The Coconino sun., 1918-08-09

more than the number recrulteu, to what plant or plants should these workers be assigned in order to bring about the greatest good in the prose cnt;on of the war? In distributing iabor under this community plan the nresent needs of an establishment en- gaped in war work are considered, as weli as the priority of the industry.
 The 10000 agents who search out men of specified types in every part of the nation are volunteer workers, although supervised by paid. govern ment organizers who keep m ciose touch with them and who speed up their activities. Their functions are generally to furnish directly to the army, navy, and other governmental departments, men of specified tram inc: to recruit skilled and unskllled labor generally for war industries; ln the districts where there are no em, ployment offices, both to recruit ana distribute labor under the direction or the Comp,unity Labor Boards; to reg ister in specified trades in which U IS known from experience that there VIII be a demand, the men in less essen tial occupations, so that they may be readily available when needed by the industries engaged in manufacturing war materials; to assist In transfer ring men who are working Tn non-es- sential occupations to those industries which are essential, with the least loss of time and expense; to prevent rum ous competitive recruiting among the war industries, by reporting to the proper authorities any wrongful meth ods employed in that respect, such as activities of private labor scouts; to report to Washington the condition of the supply of labor in any given com munity, and to furnish information as to wages, hours, and housing condl- tions.
 The Public Service Reserve at the present time has registered and in- dexed more than 100000 men of va rious skilled and unskilled trades. It has furnished to the army, navy, the governmental departments, the Elmer gency Fleet Corporation, and various war industries thousands of men, mostly of the higher skilled type, such as engineers, technical experts, and skilled mechanics. Undoubtedly pro- duction has already been appreciably increased and efficiency improved by the ability of the reserve to furnish on short notice men of almost any qualifications.
 1t will not be the policy of the United States Public Service Reserve to carry on any general registration for a particular industry far in ad- vance of the time when the men would be actually needed for that industry. Any registrations of workers will be in particular trades without any spe- cific industry in mind, so as to enable the Employment Service to procure men of any particular training when needed. For instance, suppose 1t were known that the war industries would continuously call for welders. There would be a tremendous advantage in having a record of practically all the welders in the country who were en- gagged on less essential work.
 The federal state director of the Public Service Reserve in each case has been recommended by the State Council of Defense. and hence the reserve system machinery works in close harmony with the State Defense organizations. In most of the states the director of the employment service is the same man who directs the ac- tivities of the reserve.
 The growth in importance of the re- serve as a part of the United States Employment Service has supplied one of the striking features of the service. Starting with few thousand names registered in it's Washington office, it has swiftly grown to vitally neces- sary recruiting machine, without which all essential production would be seriously hampered through inabil- ity to keep in touch with the labor supplies in the rural districts, in which more than half of all the work CTS in the United States reside. That this broad function be assumed by federal agency was inevitable under the stress of war conditions, since only by this means could the intri- cate problem of labor turnover and supply be adequately met.
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