The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-15
PLENTY OF WORK
 FOR IDLE MEN Hard to Get Many Negroes To Take Places MANY ARE ON STREETS Labor Agents Employ Them and They Agree to Go to Work But
 Never Show Up for
 Duty
MANY ARE ON STREETS

That there is plenty or work Tor ldle men in Birmingham to do, provided they are willing to work, is evidenced by statements made yesterday by represen- tatives of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad company and the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron company. It is stated by the Tennessee company people that, although they have four men looking for laborers all of the time, and there are many unemployed men In the city, they are unable to get them to work J. w. Mcqueen, vice president or the Sheffield company, states that his concern could easily use 200 or 300 men If they could be gotten.
 A labor agent for the Tennessee com pany said We have all of the time four men on the streets Joking for laborers and offering work to every unemployed man they can find. We need them at Edge water in the mines and in building a large new commissary there, at Corey in the by-produot plant, and at Ensey in the steel mills.
 "At Ensley the steel plant is taking on every man that comes along who wants to work, and every man employed by the company there Is on the lookout for men.
 Whenever we see a negro on the streets who is not working we go to him and offer him employment. He always asks us what kind of work we have, W hat the pay Is. and what kind of board we furnish When we have answered his questions he says that as soon as he I,fo 1lc h txfin back and go to work, but usually that is the last of that negro.
 we have had shortage of men ever since the plant started up again on June 15 after a shutdown, and there has never been a day since then that any man who came to the plant wanting a job did not get one
 "Our labor agents are unable to get the idle negroes to work. We start out some times with 10 or 12 men on car. taking them to the plant, and although their fares have been paid, four or five of them will be- gone from the car by the time we reach the place for them to work.
 Sometimes we take men out to Corey about 10 o'clock In the morning. They refuse to go to work until noon. We send them to the boarding houses for dinner and after they have gotten din- ner free, they fall to show up at the working place In the afternoon. They come right back to the streets and we see the same ones loafing on the street corners day after day.
 "It makes no difference what labore4 says he can do. We can use laborers at any sort of work. We could take 40 miners out to work this afternoon If we could get them There is no question that if we could pick up 100 men on the streets in the morning we could put them all at work.
 Day laborers are harder to get than machnists. When we want brick layers we have to send away and get them. We have now working at the by-product plant
 in Corey brick layers that we brought
 In from Nashville and Atlanta, and even scme from Chicago.
 There ought not to be any trouble in employing men. for there are plenty of idle negroes on the streets. In a walk of three blocks you can count 150 oafing negroes, ana l DelleNe IL IS a SdIe eStl- mate to place the number of them in the entire city at 1000. They are not work ing, although they could get work that is suited to them, the only work that they can do.
 That situation Is true of other con- cerns besides our own. I know that other companies have labor agents trying to get these idle negroes to work, with the same lack of success. At several steel buildings being erected in the city labor CTS are scarce and the railroads are un- able to secure all of the laborers they could use.'
 | MT. Mcqueen of the Sloss-Sheffield com pany said: We could employ at least POO or 300 more men than we can get know that there are many idle men here but we are not able to hire them. think they ought to be cleared out of the city or made to get jobs.'