The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-07-04
UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT
SERVICE URGED BY SEC. WILSON

secretary OF LdDOT w llSOu HAS
recommended to Congress the enact
ment of legislation creating a per-
manent public employment service
for the United States.
In letters to Representative ]. M.
G, Smith, chairman of the House
Committee on Labor, and to Sem
ator Kenyon, chairman of the Sem
ate Committee on Labor, he ap-
proved the general principles of a
national public employment sys-
tenn unanimously agreed upon by
representatives of the Governors of
the States at the employment con-
ference held last month in Wash
ington, and transmitted an outline
of bill embodying those princi-
pies.
The outline calls for the continu-
ance of the United States Employ
ment Service, developed during the
war, as a permanent bureau in the
Department of Labor and in charge
of a Director General appointed by
the President, and system of pub
lie employment offices, operated by
the States and cooperating with
the Federal Employment Service.
The Federal Government would
contribute funds to the States for
the maintenance of their offices,
which would work under standard
rules and regulations prescribed by
the United States Employment Serv-
ice, the national service handling
labor clearances between States, in
speeding and gathering of informa-
ton as to labor and employment
conditions. At the conference,
which agreed upon this outline
were representatives of 80 States,
including nearly all the industrial
States, and representatives Of en-
ployers and labor.
In his letters to the chairmen of
the Labor Committees of the House
and Senate, Secretary Wilson said,
in part:
For many years there has been
growing recognition of the neces
sity for public employment offices
through the assistance of which
men and women out of employment
may be able to learn of opportuni-
ties to work which they could not
find through their own efforts.
That workers and employers need
so-called labor exchanges has been
demonstrated by the fact that 1t
has proved highly profitable for in
dividuals to operate such exchanges
on a commercial basis. That such
services to workers and employers
should not be left solely to private
fee-charging agencies has also been
demonstrated In order to make
the operation of such agencies prof
liable they have to charge fee for
placing workers in employment.
Such fees are exacted from those
who can least afford to pay them
and instances of abuse and eXtor-
ton have been so frequent as to
constitute an abuse known to all
who are familiar with the situa-
ton.
"Inasmuch as the interests of the
private fee-charging agencies are
fostered by constant shifting of
workers fom one employment to
another, they are under constant
temptation, to which unfortunately
they sometimes yield, to encourage
restlessness among laborers and
thus to increase the evils and eco
nomic loss which inhere in a large
labor turnover.
From the viewpoint Of the in
dustrial efficiency of the Nation,
as well as of the individual welfare
of the workers, it has proved to be
sound policy to place the task of
bringing together the worker and
the job on a non-commercial basis.
Furthermore, it is obvious that in
order to enable workers in one
community to know of positions
open in remote localities and to
enable employers who cannot find
sufficient workers in their neigh
borhood to take advantage of sur
plus of labor existing elsewhere, it
is necessary that there should be in
tercommunication between the la
Dor exchanges of one community
and among the various States. The
only way this has ever been
brought about has been through
the action of the Federal Govern
ment.
THE need of an agency may to
large extent be gagged by the use
to which it is put. BY this test it