Unemployment in the United States

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Miss Grace E. Cooke, representing the National Employment Board, Boston, Mass

Collection:: Economics Books

144 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES off private initiative in the employment field is to remove one of the most effective mediums for helping the unemployed to find suitable employment. Mr. Green stated yesterday that no one should be forced to pay for ajob. Iagree with Mr. Green. But no oneis forced to pay an agency for services in locating and negotiating employment. There is hardly an industry of any size that does not maintain its own employment department where men and women may apply direct. Schools, colleges, Young Women Christian Association, Young Men’s Christian Association, employer's associations, in great numbers, labor and fraternal organizations; maintain free employment bureaus and, in addition thereto, there are the State and municipal offices. The help wanted columns of the news and trade papers are effective mediums for locating employment. With all these avenues open, through which employment may be secured without cost, is there any reason why the unemployed should not be privileged to pay for emplovment services if they so elect? Mr. Green criticized fee-charging agencies, because, as he stated, it served the employer to the disadvantage of the employee. He stated that private agencies, in filling the requirements of the employer, discriminated against the man and woman 45 years and over; that they directed the unemployed to employers who, in times of business depression, paid low wages and required long working hours. I wonder, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, what the public employment offices would do in such instances? Would they refuse to serve the employer; would they pigeonhole the order and thereby perhaps hold up production, or would they use their best judgment and serve the employer and the employee for the best inter- ests of all concerned? The organization I represent takes no position in respect to the crea- ting of a federal service on a permanent statutory basis, or for a trial period, or the expansion of State offices. We are not afraid of competi- tion. But it does oppose being made a part of the clearing house plan or in any way coming under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor, or the Director General of the United States Employment Service, and coutend that S. 3060 indirectly includes fee-charging agencies. If I heard a statement correctly put by one of the Congressmen on my left yesterday, it was to this effect, that the Labor Commissioner, or the head of the labor department for the State.of West Virginia, had approved S. 3060. If that was the Congressman’s statement, I would call to the attention of this committee the fact that the State of West Virginia must first change a law before it could accept S. 3060; for that State and several other Southern States have laws which go so far as to prohibit by a heavy tax the taking of labor from one county to another, to say nothing of from one State to another. Lest my judgment savor of prejudice and thereby be of no value, I make no attempt to pass judgment on the practicability of a Federal clearing system; but I would, however, recommend for your consider- ation two very enlightening articles on the subject by Mr. Kenneth Colback, superintendent of the Philadelphia Employment Office which is maintained by the State of Pennsylvania. One article is entitled ‘Unemployment Statistics” and appears in the Saturday Evening Post of February 16, 1929. The other is an article entitled

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