CONCILIATION WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

The Secretary of Labor is empowered to mediate in labor disputes, and in his discretion to appoint commissioners of conciliation, his authority coming from section 8 of the organic act of the department, the precise terms of which in this respect are as follows:

That the Secretary of Labor shall have power to act as mediator and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes whenever in his judgment the interests of industrial peace may require it to be done.

In the exercise of the powers granted in the above section of the law, the department, through its commissioners of conciliation, during the year ending June 30, 1915, exercised its good offices in 32 labor disputes, in which a total of 94,289 workmen were involved. The employees involved in these controversies, the numbers affected, and the results secured, are shown in the following statement:

FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

The immigration act of February 20, 1907, created and defined the functions of a special division of information within the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization (now two separate bureaus) in the terms following:

It shall be the duty of said division to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens admitted into the United States among the several States and Territories desiring immigration. Correspondence shall be had with the proper officials of the States and Territories, and said division shall gather from all available sources useful information regarding the resources, products, and physical characteristics of each State and Territory, and shall publish such information in different languages and distribute the publications among all admitted aliens who may ask for such information at the immigrant stations of the United States and to such other persons as may desire the same.

By the act of March 4, 1913, creating the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Immigration, and with it the Division of Information, was transferred to that department. By this transfer the scope of the work of the division was considerably enlarged on account of the larger powers given to the department, as is plainly indicated by these words of the act:

The purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.

Prior to this the work of the Division of Information had been almost entirely limited to securing positions for aliens; lack of a clear understanding of its purposes, and misapprehension caused by that lack of understanding, hampered its work at the start. In 1909 the chief of the division proposed certain changes in its work aiming to enlarge its scope. These changes were discussed by a conference of labor leaders with the then Secretary of Commerce and Labor,' but as no results flowed from this conference the project was dropped, and the division had to wait until the creation of the Department of Labor for a fresh start in its work. The division has further strengthened itself by cooperating through the department with the other departments of the Government, namely, the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, and the Post Office.

1 Labor conference. Proceelings of the conference with the representatives of labor, held in the office of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Feb. 10 and 11, 1909. Washington, Government Printing Office,

1909.

The actual work of placing the applicants for positions is, of course, mainly done away from Washington. The work is divided among 18 principal headquarters, subordinate to some of which are branch offices. Each headquarters is the center of a larger geographical zone; the arrangement is as follows:

Zone 1.-Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Headquarters, Boston; subbranches, Portland, Providence, and New Bedford.

Zone 2.-New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Headquarters, New York City; subbranches, Buffalo and Matawan (N. J.).

Zone 3.-Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia. Headquarters, Philadelphia; subbranch, Pittsburgh.

Zone 4.-Maryland. Headquarters, Baltimore.

Zone 5.-Virginia and North Carolina. Headquarters, Norfolk.

Zone 6.-Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Headquarters, Jacksonville; subbranches, Savannah, Mobile, Birmingham, and Charleston.

Zone 7.-Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Headquarters, New Orleans; subbranches, Gulfport and Memphis.

Zone 8.-Texas and New Mexico. Headquarters, Galveston; subbranches, Albuquerque (N. Mex.), Big Spring, Brownsville, Laredo, Eagle Pass, San Antonio, Del Rio, El Paso, San Angelo, Amarillo (Tex.), Tucumcari and Deming (N. Mex.). Zone 9.-Ohio and Kentucky, Headquarters. Cleveland.

Zone 10.-Illinois. Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Headquarters, Chicago; subbranches, Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie (Mich.), and Indianapolis.

Zone 11.-Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Headquarters, Minneapolis.

Zone 12.-Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Headquarters, St. Louis; subbranch, Kansas City.

Zone 13.-Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Utah. Headquarters, Denver; subbranch, Salt Lake City.

Zone 14.-Montana and Idaho. Headquarters, Helena; subbranch, Moscow (Idaho).

Zone 15.-Washington. Headquarters, Seattle; subbranches, Spokane, Walla Walla, Tacoma, Aberdeen, Everett, Bellingham, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Custer, Lynden, Nooksack, and Friday Harbor.

Zone 16.-Oregon. Headquarters, Portland; subbranch, Astoria.

Zone 17.-California (north of the northern boundary of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino Counties) and Nevada. Headquarters, San Francisco; subbranches, Sacramento, Fresno, Eureka, and Monterey (Cal.).

Zone 18.-California (south of the northern boundary of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino counties) and Arizona. Headquarters, Los Angeles; subbranches, San Diego (Cal.), Tucson, Douglas, Naco, Nogales, Phoenix (Ariz.), Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, San Bernardino (Cal.), Yuma (Ariz.), Calexico and Indio, (Cal.).

An immigrant inspector is in charge of each headquarters, with an assistant ready to take his place if necessary.

Through the assistance of the local post office placards are posted informing the reader of the work and purpose of the division, directing him how to proceed if information is desired concerning a position.

All the services of the division are rendered free, both to employer and employee, and the form postal cards requesting information when properly transmitted through the Post Office Department require no postage.

The form of application which the employer is required to fill out must give references, state the kind of work, length of employment, hours of labor, wages, frequency of wage payments, and how paid, whether by check or cash, living accommodations and cost, store accommodations and prices, whether strikes or other labor disputes are in progress, and such other facts as the department may need. The forms which the applicant for work is required to use give the necessary facts, such as his age, physical capacity, occupation, wages desired, etc., required for finding him a suitable position.

A series of tables follow, which throw some light on the extent of the work of the division. In studying this statistical survey an impression may be left that the results obtained are not quite so significant as they might be. However, it should be borne in mind that the territory which the service of the division has to cover is extremely large; that it has to meet the competition of already existing agencies, over which it has no control, and with which it finds itself unable to cooperate, because of the inadequate grant of authority from the law; furthermore, the work is new and still in a somewhat experimental stage.

The first table which follows shows the number of applications for positions, the places filled, and the number of applications per 100 places filled. It should be explained that the column headed "Applicants for positions" includes a few who merely ask for information, as, for instance, the possibility of obtaining land for settlement; but for all practical purposes the number represents pretty closely the actual number of calls for jobs. Relatively the largest number of positions filled seems to have been during the year 1913, in which year the proportion between the applicants for positions and the places filled is the lowest, or 396 applicants for each 100 places filled.

There is a marked increase in the number of applicants for whom positions were found between 1914 and 1915, the number for 10 months of the fiscal year 1915 being greater than that for the entire year preceding.

The large number of applicants for each 100 positions filled would seem to indicate perhaps further need of organization in order to get in touch with the employers who have vacancies to fill; and the large proportion should not be attributed to a large amount of unemployment, as the operations of the division comprehend only a small fraction of the general movement of the supply and demand of labor. The table follows:

TOTAL APPLICATIONS MADE TO THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION OF THE BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION SINCE ITS ORGANIZATION, SEPTEMBER, 1907, PLACES FILLED, AND NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS PER 100 PLACES FILLED.

[Source: Annual Reports of the Chief of the Division of Information, Washington, 1908-1914.]

2 Reports from one zone (Chicago headquarters) not received for June, 1915.
Ten months.

The next table classifies the number of persons for whom positions were secured from 1908 to 1914. The per cent columns of this table show very clearly that the Division of Information has been most largely instrumental in securing positions for the aliens, the purpose for which it was originally established. The last three years seem to indicate an increase in the proportion of positions secured for American citizens.

CITIZENSHIP OF PERSONS SECURING EMPLOYMENT THROUGH THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION OF THE BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, 1908-1914. [Source: Annual Reports of the Chief of the Division of Information, Washington, 1908 to 1914.]

The third table classifies by occupations persons for whom positions were secured during the 5 fiscal years 1910 to 1914 and during the first 10 months of 1915. This table shows that in 1910 by far the largest number of positions were secured for farm laborers, but the proportion of farm laborers gradually decreased until 1913, and increased again in 1914 and 1915. There was a general increase in the proportion of positions secured for ordinary laborers from 1910 to 1913, and for the five years and 10 months about one-third (32 per cent) of the positions secured have been for common laborers. All other occupations form a small proportion of the total positions secured.