Imperial Valley press., 1942-08-24
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison

When the first production are
War Mampower Commission offic
was opened in Baltimore recently
it had half a dozen ready-mad
problems to tackle - labor piracy
labor boarding, transfer of worker
from non essential to essential in
dustries, increased employment o
women and local labor, absentee
ism, and so on. All of them crieC
for action at once, but taking then
one at a time it is possible to SET
what can be done about thes,
problems by voluntary cooperation
in any war production area, Balti-
more being just the guinea pig fol
the whole country in this respect
Take this matter of transfer
ring workers. There is no law
now which permits the govern
ment to force workers into the
essential war industries. Such
transfers as are made must
therefore be arranged by CO.
operation among employers and
with full agreement of the
workmen. Immediately you try
to set up a community program
for any such moves, you run
into opposition.
First consider the employer who
has built up over period of years
an organization of skilled employ
eS. Say they're furniture makers
There aren't many limitations on
wooden furniture and with the
metal business curtailed, the wood
furniture business is booming. Nat
urally that employer wants to keep
his force together.
But in this area there are ship
yards, and there is a big demand
for ships carpenters. The shipyards
pay high wages, and it is easier
to make a ship carpenter out of q
man already skilled in working
wood than it is to train a coal
miner or a farmer in the intricate
business of ship carpentry Sc
there you have your first conflict
Now here is al: employe who
lives on good transportation, close
to his Job. He has certain seniority
rights in the furniture factory. He
is a member of an AF. of L. union
He likes the job he has now and
he's making good money His en-
ployer has a pension and sick bene-
fit association set up, and maybe
loan fund which holds a mort
gage on his house.
But he's a patriotic citizen,
so he looks into this shipyard
work. If he takes a job there,
he has to shift from an AT.
of l.. to a CIO union. He loses
his seniority. He has no as
surance he will get his old job
back after the war. He will
lose his insurance and pension
DtntlltS, anu IL Will eahc INN
an hour day longer to get
to and from his ne wjOb.
The job of an area manpoWel
commission office is to reconcile
all those conflicts and get the mer
transferred into the more essen
tial industries. In Baltimore, i
was found that there were somt
1926 of these non essential indus
tries, employing up to 100 meI
apiece.
One of the committees first act
was to ask all of these nom essen
tial industries to go over their per
sonnel records and see how man,
skilled and semi-skilled worker
they had who could be transferraC
to war production. In some cases
where plants faced an eVentua
shutdown for lack of raw materials
they We're willing to see their EN-
ployes placed in good jobs for TN
duratin. Where employers resis
this appeal, boarding their skille'
labor, arrangements must be mad
to ask if U. S. Employment Ser
vice job analysts can come int
the plant, go over its operation
and help the employer work ou
methods of upgrading his employe
putting unskilled workers on semi
skilled jobs, hiring new UHskille,
labor and releasing the skilled
workers for the war industries.
The next job is to sell the EN-
ployes on making the shift AR
rangements must be made with tn
employer to freeze seniority right
and insure r1turn to peacetlm
employment when the emergenc
is over. Jealous of their member
ship rolls the unions have to b
sold on the idea of allowing thei
members to work in other shops o
ther trades being represented Il
the shop by the union having tn
bargaining rights but not sacri
ficing membership in their origin;
union SO long as they pay thel
dues
But now suppose that the
empIOye is willing TO transfer
though his old employer is un-
willing to release him. An at
tempt will be made to set up