The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-21

The War ManpoWer Commission apparently has no authority other than to issue directives or state ments of policy and call conferences and committee meetings. In case of a showdown on some critical labor supply problem, the cleanup of the situation would have to be done by War Production Board, selective Service, Army, Navy, or Maritime Commission.
 All these have broad powers and real author'.sy, WIPE, for instance, can withho.E materials from a plant that pirates labor. Army and Navy can take over plants and run them. Selective Service can tell man who is willing to go in the Army that he can do his country more good by staying at some highly skilled job in critical industry, and thus keep him out of service.
 At present, everything the Man power Commission has done has been put on a basis of patriotism and voluntary cooperation. If there are two war production industries in given area competing for labor the ManpoWer Commission would recommend that the industries get together and settle the problem. NICE BUT
 INEFFECTIVE
 If there is scarcity of workers for war industry and a surplus of workers in a non- essential indus try, all the Manpower Commission could do would be to appeal through its U. s. Employment Service to the workers patriotism to shift to the more critical job.
 Such democratic methods may work in normal times, but with labor supply becoming more and more critical, this easy, free flow functioning of hiring threatens to bog down. Eventually, the gov ernment must decide whether 1t will permit the bogdown, or will say, Hey you! You'll work over there" It may add Please! !' and a Thank you!" but comph- ance will be mandatory.
 Manpower Commission Chair man Paul V. McNutt issues glow ing statements about how every agency is working closely to- gether, cooperation is wonderful and employment in war produc- tion has risen to 125 million.
 DIRECTIvEs
 WON'T DO
 Governor McNutt has just issued a new statements of policy to Pre- vent Pirating of War Workers, ad- mittedly the toughest of the labor problems in war production areas. The statement provides that Man agement-Labor committees may be set up in designated critical areas to handle things. These commit tees may work, but they do not have behind them the legal author ity of the draft boards or the ra- tioning boards. Each manpower committee will consist of an equal number of union men and represen- tatives from management, with a non-voting - get that - chairman from the area government MPC organization. You'll have to wait to see how they function.
 But these problems are getting tougher every day. The aircraft wage stabilization exploratory conference on the west coast, in- tended to find some way to put aircraft on a par with shipyards and prevent pirating between the two industries, has broken up There are 100000 or more un- employed in New York, and the policy of the Manpower Commis- sion is against migration of labor on the theory that it is better to take jobs to available labor sup- plies. Farm labor supply is re- ported by the Department of Agri- culture as lowest on record = though farm labor employment and wages are at peak = the extra farm production causing the shortage.
 All such situations require the most careful handling. It isn't go- ing to be enough to just issue directives and statements of policy at the top and then sit back and wait for miracles to happen.