The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-17
STARVE OR FIGHT!
A Challenge to the Unemployed

earners in the United States The state Of
California had 10 public employment offices in
1929 compared with 32S fee charging private
employment agencies California workers pay
annually into the Golfers of these 32S private
agencies about two million dollars in fees.
While few states operate employment Of
fees on a more or less efficient basis most OF
these offices are nothing but corrupt political
snecures where workers waste their time IN
useless quests for jobs. The persons in charge
are unframed and unqualified for their work.
Fees are split with labor contractors and gang
bosses. When construction job opens up on
a railroad or in a lumber camp bunch OF
workers is often sent out with conditions OF
work deliberately kept from them. Anyone
who has visited the typical "free" employment
agency with its blackboard on which are
scrubbed the jobs that come in and its crowd
of desperate, starving applicants can picture
the fate of the fellow who finds himself tied
to construction gang miles away from the
town in which he got his job, or in lumber
camp where the company owns the only shacks
available and the only soup kitchen where a
man can buy bite to eat. Railroad fare, meal
checks, room rent must be paid back before
the worker can think of "chucking his Job"
Conditions, no matter how intolerable, must
be put up with until these drafts on the pay
envelope have been met.
The state of Wisconsin operates one. of the
"more efficient" public employment offices.
The director of the Employment Service ap
points an Advisory Committee with four repre-
sentatives of the employers, four of the trade
unions Ca F. of La, and one Impartial per-
son. "Ninety-five per cent of the applicants
to the public employment Offices" says Prof.
John r. Commons, in advocating this arrange
ment for the rest of the country, come from
the ranks of the unorganized. The manufac-
turers' side of the committee is always going
to protect unorganized labor. They are not
going to let them be Disseminated against by
the union" In this connection it is fmpor-
tant to note that among the representatives of
the employers on the Milwaukee advisory COM
mittee is the secretary of the employment de-
partment of the state metal trades association,
well known as an anti-union, strike-breaking
organization.
The obvious persons to administer an en-
ployment service in the interests of the work.
ers would be committee representing those
500 per cent of the workers" who use the en-
ployment offices, But representation from
councils or committees of the unemployed
would be relished neither by the open shop en-
ployers who want workers at their own price,
nor by the craft unions who fear the revolu-
tionary temper of the unemployed. Commons
clearly exposes his attitude toward labor when
he says: "The unorganized are not doing any
fighting at all. They are not engaged in any
political movements to amount to anything.
They are Negroes and other classes of people
and are advised (by the Milwaukee office)
that it is impossible for them ever to select
person that would represent them"
Such statements give the true measure OF
the most effective public employment office
system now in operation in this country and
of the capitalist economists who support such
projects. They are challenge to the unor
ganized, to the Negro workers, to the unen-
ployed to take into their own hands the ma
chinery for getting and keeping jobs and for
controlling the conditions under which men will
or will not work.
(To Be Continued)