The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1921-07-23
HALF BILLION LOSS
IN BUILDING WAGES
Because of Unemployment Although
There Is An Acute Shortage
of Housing.

New York, July 22.--Half a billion
dollars a year in wages is being lost
in the building industry through un.
employment, declared a report made
public to-day by the committee on
elimination of waste in industry of
the American engineering council.
The committee, appointed by Herbert
Hoover when he was president of the
| council, asserted that lack of work was
the outstanding factor in this industry,
whose critical condition is attributed
primarily TO high costs of construction.
The annual economic loss due to ac-
cidents was estimated by the commit
tee as high as $l20,000,000 Application
of safety methods, it was stated, would
save the industry 100000 days work
in year. Loss through duplication of
estimates and designs, and duplication
in bidding was said to run into mil
lions.
An acute national shortage of nous
ing exists, the report stated, because
of prohibtive construction costs to
householder and banker
Many union rules were condemned
as absolutely wrong" and both EN-
ployers and employees were blamed for
restriction of output
The report deplored the irregularty
of employment for building trade
workmen, declaring that they were
busy only on an average of about 100
days in year. 1t recommended the
following means of reducing seasonal
unemployment:
Allowances of small margin of prof
its for both labor and capital during
winter months, development of meth
DDS OF conducting the work in cold
weather. arrangement of work TO pro.
vide indoor operations in cold and
stormy weather, organization OF a.
clearing house for coordination of ac-
Invites, increasing the usefulness of
employment bureaus and educating the
public"
If the greatest cause, the demand
for an increase in wages, could be elm
mated, strikes as a factor of waste
would shrink into insignificance," it is
asserted, "the remedy that suggests it
self is cooperation. Management and
labor must forget the sore spots of
past conflicts and through whole heart
ed cooperation fix by proper studies a
minimum wage to correspond with a
standard amount of production, with /!
additional compensation for additional
output. This would furnish an incen |
tive to the men and would give recog- |
milton TO deserving mechanics"
The Philadelphia plan" is endorsed /
by the report as one of the means of
labor difficulties and elimi-
mating waste. This plan, it was stated,
provides for a tribunal or council of
the building industry composed of an
equal number OF representatives of en-
ployer and employed.
II also proposes establishment of a
central bureau through which volun.
-arily all construction programs in the
territory should be cleared, including
national, state, municipal and private
work
Never in the history of our eoun-
ry," concluded the report, was it so
important that certain fundamental
principles OF economics should be &C.
epted and established as working /:
Program. These principles will throw
'yerboard the fallacy that restricting
production can make work go further,
md will supplant this with the knowl.
dye that to get one must give, that
0 receive the equivalent must be given
n money or in time or in effort, andi
hat increased returns can only be at
aimed through increased production =
The building investigation was in
barge of Sanford f. Thompson of
'oston, who directed large force OF
ED workers. who covered the entire
ountrv. special attention, the report
avs, being paid TO representative cit.
IS such as New York, Boston, Phila-
elphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland
.tlanta and San Francisco.