Manpower Shortage Next?

Put away on ice until after the Democrats have won the November elections is the final draft of a National Service Act that will give Paul V. McNutt's Manpower Commission power to cope with "labor emergencies" akin to the powers now held by the British Government.

The British laws (which the British are still chary of invoking) give the Government power to 1) draft both men & women from 18 to 51 for war industry-either from other jobs or from their homes, 2) keep every essential worker at his job, 3) move workers from their homes to sections where labor shortages are acute, 4) forbid employers to dismiss essential workers, 5) force employers to hire through Government agencies. The U.S. bill is slightly milder, but Government officials admit that it will give McNutt "distributory control over the labor supply" and "power to freeze labor on the job."

Nothing will be said about such an act for the U.S. until next fall's political battle is over; but the War Manpower Commission believes that the U.S. labor shortage will become critical by October, thinks that by year's end it must be recognized as the one big barrier holding back the U.S. war effort.

In the meantime WMC is getting its plans all set, hoping against hope that it will not really become necessary to get as tough as its proposed law will allow. It plans to tread softly-but it wants to carry a big enough stick.

This week the Commission is setting up local joint committees in 64 key industrial centers to harmonize the conflicting demands of local industry and the draft boards; and to get labor, management and the Government to work out a local manpower program on a less platitudinous basis than the Commission's eight hopeful but toothless "directives" have yet achieved.

Donald Nelson last week denied any alarm over a manpower shortage, said: "Materials are the only limiting factor on American war production." Sidney Hillman, labor half of the late Knudsenhillman, announcing his retirement from Government service, proudly reassured the country that his farsighted 1940-41 training program had obviated the danger. But Paul V. McNutt, whose job as manpower tsar makes him one of the big five in the President's war council, knows differently and has figures to back him up.

By the end of 1943 the U.S. Government wants 20,000,000 more people in the war effort than at the time of Pearl Harbor--7,000,000 more for the armed services, 13,000,000 for war industry. Of this 20,000,000 total, it plans to get 1,800,000 from those who were jobless seven months ago, 1,400,000 from young people coming of age, 10,000,000 from civilian industry, 700,000 from the farms, 600,000 by hiring people who used to run small businesses of their own. This leaves a shortage of 5,500,000 that will be made up by taking women from the kitchen and the bridge table, by drawing workers and soldiers from the so-called "leisure" class.

Already since Pearl Harbor war workers have grown to 5,600,000. The armed forces have taken perhaps 2,000,000 more. Another 5,000,000 will be needed in war plants by year's end, precipitating the crisis McNutt expects to face in October.

Here are the figures on how the national labor force was divided at the time of Pearl Harbor and how the Government hopes it will be divided (and increased 6,900,000) by December 1943:

Dec. 1941 Dec. 1943

Unemployed 3,800,000 2,000,000

Farm labor 8,200,000 7,500,000

Self-employed 5,300,000 4,700,000

Other civilian industries.29,100,000 19,100,000

War industries 6,900,000 20,000,000

Armed forces 2,100,000 9,000,000

Total 55,400,000 62,300,000

On paper it should be easy enough to recruit 5,500,000 added workers from somewhere. A WPA survey estimated that 7,600,000 nonworkers (92% women) might be induced to forsake kitchen or lounge for office and factory, and another 5,700.000 (72% women) might accept part-time jobs.

But pushing people around is not as simple as pushing figures from one column to another. There are plenty of practical and human difficulties to be faced:

> Whatever is done by compulsion or persuasion will shake U.S. living habits. More women in the war effort means fewer women in the home-as wives, daughters or servants; it means eating more meals out, fewer socks darned, fewer guests entertained at home, and many another change in the American way of living.

> Very few of the 13.000,000 new workers are trained for work in the war industries that need them. In skilled labor the easy arithmetic surplus becomes an alarming deficit. Most serious labor shortages are in the metalworking and industrial machinery trades, shipbuilding, aircraft, tool and ordnance manufacture. For every available ship and boatbuilding assembler, 94 are needed; for every available toolmaker, 31 are needed. Training labor will be one of the year's biggest jobs.

> There are very serious local shortages. Worst of these are in Portland, Me.; Hartford; Buffalo; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Hampton Roads, Va.; Charleston, S.C.; Mobile, Ala.; Rockford, Beloit area, Rock Island, and Moline, Ill.; Davenport, Iowa; Seattle-Tacoma; Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego. And shortages are already on the horizon in such key cities as Detroit, Akron, Wichita, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Both WPB and WMC are now committed to a policy of "bringing work to the labor, not labor to the work."

>-- Farmers will not take kindly to the change. Contrary to general impression, U.S. Employment Service is encouraging farm labor to take war jobs. Actually they do not need much encouragement. The construction of an ordnance plant in Arizona, where wages were 87 1/2 an hour, drained the whole State of farm labor.

> The Negro problem, McNutt admitted, is far from licked. Employers had better get set for a big increase in pressure for jobs for Negroes. There are approximately 1,000,000 able-bodied Negroes in war-industry areas who are either unemployed or in civilian industries. USES has been directed to reject all applications for additional employes from companies discriminating against them or any other group. Many employers as a result have refused to deal with USES, have resorted to "at-the-gate" hiring. But eventually, says McNutt, they will have to submit to USES conditions, because USES will have most of the available free labor supply at its disposal.

> A less pressing problem is the local unemployment situation in New York City, caused by declining civilian-goods industries, by the great number of small plants (average 19 workers per shop) and by lack of substitute war industries. There are currently 400,000 jobless, and the number promises to grow larger. McNutt is pessimistic about the chances of doing anything much about the New York situation, because the Army is reluctant to place important war contracts in an area so vulnerable. A peculiar feature of the situation is that serious labor shortages exist in Connecticut, Long Island, and New Jersey, but New Yorkers have trouble getting jobs there. Cause of the trouble, says McNutt: a combination of anti-Jewish prejudice, dislike of "city slickers," and the New Yorkers' ingrained reluctance to leave their city.

On the cheerful side of the ledger two facts stand out:

One is the amazingly good record women are making in war work. In Detroit, where women workers have been a small minority (one out of ten as against the U.S. average of one out of five) they are now the main hope of relieving the labor shortage, and plans to recruit 80,000 are in the works. Detroit's experience with them has been happy. When jobs are cut down to their size, when working conditions are fitted to their needs, they do well-often better than men. Significant is Ford's program at Willow Run: 19,000 women have already been trained.

The other is the amazing ability of business to do the job just about as well with less help when it has to. Despite a reputation for operating with the inhuman efficiency of a packaging machine, all business has its soft spots-some in the head, some in the heart. Management in the end comes down to a manager with the usual human inertia and reluctance to fire anyone if he can help it. Under war pressure more workers can be released for more direct connection with the war effort. And if Washington would relieve business of such old-man-of-the-sea union practices as the famous "feather bedding" on the railroads, business would gain even greater capacity to produce.

But many businessmen think the very best source of all for additional war workers would be to take up to 500,000 bureaucrats off the Federal payroll and put them to work in the Army or in war industry.

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