possible, correcting the conditions that produce such grave and undesirable results. The fourth cause, namely, breakage in the equipment of the plant, is so directly a problem of management, and has such immediate bearing upon the return on the capital invested, that engineering skill is being continuously applied to reduce it to a minimum. Except as concerns safety, this cause therefore, may be properly intrusted to the intelligent self-interest of the management. Where that is not sufficient to promote safety, it is the duty of the State to step in, as it has done very generally, and use its police powers in protecting the health and safety of workers. 14. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT CLEARING HOUSE. The problem of unemployment is aggravated by the fact that at the present time there is no adequate method for mobilizing such a so-called labor reserve as, in spite of all efforts to reduce unemployment, may at any given time actually exist. At the present time there are many labor reserves, but no mobilized reserve. The creation of a Federal Reserve System in banking has mobilized and coordinated the Nation's credit reserves. Under such a system the Nation can transact a larger volume of business on a given capital and credit than would be attainable under a system of separate banks acting individually in their localities. Similarly the country's productive capacity can be increased by the creation of a unified system of labor exchanges, making what is in effect a single labor reserve that can be drawn on by industry in any part of the Nation. The conference recommends establishing a system of employment exchanges, municipal, State, and Federal, which shall in effect create a national employment service. The employment problem is in the first instance a local problem. The first objective must be the placement of local men in local establishments in order to keep as large a number of the employees as possible at home with their families. But no purely local approach to the problem is, or can be effective. Labor surplus and labor shortage exist side by side within the country at the same time, although not necessarily within the same State. Carpenters or machinists may be out of work in Chicago at the same time that there is a demand for such artisans in Pennsylvania. Perhaps more important is the constant problem of bringing labor from the towns and cities to the farms, both locally, and in times of great seasonal demand for farm operations when the need of the farmer requires the more extensive transfer of labor, from both his own and neighboring States. Experience during the war has proved these general principles to be true in a period of high employment demand; they are even more generally applicable in normal times. Until a system shall exist for the gathering of information by the municipalities and States, and its exchange through a Federal agency, jobs will be seeking workers and workers seeking jobs at the same time, but at different places, and a consequent national loss in production will result. The matter is not and can not be satisfactorily dealt with merely by private agencies, local and competitive in character, and operating at best within a narrow geographic field. The Nation has so vital and persisting an interest in maintaining the industrial product, and in reducing the hardships due to unemployment, that it must interest itself in the problem. At the present times 17 States maintain public employment offices. The work of these agencies was coordinated during the period of the war through the United States Employment Service-a Federal agency which furthermore opened offices in States having no State service, and thus established a system national in scope. This system has virtually lapsed with the return of the country to a peace footing. To secure decentralized administration in the States, under the supervision of its citizens, to avoid the establishment of a Federal bureaucracy, to foster the development of such service throughout the Nation, the conference recommends the enactment of appropriate legislation by the Congress, making provision for an employment clearing house under Federal control, which shall allot to the several States that have established, or shall establish State employment offices, their proportionate share of the Federal appropriation, but not exceeding to any State the amount that shall be appropriated from State funds for this purpose. This cooperative relation between Federal and State Governments has been followed in other fields and may well be extended to the employment field. Such a service, if it is to succeed, must obviously have the full cooperation of employers and employees. The war emergency developed some weaknesses in administration, which in the opinion of the conference can wisely be corrected in the light of such experience. To justify the cooperation of both parties the needs of both must be served impartially. To insure such service the conference recommends that committees equally representative of employers and employees be selected to advise and assist in administration. V. CONCLUSION. In presenting these recommendations the conference desires to emphasize that they are not merely designed to tide over a troublesome period of economic readjustment. Many of the evils which we have pointed out were in existence before the war, and will remain in existence if steps are not taken to remedy them. The machinery of cooperation and adjustment which we recommend we believe to have permanent value as an agency of industrial progress. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that to-day, when the sense of the magnitude and danger of social unrest is still acutely upon us, when we have not yet reverted to settled habits of thought and action, when our economic life is still in a state of readjustment, it may be possible to establish ideals and set up machinery which the inertia of a later day may defeat. Not with any feeling of panic, not with any hysterical haste, but sanely and sensibly we urge that these reforms be put into effect. And we do so with the belief that they will not only contribute largely toward the elimination of the causes of industrial strife, but that they will make for the introduction, in American industry, of those democratic principles which constitute the most precious heritage of the American citizen. WILLIAM B. WILSON, Chairman. MARTIN H. GLYNN. SAMUEL W. McCALL. OSCAR S. STRAUS. HENRY C. STUART. GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM. WILLARD E. HOTCHKISS, Executive Secretaries. MARCH 6, 1920. |