The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-11-24
PAR ISAN
REPORTS
CLAIM
Control Of Labor Department
Has Raised Storm OF Pro-
tests BY Employers
By international News Service.


cause Of its association exclusively
with the Department Of Labor,
without participation by other
Federal departments, the United
States Employment Service has
been marked in the minds Of en-
ployers as a partisan agency, and
this renders effective develop
ment Of the employment service,
as at present organized, well nigh
Impossible.
This is one of the conclusions
drawn in an exhaustive report on
"Public Employment Offices
Their Purpose, Structure and
Methods" which has just been
issued by the Russell Sage Foun-
dalton as the result Of an investi-
cation started in 1919.
Role Becoming insignificant.
"A public employment service is
designed to serve both employers
and workers" says the report, .'but
until recently it has been accepted
as of more vital need to workers
than to employers, tnasmuch as un-
employment is far more devasting
to workers than shortage of labor
to employers. Experience has in
Dictated, however, that an employ
ment service whose dominant OBJ
jective Is service to workers will play
a comparatively insignificant role in
the world of labor. Without the
wholehearted support of employers,
the service cannot fulfill its pur-
pose.
''The control of the United States
Employment Service by the Depart
ment Of Labor has given rise to a
storm Of protest from employers
generally. The charge is that the
department is organically partisan.
Whether the service has or has
not been administered impartially is
more or less beside the point. Its
association with the Department of
Labor and, through the Secretary
of the Department, with organized
labor, has been enough to mark 1t
in the minds Of employers as q
PARTISAN agency. This in itself iS
sufficient to render its effective de-
yelpoment in that department in the
Immediate future well nigh I'M
possible"
Suggests A Remedy.
To remedy this situation, the
Foundations report recommends
the establishment Of nationwide
system Of public employment Of
fices, in which the Federal, State
and local governments would be ad-
nlinistered under a board made up
Of the Secretary Of Labor. the
Secretary Of Commerce and the
Secretary of Agriculture, with the
assistance of a national advisory
council and local committees rep
resenting employers and en-
the report says, fought to insure
beyond possibility of doubt gem
timely non-partisan employment SER
vice."
other outstanding facts in the
report follow:
Employers are either indifferent
to or suspicious Of private employ
ment agencies as a class, while
workers-both organized and I'M
organized are definitely hostile.
Organized labor has long been
opposed to the private employment
bureaus, charging that they are
used as strike-breaking agencies,
that they favor the employer and
that their sole purpose is to ex-
plot the worker.
Southern States, In an effort to
restrict the emigration of negro
labor to the North, are. through
legislation and license fees, making
1T increasingly difficult, and in
some States impossible, for private
agencies to send negro workers out
ct the State.
Activity BY Unions.
Some Of the employment bureaus
operated by employers associations.
boards OF trade, and similar organi-
cations, are being operated chisfly,
If not exclusively in the interests
aof employers who desire to control
the means through which contracts
between the worker and the job
are made.
some trade unions have similarly
set up bureaus which seek to keep
5Dlembers of their unions employed
and which may be or service in
placing men in plants where they
can help tho cause Of unionism.
The use of newspaper want ad.
vertisement columns as q means of
securing employees has become prac.
tically universal. but the advant.
ages Of this method are almost
wholly on the side of the employer.
Public sentiment favorable to a
public employment service has been
increasing for twenty years or more,
the two most important reasons for
this sentiment being the belief that
an efficient public employment serv-
ice will tend TO eliminate the abuses
Of private fee-charging agencies and
that 1t will reduce the evil of un.
employment.
The report recommends that the
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