CENTRALIZED LABOR RESPONSIBILITY FROM A

LABOR UNION STANDPOINT

BY A. J. PORTENAR,

Brooklyn Public Employment Bureau, New York State Department of Labor.

Centralized labor responsibility means the creation of a new department in the management of plants, the function of which shall be the control of recruiting, retention and discharge of the working force. Judged by its title, this article assumes to state the attitude of trade unionism toward this innovation, when in fact trade unionism as yet has no attitude. The thing is too new, and, so far as I know, no contact has yet been established old enough and wide enough to permit or compel consideration and valuation by official trade unionism.

Nor have I had such personal experience with the practical workings of centralized employment departments as would qualify me to speak with the assurance that attends knowledge. What I have to offer, then, is the reaction of one union man to a new theory of management as applied to the human element in industry, and which may or may not be a correct forecast of a collective sentiment which has not even commenced to form.

So regarded, it is not pure presumption on my part to set myself up as a spokesman for organized labor. For thirty-five years I have been a member of the union in my own craft, active in its councils, and interested in everything that pertained to the general labor union movement. I have worked with union men in the shop and worked for them as their representative. What I shall say here expresses my own views, but this long acquaintance with the movement and the people in it may give those views a measure of value as interpreting the probable reaction of others.

CAUSES OF LABOR TURNOVER

In the scale of prices of Typographical Union No. 6, there is a provision that no man shall be paid for less than a day's work even though he is hired for less than a day. In the philosophy underlying this legislation will be found the most prolific of the many causes

which contribute to excessive labor turnover. The workman is regarded as an easily replaceable tool of production whom it is a loss to retain a minute longer than he can be employed at full capacity. Unlike inanimate tools of production, he represents no investment. Hence the tendency to make his term of employment for minutes only, if that suits the convenience of the employer, and the counteracting tendency of the union to set up at least the pitiful limit of one day as a minimum of permanence. Thus studied, this little rule which takes up two lines in the scale book is a brilliant illumination of industrial history. It contrasts the relative values placed on things and men.

One might mention many causes of excessive labor turnover, but if they were analyzed, they would, in the main, finally resolve themselves into that same fundamental one-that work people are regarded, not as human beings, but as animated tools of production, which can be temporarily used upon payment of an agreed sum.

Human thought has a way of seeking concrete expression through a personality or a thing rather than by means of an intangible principle. So, when one is asked to name the chief cause of bedevilment in handling labor supply, at once there leaps into mind the figure of the foreman-the living, obvious doer of the harm so clearly recognized. He wields despotic authority, seemingly without check from any power in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Yet he is not selected because he is fit to possess such arbitrary power over a limited number of his fellow-men. He is chargeable with much evil doing on his own account, and occasionally may be credited with humane instincts that make for amelioration. But in reality he is only a pawn, the screen for those who prod him from above. He is permitted despotic power over the detail of who shall work, but he is only a puppet as to the policy which controls the workers. To take from a number of foremen the power now given them, and to centralize that power in a single person, without at the same time entirely transforming the spirit that actuates the mechanism, may abolish some of the grosser evils, but will leave the main cause of excessive labor turnover untouched.

These grosser evils are serious enough. They engender toadyism and bribery on one side, favoritism and oppression on the other. The manhood of men and the chastity of women are frequent offer

ings at the feet of a little tin god whose favor must be won or his malevolence placated. That is the sort of creature the foreman can be when the employer will not check him and the workpeople cannot. When a union enters upon the scene, flagrant abuse of authority in the matter of discharge may lead either to justice done or an explosion; but motives of choice in hiring are too subtly concealed to admit of effective regulation. Unions have found it necessary to legislate for the punishment of members who use unfair means of obtaining employment, but proof is difficult and prosecutions are

rare.

Naturally, because of his great powers, the foreman is a subject of union law making, not in his capacity as an overseer of production, but in his function as the arbiter of employment. Most unions will not permit him to be a member; the International Typographical Union compels him to be one. Yet, because he is the lowest officer in the executive scale the outcome of the legislation is unsatisfactory; he can make trouble, but he cannot allay it. Therefore, so far as existing union laws treat of the foreman in relation to employment, I would expect no objection to their amendment or repeal whenever a new system makes them obsolete.

The influence of seasonal production on labor turnover needs but to be mentioned rather than elaborated on in this short paper. Its causes and possible remedies are far outside of the immediate sphere of the employment manager. A volume would scarcely suffice for the consideration of this one phase of the employment problem. The same may be said of such potent factors as the condition of trade and demand or lack of demand for labor.

Among minor causes of excessive labor turnover is a sort of restlessness which is most frequently manifested by the more competent mechanics. A job may be satisfactory in every respect, quite as good as they are likely to find anywhere, and yet they will leave because they do not want to remain in one shop too long. Perhaps they are themselves unable clearly to define their reasons, but, so well as I am able to interpret the psychology of this desire for change, it rests upon a fear of losing their independence, of getting into a frame of mind wherein they will come to attach disproportionate importance to the retention of a certain job. There is some basis. of fact for this idea, for I have known men who have worked in a shop for a long period whose overhanging nightmare is the fear of

losing the job. Long service made them uneasy instead of giving a sense of security.

THE UNION ATTITUDE TOWARD LABOR BUREAUS

Traditional methods of hiring and discharge are so prolific of all-around dissatisfaction that any new method which is based on study of the problem, and can reasonably be expected to improve conditions, will start with a tremendous presumption in its favor. It would be hard to devise a worse system than the one we now have. Opportunity to work is the primal necessity for nearly all of us, and this opportunity we must seek through such means as are available. Even the strongest unions have been able to accomplish little in the way of improvement. Their members are not so entirely at the mercy of caprice or vindictiveness, and are much less subject to unfair competition between seekers for employment than are the unorganized, but they are by no means free of these evil influences.

There comes now a proposal to lift this matter of prime importance out of the slough of neglect in which it has lain, and to give it the dignity and thought which were always its due. The proposal comes from the right quarter-the highest; and its essence is to put it in the right place the highest. The purchase of human labor is to be considered as carefully as the purchase of equipment and supplies, as carefully as selling and financing. The officer in charge is not to be a mere understrapper, working his sweet will in irresponsible despotism, but one broadly clothed with power and its attendant responsibility. The motive is the best business motive in the world -enlightened selfishness. It has been discovered that former methods are wasteful and relatively unproductive; that judgment in hiring, and a great deal more judgment in keeping employes when hired, is a paying proposition; it breeds dividends both of money and good feeling.

How will union men receive such a proposal? Why, just as all other working-men will receive it. It is a rightful but long delayed tribute to the worth and dignity of labor. It is progress like that which gave labor a place in the cabinet of the President of the United States. It means that in the cabinet of every business chief there is a man who speaks for people, as contrasted with those who speak for things.

Therefore, such a proposal should inevitably and triumphantly

establish itself. But soft! The proposal is good in itself, but let us see how and by whom it is going to be worked out.

Recently I read an article on the work of a woman who is at the head of the employment bureau of a large corporation. It appears that among her desirable qualifications for the position is the ability to smell out agitators, and not the least of her achievements is her notable success in keeping that pestiferous species out of the plant. That illuminating bit of information gave me pause. Remember, I have been asked to say how union men would regard centralized labor responsibility. Well, I am a union man and I have an uneasy feeling that I would correspond rather closely to her idea of an agitator. If there were a union of the industry carried on in that shop, I would join it. If there were none, but a movement started to create one, I would be mixed up in it. Very likely I would be the prime mover. If all the justice and sweet reasonableness called for in the prospectus were not on tap, I might rise and say so. I have an ineradicable notion that workpeople are entitled to a voice in the making of wage scales, fixing the length of the workday, and other important incidents affecting employment, and that no amount of kindly welfare work, no benefits of any sort flowing from a benevolent despotism which arrogates to itself entire jurisdiction over such matters, can compensate for the deprivation of this inherent right. Still less so when the despotism is not benevolent.

Now, if that clever lady found out that my brain harbored such pernicious ideas, I would be refused work in that shop. And if other union men were barred for similar reasons, the impression would probably gain ground among them that, so far as they were concerned, the new method was no better than the old. They could enter that shop only by surrendering their right of association. The new idea, so promising in itself, would meet with hostility from union.

men.

So far as I am aware, departments of labor such as we are considering have not yet been established in industries where the employes are organized. When they are introduced into industries which are unorganized, the question of the attitude of union men will remain an academic one for such industries. When they are brought into industries which are strongly organized, there is little doubt that the managements will take the union into their confidence and endeavor to show it the mutual advantages that will flow