The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-03-31

4OuL O41 cA4I AeN9SA What will have to happen is this: The first cards will be mailed out April 1. It will take five days or so for the local draft boards tc complete the job of addressing the cards and mailing them, so if reg istrant doesn't get his card by April g. this will Ee why.
 Within 10 days after a registrant gets his occupational questionnaire he will be required to have it filled in and returned to his local board Here is where the first headache will come, for no matter how simple questionnaire is, it's formidable obstacle. As this one measures 8X15 inches, has 34 principal questions requires a check on 228 trades and has to be filled in duplicate, with coupons and stubs torn off and dis posed of according to directions there is bound to be confusion.
 Many of the registrants will need help in filling out the forms. To provide this help, the $500 local draft boards and 1900 offices of the United States Employment Service have asked employers and labor unions for help.
 To foreign-born workers an d those with the lower I. e., the list ing of special skills may be difficult, hut that doesn't necessarily mean man is no good as a dynamic balancer, internal keyseating ma chine operator, steel mill pulpit man or template maker, to name just four of the 228 trades in which there is a shortage of workers.
 CLOSE CHECKUP
 When the forms are filled out, one goes to the local draft board and the other to the nearest United States Employment Office. Then comes the checKup. Every man must be interviewed and tested to prove that he filled out his ques- tiornaire correctly.
 A man who has been a grease monkey isn't mechanic, juggler isn't & dynamic balancer, an inter nal keysetter isn't an usher, pull pit man isn't a preacher and a template maker isn't dentist. So employment office tests must be given to see that every man is cor rectly classified.
 What happens next is interesting. If man is classified as a drill press operator but isn't working at it and there is 8 shortage of drill press operators, the Employment cor-r;oa will toll tIa 1,oar I1,l,nra bn can get such work and if he takes the job, he will be building up his own deferment status if he is per- forming essential work in war production industry. Or, if a man is qualified for training in an es- sential industry, he can be given the opportunity to build up his skill so that in time he may be given deferment.
 The emphasis will thus be put upon keeping out of the Army men who are more urgently needed in war production, of replacing work CTS who can do military service with workers who because of age or physical disabilities may not be able to pass Army tests, of speeding up war production by transferring workers from nonessential to essen- tial industries.
 In all this cataloguing of workers there will of course be millions of men in whom the war production machinery will not be interested. They'll go into the Army, if they can pass physically. For those workers who do have special skills, provision is made for putting them on jobs where they will be the most useful. In doing this, there is no idea of forcing skilled workers to take jobs they don't want or of en- forced mass migrations of labor to locations where they don't want to live.
 When the job is completed for all the 40 million selective service reg istrants, however, the country should have a pretty good idea of what it's manpower situation is go- ing to be for fighting the war.