The monitor., 1927-12-23
DIFFICULT TO FIND
EMPLOYMENT FOR
NEGRO WORKERS
Industrial Relations Department of
National Urban League Reviews
Labor Conditions in Its
Recent Bulletin
GOOD SPOTS HERE AND THERE

New York City-"Not in recent
years." says the National Urban
league through its most recent bull
letin of the industrial relations de-
partment, of which T. Arnold Hill is
director, ''has there been exerted so
much effort to find jobs for Negroes
with so little success. In the import
ant industrial communities of the
north and west men and women ex-
perienced in this field have made fu-
tile attempts to secure work for the
large number of unemployed Negroes
whose conditions have been practical
ly unchanged throughout most of
1927"
Among the important efforts made
to meet this situation was the crea-
ton of a committee in New York of
white and colored citizens which had
its first meeting at the Park Avenue
Community church, of which DR.. John
Haynes Holmes is minister. This
committee, formed by the New York
Urban league, and comprising a num-
Der of important persons heretofore
not actively interested in a program
of this sort, began its work with an
appeal to the United Cigar Stores, the
United Electric Light and Power COM
pany, the New York Edison company,
and the New York Telephone com
pany, with the hope of securing en-
ployment for colored people in ca
pacities in which these companies do
not employ them. The committee set
out earnestly to secure telephone op-
orators, readers of electric light and
gas meters and clerks in stores.
Two other ventures in this same
direction were industrial campaigns,
one in Milwaukee and one in Spring
field, Illinois, when the attention of
business men and women through the
service clubs, the Manufacturers as
sociation, and the Association of
Commerce and the Business and Pro-
essional Women's club was called to
the need of additional lines of en-
ployment for Negroes. The person
ell managers of public utilities and
department stores were interviewed
and general managers Of industrial
corporations were appealed to with
the result that calls from five places
not before employing Negroes were
received at the headquarters of the
Urban league of that city. Two large
corporations have initiated new poll
cies favorable to the employment of
colored people. One of these, the
Ford Motor company, has employed
a salesman in one of it's New York
agencies; the other a reputable oil
company operating in the west, has
reached definite decision to give jobs
to colored men when the spring
weather increases the volume of gas
and oil business done by this COM
pany, in ten cities in which large
numbers of Negroes live.
Here and there occasional happen
ings throw light on the ebb and flow
of employment affecting members of
the Negro race. Two steel plants in
Milwaukee have closed temporarily,
thereby forcing into unemployment
125 colored men, and two other
plants in this city, in which 20 per
cent of the working population were
Negroes, have suspended business un-
til January 1st.
In the Pittsburgh district where
mines are operated on a half time
basis, some 1000 colored miners
have been affected. In several cities
there have been requirements of col
ored by white help. Chicago reports
the loss of 100 positions formerly
held by colored girls in pencil COM
pany who have been replaced by
foreign help.
The other side of this picture is re-
Elected in st. Louis, where many col
ored building tradesmen have found
employment in the tornado zone. In
Chicago, the opening of the Savoy
ball room was the occasion for the
employment of nearly 100 men and
women. In Baltimore, a cleaning
and dyeing concern recently hired