The monitor., 1928-06-29
URBAN LEAGUE
REPORT SAYS EN-
PL0YMENT BETTER
Worcester and Tampa
Lose.

dustrial relations department of the
National Urban league, has issued
the following bulletin on employment
conditions for May:
Unemployment is vanishing. In
dustrial commentators say so and en-
ployment tabulations show it. The
gauge the Urban league uses is like
wise to be depended upon. When
Negroes are called back to jobs va
Gated during business depressions it
is a very certain index that others
have already been re-employed. This
has been happening in all parts of
the country where the labor of Ne
groes was used before business got
bad; and there is also evidence that
they are again finding opportunities
in lines of work new to them.
Out in Minneapolis the Ford as
sembling plant is adding few col
ored men. Detroit, where production
of automobiles is at one of the high
est points in the history of the indus
try, reports that "most men have
work or can find it." In Springfield,
ILL.,, where the Urban league placed
33 per cent more men in May than
in April there is said to be "much un-
employment yet, but times are bet
ter" From Los Angeles comes the
report that gain of per cent was
made in jobs filled by one office.
Conditions here were relieved by the
emigration Of families to Central
California to chop cotton. In Win
ston-Salem the tobacco factories have
added workers and in Boston rs col
ored men, members of local No. 46 of
the Compressed Air and Foundation
Workers union were employed on
the new Sears-Roebuck company
building. From Harrisburg, where
conditions have been continuously be-
low par for a year or more employ
ment showed marked advance in
May and Negro men were greatly
benefited"
New Jobs
Elevator girls and walters were put
to work at the Mill House, one of the
most popular hotels in Columbus,
Ohio; a firm in Kansas City, Mo-,
accepted a colored girl for it's office =
and company in the loop district of
Chicago employed its first colored
stenographer. Temporarily three ra-
dio employees were placed in the gov
ernment's signal corps plant in Chi
cago. In this city also 21 men and
women were employed at selling.
These were students of school in
salesmanship conducted by the Chi.
cago Urban league from which 80
were graduated in May.
This encouraging report comes
from Lansing, Mich, "Our largest
automobile plant, which few years
ago would not hire Negroes except
as janitors, is gradually increasing
the number in their employ and plac-
ing them indiscriminately about the
plant" Baltimore gave temporary
employment to 150 Negroes in the
city's street cleaning department. 1t
was thought to be political gesture,
but rs were still at work in May with
indications that they would have per-
manent employment. In Philadelphia,
st. Louis, Hot Springs, Ark, Fort
Wayne, Charlotte, N. c., Newark,
Jackson, Mich, and Cleveland, the
building trades and street repair oc-
cupations used large numbers of Ne
gro men.
Union Labor
The calling off of the threatened
Pullman porter strike with the CO.
operation of President Green of the
American Federation of Labor, was
the most significant relationship be-,
tween Negro workers and the organ
lied labor movement. While Boston
tolerates restrictions against Negro
union members, on a construction job
there colored union men are at work.
In Springfield, ILL.,, colored union
miners and hod carriers are said to
be dropping away from the union. In
a Brooklyn plant employing 70 press
ers, all union pressers struck, none
of the colored pressers were mem
bers, but some went out with the
strikers. The union agreed to waive