Evening star., 1950-08-06

ence Service of the Library of
Congress, wrote:
Broadly speaking, national
service, where exercised, has in
volved governmental authority to
assign both workers and employers
to given tasks, to hold them to
those tasks or to reassign them
at will; to recruit new workers and
new employers; to prohibit their
efforts in essential produc-
ton and to maXimize their efforts
on behalf of essential production.
He added this observation, how
ever:
Regardless of how one might
argue that a National Service Act
would control both employer and
worker, the fact Of the matter is
that the real bite would be on the
worker. The businessman can
produce one item as we'll as an
other as long as his earnings are
vouchSafed and his financial losses
covered as they would be, but it
may be a personal hardship of the
most acute nature for a worker to
have to stay on job for which
he considers himself unfit and in
psychological conflict"
/ Britain's experience with COM
pulsory manpower controls gives
an example of how they worked
in a democracy. AS the German
Army swept into France in May,
1910. Parliament passed an act
which, in effect, drafted the en-
tire population of Britain and all
its property for the war effort.
Before that. under an act of
1899, men from 1872 to 81 had
been registered for military service
and later women, 18 to 81. In
the case of men. the rules on de-
ferment were stringent.
Then, in March, 1941. came
registration for work. This ap-
piled to men from AZ to SO and
women from 18 to so not already
in the services. Men under AZ
already were in military service
or had been shunted into essen
tial work.
Halfway Measures
All of these registrants were
interviewed by representative Of
the Labor Ministry. If there was
need they were assigned to essen
tial war work and there was com
pulsion to back up the orders
although it was not necessary to
make much use of it.
The job assignments took the
form usually of directing a work
er not to a specific job but into
an essential occupation. such as
industrial production, farming or
transportation.
But once in the assigned joo
the worker had little choice but
to stay. Government permission
was necessary to quit or even to
switch jobs, and this permission
was hard to get.
For many this meant pay re-
ductions, but since this was es-
sential national service COM
parable to that of the military,
pay loss was not regarded as a
legitimate complaint.
In one instance there was a
compulsory assignment of young
men to the coal mines. These.
about $4,000 in number came from
a group just called for military
service. Where sufficient num-
ber did not volunteer for the min
ing jobs additional ones were
chosen by lot.
4 About As per cent of the women
were in the labor force in the
peak year of 1943. For compari-
son, in the United States 81 per
cent of the women were working
in April, 1945.
In Britain, women with chill
dren under IA were not directed
into employment, although some
volunteered. The rest were di-
vided into two categories. Those
with domestic ties were classified
as immobile and were assigned to
jobs near their homes or to part
time jobs. The others, classified
as mobile, were assigned where
needed, but those under 20 were
not sent away from their homes.
Here in the United States dur
ing World War II our manpoWer
controls too often were halfway
measures. Much of the confusion
is held to have stemmed from the
fact that manpower responsibility
was split off from the War Pro-
duction Board. which had the job
of seeing to it that our economy
produced what was necessary.
Some Job Switching
Labor shortages developed in
some areas and in others there
were surpluses. There were in
stances of employers boarding"
workers.
| 41lC1C WC1C C41O1 10 w CkldllI1C1
workers into the more essential
industries but they were, for the
most part, confined to recruiting
campaigns by the USES and there
was little or no compulsion. Late
in the war there were rules set up
to restrict a worker from moving
from one job to another, but de-
spite the rules switching jobs was
not difficult.
The War Manpower Commission
and the WPB were reluctant to
use the powers they possessed. One
power the WPB had was to allo-
cate materials, but it hesitated
to withhold supplies from a plant
which was not cooperating fully
with the VINO.
1t may be answered that despite
the shortcomings of the system,
planes, ships, tanks and myriads
of other supplies came out Of the
huge mill in tremendous quantities
and that the imperfections of the
voluntary system can be cor
rected.