59 Concrete floor in cellar. 1010 Waterproof paint...

911 Drainage under cellar floor.. 212 Flue lining, 9-inch diameter 413 Plastering (interior).

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318

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1024 Painting...

PURPOSE.

The United States Housing Corporation realized clearly that in these days of extensive and intensive industrial combinations, no large construction enterprise could hope to be successful without administrative machinery for working out the innumerable intricate and complex problems involved in the employment and management of large numbers of men. It was the recognition of this fact that was the basis of the organization, as a part of the corporation, of the Industrial Relations Division.

Industrial management to-day has become essential to efficiency-just as much as has town planning, or architecture, or engineering and its problems demand the attention of trained minds in order that its complex problems may be worked out successfully. Especially is this true with the trades or crafts engaged in house construction organized in great national and international unions, with their constitutions and by-laws, their rules and regulations of employment, their jurisdictional agreements, and

so on.

Thus it was realized at the very outset that if the United States Housing Corporation was to be successful in carrying out its extensive program, provision must be made in its organization for taking care of the innumerable labor problems that were inevitably to arise problems involving employment, wages, hours of work, and general working and living conditions of thousands of skilled and unskilled employees. This was the field of operation of the Industrial Relations Division. Its object and scope may be briefly summarized as follows:

The Industrial Relations Division was charged with analyzing labor conditions, supervising and directing industrial relations.

It functioned with reference to the employees of the Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation and those of all contractors employed, and in

some instances indirectly with the various war industries.

A large percentage of labor troubles being the result of misunderstandings and of failure to provide a common meeting ground, it was among the duties of this division to keep in close touch with all labor conditions, with the view of preventing misunderstandings, and to report to the director of the bureau any signs of labor troubles.

The division handled all matters relative to health and recreation for the benefit of employees of the bureau and of the contractors, and of employees of war industries living in temporary quarters provided by the bureau.

It investigated and adjusted, on behalf of the bureau, any complaints or disputes that might arise between the various divisions of the bureau and contractors.

It dealt on behalf of the bureau with all questions of wages, labor, and employment affecting the production of contracts being supervised by the bu

reau.

This work included:

1. Investigation and adjustment of disputes between contractors and employees.

2. Employment problems, including the providing of adequate labor supply and the training of employees.

3. Establishment and maintenance of proper standards of working conditions and wages, supervision over the observance of provisions of acts of labor and over the temporary housing of contractors' forces, etc.

The division investigated and reported on and made suggestions for decreasing the labor turnover of contractors, with the view of the possibility of increasing production by adopting new methods. It also worked out from wage scales collected by its investigators charts establishing what rents employees could afford to pay, and what limit should be placed on the development of houses.

ORGANIZATION.

In the organization machinery for the administration of this extensive program, there were special representatives, welfare directors, field agents, personnel representatives, labor scouts, and the necessary office force. Quite frequently the division, whose headquarters were in Washington, operated directly through the works superintendent, this official being the authorized representative of the corporation at the head of a particular housing project

The duty of the special representative of the division was to make a thorough survey of all the labor conditions in the vicinity of a proposed housing project a month or more before actual construction began, having in view particularly the amount and character of the labor supply. He was to study near-by sources of supply and the possibility of transporting it to and from the project; he reported upon temporary housing facilities for workers engaged in building the houses; he reported also the wage scales of all building trades, and in general made the division familiar with all the factors that were likely to affect or govern the securing and employment of labor in that locality.

The welfare directors of the division investigated conditions adversely affecting the employment of men on the housing project and recommended action by the division that either would remove an undesirable factor from operating or inject into the situation an entirely new and wholesome element. They planned and provided for the necessary comfort and entertainment of the worker to keep him satisfied and contented; they saw to it that there were sufficient facilities in case of sickness and accidents. It was their business to know if the contractor had taken out workingmen's insurance for the workers on the houses, and in every other direction was carrying out the provisions of the contract affecting the employees. It was also the function of the welfare director to make certain the observance by the contractor of State laws and local regulations.

These special representatives and welfare directors were constantly traveling about from one housing project to another in all parts of the country and were the means by which the manager of the division was able to keep in constant and instant touch with the varying and changing local conditions on all the housing projects.

THE LABOR SUPPLY.

It requires an intimate acquaintance with the conditions surrounding the depleted labor supply in the country during the summer and fall of 1918 in order

to enable one to appreciate fully the difficulties of the situation that confronted the United States Housing Corporation at the very outset of its operations in August of that year. All common labor, had long since been absorbed by the other war industries of the Government that had been operating before the Housing Corporation began its work, and the Corporation thus came into the markets for labor with the supply almost completely exhausted. It entered these markets, too, under rules and regulations formulated by the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor which had just been organized.

These regulations, as applied to the recruiting of labor, were as follows:

1. Employees may continue to hire workers who apply at the plant without solicitation, direct or indirect.

2. The Federal director of employment in each State is authorized to grant permission to employers to use their own field agents for recruiting workers under his direction and control for war industries located within the State.

3. Permission to recruit unskilled laborers in States other than the one in which the work is located may be secured from the Director General of the United States Employment Service upon the recommendation of the Federal director of employment for the State in which the men are needed. Such permission will be communicated by the Director General to the Federal directors for the States in which the labor is needed and from which it is to be recruited.

4. No unskilled labor may be transported from one State to another without authorization from the director general, to be secured by application through the Federal director of employment for the State in which the labor is recruited. No laborers may be moved from one employment district to another within a State without authorization from the Federal director of employment for the State.

5. Employers who receive permission to transfer workers from one State to another or from one district to another within any State must file a statement with the nearest Employment Service office of the number of men transferred, the wages offered, and other terms and conditions of employment promised to the men.

6. Employers who are permitted to use their own field agents for recruiting labor must in no case use any feecharging agency or use any agents or labor scouts who are paid for their work on a commission basis.

7. All advertising for unskilled labor, whether by card, poster, newspaper, handbill, or any other medium, is prohibited after August 1, 1918. This applies to all employees engaged wholly or partly in war work, whose maximum force, including skilled and unskilled laborers, exceeds 100.

In compliance with this policy of the Employment Service, instructions were issued by the Industrial Relations Division to the works superintendents and contractors of the Housing Corporation as follows:

The labor policy of the Industrial Relations Division of the United States Housing Corporation will be governed by that adopted by the United States Employment Service and the War Labor Policies Board.