The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-04-13
GU. S. Department of Labor, Bureau
of Labor Statistics)


of Labor Statistics)
Labor and laws and their aminis-
tration in the Pacific States-Wash-
ington, Oregon an California-is the
subject of a report just issued by the
United States Bureau of Labor Sta
tistics bulletin No. PLY.
Irregular employment is empha-
sized in the report as the
most striking labor characteristic of
the Pacific States. Most of the i'm
portant industries, such as lumber,
fruit growing, construction work,
fruit and fish canning, are highly
seasonal. In the winter months one
quarter at least of all the workers,
and in some sections a much larger
proportion, are without jobs or the
possibility of getting jobs. In Cali
fornia alone there are some 10000
"floaters," workers with no fixed resi-
dence, constantly wandering from
place to place.
lie ClICSC VI eASoS
conditions has only recently come to
be regarded as a matter of possible
state concern, and as yet state eff
forts at remedy have been rather lin
tied. Washington, in 1915, abolished
all private employment agencies be-
cause of the sins of many of them,
but it did not provide any substitute
system. Oregon has done little or
nothing. The California legislature,
in 1915, made an important beginning
by the creation of system of free
state employment offices. But it
recognized that at best such offices
could do no more than bring together
tie worker and the job, whereas the
major problem was the fact that at
recurrent periods there are vastly
more workers than there are jobs.
With this larger problem in mind, the
legislature provided for extensive in
vestigations and has now under seri-
GUS consideration such far reaching
measures as social insurance and the
encouragement of land colonization
through the breaking up of the i'm
mense speculative land holdings now
so prominent in that state.
A by-product of the seasonal, shift
ing industry of the Pacific Coast
is the widespread use of labor camps.
These camps are almost universal in
logging operations and construction
work, where the rowing character OF
tie business makes necessary the
housing of the labor force in tempor-
ary quarters. They are also not un-
common among lumber mills, can
neries, and many agricultural employ
ments, such as hop-picking. Prob
ably as many as 100000 workers on
the Pacific Coast, including num-
ber of women and children, live the
greater part of the year in camps
of various kinds. At times these
camps are we'll maintained but the
normal tendency is for them to be OF
the flimsiest construction, unsanitary
and morally degrading. California
is making serious effort to improve
the character of it's numerous labor
camps. Strict sanitary regulations
have been adopted and supervision
.olaced in the hands of the Immigra-
tion and Housing Commission. Wash
ington and Oregon have as yet done
little in this matter.
The exploitation of labor through
non-p payment of wages is in no way
limited to the Pacific Coast, but con-
ditions there are favorable to its
existence-the casual, seasonal char
acter of so much of the work, a large
body of immigrant labor, ignorant of
their rights and often fearful of the
law, the constant shifting of workers
from job to job, the location of much
of the work in isolated districts. That
the evil is widespread is evident from
the experience of the several state
bureaus of labor in handling wage
complaints. Thus, the California
bureau, in a three-year period, re-
ceived over 10000 complaints from
workers and succeeded in making col
lections in some 5000 cases, the total
amount collected being no less thar
900.
In the attempt to protect the work
er against such wage losses, all three
of the states have enacted laws re-
quiring prompt and honest payment
of wages. That these have been on
ly partially successful is due, ii
part, to defects in the laws them
=, selves, but still more to the fact that
In n;n anil ron, itnc N naIanalu thnI