LABOR AND THE WAR
Such vast quantities of manufactured products--machines, munitions,
clothing, food, supplies of every sort--were consumed in the war and
had to be speedily produced for immediate destruction that for the
first time in the history of the world the forces of production at
home became of as much consequence for the winning of the war as were
the fighting forces at the front. This fact, because it was so new a
feature of warfare, was not at first recognized by the Entente Allies
in its full significance and consequently their efforts lost much in
possible effectiveness during the first year or more of the struggle.
Nor did the United States at once realize the necessity of mobilizing
the productive forces and directing their employment along lines that
made for martial efficiency. But the first few months of war effort
developed friction between employers and employed, competition in the
bidding for labor by the various war agencies of the Government and the
private employers engaged in production of war necessities, bungling
and waste in the distribution of labor and a tendency to backsliding
in labor conditions. The Government had become the greatest employer
of labor in the world and it soon became evident that to correlate
the activities of all its war making agencies and induce efficient
coöperation between them and private employers new machinery would have
to be devised for the handling of the forces of production.
For this purpose there was created the War Labor Administration,
including in its machinery and its duties those of the Department of
Labor, but expanding such of them as dealt with labor in its relation
to the war and adding others that would meet new needs and aid in
the solution of new problems, with the Secretary of Labor as its
responsible head. In order to carry out the immensely enlarged program
which war emergencies made necessary in a broad, comprehending and
coöperative spirit, the Secretary called to his assistance an Advisory
Council whose members represented all phases of interest in industrial
work. To its preliminary study and careful planning was due in large
measure the efficient and harmonious working of the big undertakings
of the War Labor Administration. By its advice and as a part of the
machinery for the correlation of effort there was devised the War Labor
Policies Board on which were represented the War, Navy, Agriculture and
Labor Departments, the Fuel, Food and Railroad Administrations, the U.
S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation and the War Industries
Board, and to which were attached advisers representing labor, business
management and technical fields. It unified labor policies and
harmonized the industrial activities of the different branches of the
Government, ensuring more efficient team-work for the prosecution of
the war.
The War Labor Policies Board was thus the organization through which
spoke the voice of all the industrial agencies of the Government
and behind its administration of industrial relations was all the
power of the Government. It worked out a national policy for the
distribution of labor which was executed through the agency of the
United States Employment Service. By means of conferences between the
representatives of organized labor and industrial management it did
much toward the standardizing and stabilizing of wages. It endeavored
to bring about proper standards and satisfactory conditions of labor.
By anti-child-labor regulations in all Government contracts it kept
a restraining hand on the evident tendency toward employment of
children that had been induced on the part of employers by the need
for labor and on the part of parents by the possibility of greatly
increased earnings. It adopted a policy toward the employment of women
in industry which aimed to keep women out of unfit occupations and to
provide such standards and conditions in the occupations to which they
were admitted as would conserve their health and welfare. It advised
the more general employment of older men for many kinds of work rather
than that of women or boys, and largely because of its support of this
policy the age of engaging men advanced during the war by ten years,
until men of fifty were able to find employment.
The first task which the War Labor Policies Board undertook was that of
bringing order out of the chaotic condition which had quickly developed
through the bidding for labor against one another of all employers,
both public and private, and the working out of a national policy for
the distribution of labor. The existing machinery of the United States
Employment Service, very greatly enlarged and strengthened as soon as
funds for that purpose were available, was used in the execution of
this policy. Offices were established in the several states, their
number soon totaling 400, and a decentralized system was worked out
consisting of state and community labor boards, upon all of which there
was joint representation of employers, employees and the United States
Employment Service. These made it possible to list and keep constant
check upon the supply of labor and the demand for it in every part
of the country and within a very short time to move an excess of the
supply in one place to another in which there was need. These community
labor boards were organized in every state of the Union and by the
first of September, 1918, were at work in 1000 industrial centers.
In every application for work the schooling and the occupational
experience and training of the applicant were stated, thus making it
easy to match the job with the man. By the end of the summer the U. S.
Employment Service had made placements of almost 2,000,000 wage earners.
The production departments of the Government agreed to employ unskilled
labor only through the U. S. Employment Service and private employers,
with very rare exceptions, were quickly brought to see the necessity of
coöperation and readily responded to the plea that was made to their
patriotism and their intelligence. The Employment Service aided in the
weeding out of men from non-essential industries and helped to transfer
them to those upon which the nation’s life depended. It gave efficient
assistance also in the important work of preventing the drafting into
the army of skilled workers whose labor was needed in war industries.
Through its 15,000 enrollment agents it reached out into towns and
villages, tapped every potential supply of wage earners, and registered
in advance men for specified trades for which one or another war
emergency would soon make demand. Its division for farm service made
it possible to harvest the 1918 crop with far less than the usual loss
due to lack of harvest hands, notwithstanding the fact that there
was little unemployment in any part of the country. For the guidance
of boys in their latter teens the section of the U. S. Boys’ Working
Reserve directed the work in 1918 of 250,000 boys of high school age
who wished to devote the summer vacation to productive civilian work
that would aid the prosecution of the war, exercising upon this great
body of future citizens through various agencies and by varied methods
a notable influence for manly spirit, patriotism and citizenship ideals.
A section of the War Labor Administration that had under its charge
the informing of the public as to its activities and the education of
those engaged in war emergency production was a part of the democratic
methods of the whole national war program and did much to stimulate
patriotic effort and bring divergent interests into harmony. Through
thousands of magazines, newspapers and periodicals of every sort it
brought the efforts being made by the War Labor Administration to
general knowledge and aroused interest in industrial problems. It sent
out hundreds of speakers who talked upon subjects dealing with labor
and the war before chambers of commerce, clubs, trade unions and other
organizations, and meetings of employees in plants devoted to war
industries. It distributed 1,000,000 posters a month, which, changed
every two or three weeks, were displayed in workshops, factories,
stores and railway stations, and it supplemented these and the spoken
word with a campaign of motion picture service. It formed committees
among the employees of over 12,000 plants to establish personal contact
between those employed in war industry, their employers and the
representatives of the Labor Department, promote better understanding
between them and so increase production.
A serious problem grew early in the war out of the immense expansion
in size and man-power of plants engaged in war industry and the
creation of many others--the problem of the housing or transportation
of their employees. Almost overnight the population of the vicinity
of an industrial plant would increase so greatly that transportation
facilities would be swamped and housing accommodations become utterly
inadequate. Appropriations amounting to $100,000,000 were provided
for the solving of this problem, half of which was to be devoted to
industrial housing. At the end of September, 1918, houses, apartment
houses and flats capable of accommodating 9,000 families had been built
or were under construction and financial allotments had been made for
as many more projects which were under consideration and about to be
developed. To relieve situations where it was possible for the incoming
workers to be absorbed by surrounding or nearby communities there
had been built up in more than fifty cities organizations in which
councils of defense, chambers of commerce, housing associations, Y. W.
C. A. and other local bodies coöperated with this division of the War
Labor Administration. Such an organization would investigate living
conditions and list vacant houses, flats and rooms, frequently showing
the existence of sufficient housing facilities to make construction
unnecessary.
Among the most important of the agencies developed by the War Labor
Administration was that of the National War Labor Board, created
for the purpose of adjusting difficulties between wage workers
and employers in industries directly or indirectly concerned with
production for the war. It was appointed by the Secretary of Labor at
the end of our first year of participation in the war and consisted of
five representatives each of employers and wage-earners and two joint
chairmen acceptable to both sides. It served as a sort of court of
appeal, only such cases of disagreement being considered by it as the
Conciliation Service of the Labor Department failed to adjust.
In form and purpose the War Labor Board was a new departure for even a
democratic nation to take. It had no precedents behind it and no body
of law with which to enforce its decisions. To make its work effective
it depended upon the general sense of justice and fair play, the
confidence of workers and employers in the justice of the policies by
which it was guided and the loyalty and patriotism of both the opposing
sides of industrial controversies. Its purpose was to secure maximum
production of all war necessities by preventing strikes and lockouts,
and also proper conditions of labor and of living that would aid in
making possible that maximum production. With regard to labor unions
the Board based all its procedure upon the right of labor to organize
and to bargain collectively with employers, but forbade any coercion
by labor unions or their members of either employers or employees.
Employers were not allowed to discharge workers or to penalize them,
directly or indirectly, for attempting to organize, although shops
were to be continued as closed or open, on their existing status, for
the period of the war. In open shops the union standard of wages and
conditions was to be maintained. The Board would not use its power
to compel open shops to become union shops, but employers agreed
to recognize the right of the employees of a shop to form a full
organization of their own members if they chose. The Board recognized
the basic eight-hour day as applying in all cases where required
by the existing law and in other cases it pledged itself to settle
the question with due regard to the welfare of the workers and to
governmental necessities. In the case of women workers it insisted upon
equal pay for equal work and said that their tasks must be proportioned
to their strength.
The National War Labor Board called to its aid a large number of men
and women trained in the investigation of labor problems and when
its services were necessary the case was studied by several of these
agents, the sides respectively of labor and of management being
investigated each by those sympathetic with its point of view. They
studied each case on its own merits, listed the grievances, collected
evidence and selected witnesses to appear before the Board. In some
cases, in order to expedite the work, trained examiners conducted
hearings at which both sides were represented and then reported to the
Board with an analysis and summary of the case.
At the date of October first, 1918, the offices of the National War
Labor Board had been invoked in 531 controversies involving the
employment of more than 2,000,000 workers, of which 266 were still
pending. Awards had been made directly in forty-four cases, others had
been referred to other governmental agencies or settled in other ways,
and others had been withdrawn or dropped. In only four cases had the
members of the Board failed to come to unanimous decision concerning
the award and in only three instances had there been refusal to accept
its conclusions. In two of these cases the result was the taking over
by the Government, in one, of telegraph and telephone lines, and in
the other of a munitions plant, while in the third, also a munitions
plant, the striking workers decided, upon appeal to their patriotism,
to accept the award and to resume work.
The work and the decisions of the National War Labor Board had a
profoundly beneficent influence upon the war production of the country,
reducing to a minimum the deterrent effects of labor troubles. The
policies to which it pledged itself and the general confidence in its
purpose to deal fairly with both sides greatly decreased the probable
number of cases of serious trouble, as in many which otherwise would
have grown into strikes or lockouts the opposing parties found they
were able to settle their differences between themselves. The work of
the Board raised the wages directly of approximately a million workers
and of perhaps twice that number indirectly and it strongly influenced
for the better the relations between wage earners and employers.
The just and scientific management of labor problems in connection with
the war resulted in a minimum of labor trouble, an enthusiastic and
patriotic response of labor to the needs of the nation and an enormous
and very slightly interrupted production of all goods needed for war
purposes.