The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-04-27
CANNERY EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES.

The decision of the Alaska salmon packers to open employment agencies too long deferred IS, however, a step in the right direction. Chambers of Commerce in coastal towns and the Alaska Terri torial Chamber of Commerce suggested this many months ago and received little encouragement from the Association of Pacific Fisheries. It is to the credit of the individual packers that they did not adopt the same attitude, but decided to make the experiment without the sanction and support of the Association
 It is to be sincerely hoped that the agencies are being created too late for any practical result The delay was unfortunate. Most of the labor needed by the canneries for preliminary work un- doubtedy is already hired much of it is already at the plants getting them and the gear in readiness for the fishing season The need for labor just now is virtually non-exstent It will continue so until the. canning season begins and the fish run ming. Tn the meantime, if the agencies function properly, lists of available labor can be prepared and placed in the hands of the superintendent of every cannery in Alaska They will have definite informa- tion as to the labor situation and, when in June and July the canning season blossoms and additional workers must be hired, they ought to exhaust local supplies before turning to Seattle If they do not then the employment agencies will have been no more than an idle gesture. We are confident this will not be the case believe that the agencies
 
 before the end of the coming summer.
 It is to be hoped that this is the first step in a far the salmon packers and Alaska labor is concerned It seems to be an indication that the Alaska packers awakening to a re- sponsibity that is really theirs much any ones; that they beginning to envision the industry whole. They have not been alone in viewing their businesses isolated units. Recently Wallace B. Donham, Dean of the Harvard School of Business commented on this attitude of American business leaders generally follows:
 We build great industrial corporations
 that introduce amazing novelties into life.
 Their executives think first, last and nearly
 all the time of their concerns as isolated.
 They have fine understanding of their own
 companies, too little grasp of their industries
 as whole, almost none of the relation be-
 tween their particular interests and our gen.
 eral social and economic structure, and far
 too little grip the social consequences of their activities.
 Business men do not undertake the hard
 intellectual job of securing a general grasp
 of these complex problems through pro-
 longed exchange of varied viewpoints. Most
 men think their duty done when they listen
 to and discuss one-sded presentations of
 narrow controversial topics The hard study
 Of relations is not undertaken Under such
 conditions it is cause for wonder that
 leadership fails.
 The salmon canning industry is exception. Its leaders have devoted lot of time to their own individual problems, but they have failed to con- slider their relationship to each other and the rela- tionship of the entire industry to the Territory. That Tone wolf" attitude must give way to one or mutual understanding and common agreement. II 1t does not, If the indvidualistc policies of past years are permitted to continue then the industry must expect to suffer in the future