Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1915 — SEEK OUT JOBLESS [ARTICLE]

SEEK OUT JOBLESS

New Employment Bureau Completes Preliminary Work. * Appfication Blanks Sent Throughout Country—Union Leaders Watch to See If Organized Toilers Get Preference. Washington.—The department of labor has completed the preliminary work in connection with the federal employment bureau, and necessary blanks are being sent to employers throughout the country and to post offices for distribution to persons seeking employment. It is the purpose of the department to- act as a clearing house for those who seek employment and those who have employment to offer. Both union and nonunion workers and proprietors of open or closed shops throughout the country are interested in these operations of the department. In connection with the voluntary work now being undertaken by the department of labor special interest attaches to the fact that Secretary Wilson is himself a union man, having been at one time prominent in the official councils of the miners’ organization.

The application blanks beini? sent out to employers and unemployed are being handled directly by the division of information of the bureau of immigration. T. V. Powderly is chief of the division. . The general plan contemplates the co-operation of the department of agriculture and the post office department with the department of labor in locating both the employer who desires labor and the unemployed. The agents of the department of agriculture, about 175,000 in number, will send reports of labor conditions in tbeir district to the secretary of agriculture, who will transmit them to the department of labor. Postmasters throughout the country will distribute the application blanks to the unemployed, who will fill them out and return them to the postmaster, to be forwarded to the department of labor, postage free. Mr. Powderly and Commissioner Caminetti of the bureau of immigration will receive daily reports from the labor centers giving actual conditions and will also receive the applications for employment from workmen. Applications for employment are designed to cover virtually all forms of employment, both skilled and unskilled, including domestic work and farm labor. The applicants are required to answer numerous questions as to age, height, weight, trade, nationality, qualification for labor other than the trade mentioned, languages spoken, names of two former employers, reason for loss of latest employment and wages expected. As these documents will be public records, the leaders of organized labor have a list of the union and open shops in the country, and the union wages for every trad j in every locality are known, It will be a comparatively easy matter for those interested to know from the trades mentioned the wages expected and the names of former employers, whether or not the average applicant for employment is a union or nonunion man. It will also be an easy matter in the case of the employer to ascertain whether his shop is open or closed. The employer also is required to report specifically the hours of labor a day in his factory or shop; “labor conditions (strikes existing or contemplated), etc.,” and other questions which will easily characterize his business to those most interested. To what extent this situation will be recognized in the administration of the federal employment bureau Is a question for development. There is little question that if preference be given to organized labor the effect would be to force unorganized labor into the ranks of organized labor.