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The proclamation was applied only to plants having more than 100 employees. During August, the first month under this system, between 50,000 and 60,000 unskilled laborers were transferred from one state to another by the Employment Service.

The signing of the armistice on November 11 transformed the situation, but left the country with almost a bigger employment problem on its hands, that of getting nearly 4,000,000 soldiers and sailors back to civil life, and of shifting probably 8,000,000 war workers to peace-time production. According to the plans announced up to the last week in November, the Employment Service, and especially the community labor boards, will bear as great a part in industrial demobilization as they did in industrial mobilization. At the request of the Secretary of War and the War Industries Board, the community labor boards will collect information on the state of the labor market to be used as a guide in the cancellation of contracts and the demobilization of the army. Each board will forward weekly reports both to Washington and to the state headquarters of the Employment Service, including the names of industries in their neighborhood which are laying off help or ready to hire additional workers.

All proposed cancellations of war contracts are also to be submitted to the Employment Service and contractors are asked to notify the service of reductions in their forces as far in advance as possible. The larger cities have been requested to determine what public work, postponed on account of the war, can be started, and both municipalities and non-war industries have been asked to inform the service of their needs for help.

It is stated that the speed of demobilization of the military forces, which was proceeding rapidly by December 10, will be guided by reports on employment conditions supplied by the federal service. But the soldiers are being discharged mainly as military units without regard to industrial demands. The Employment Service has arranged to cooperate with local councils of defense, draft boards, and numerous other agencies interested in the welfare of soldiers in opening a large number of special employment "Bureaus for Returning Soldiers and Sailors." It has also stationed representatives at the army camps.

Placements have actually been made through the federal service of a number of clerical workers released from Washington, of several hundred employees of a New York City gas-mask factory, of 2,700 men from a nitrate plant and an airplane factory in Ohio,

and of nearly 8,000 construction laborers from certain of the army camps. This is but the merest beginning, however, of a task of tremendous magnitude. The assistant director of the Employment Service said early in December, "There is every prospect that unless remedial measures are promptly taken the sight of stranded, workless, moneyless soldiers will be common throughout the land." The coming four months of winter, when there is comparatively little outdoor work, are a period during which there is considerable danger of a sharp crisis of unemployment.

Almost the only other existing machinery for the prevention of unemployment during the transition from war to peace is the "emergency public works commission" created by Pennsylvania in 1917. This commission was set up to arrange the extension of public works during periods of industrial depression and to receive tentative plans of projects from the various departments of the state. It was required to keep informed on unemployment conditions, and was provided with the nucleus of a fund, to be divided among the various departments having work available. The scheme is suggestive of methods which might be copied to advantage by many states and cities. The use of public work on a national scale, to prevent widespread unemployment during demobilization, was urged by President Wilson in his December message. Since public work during the war was halted by government action, governmental agencies should take an equal responsibility in utilizing it to equalize any slackening of private employment.

The possibility of an unemployment crisis has revived interest in unemployment insurance, such as England has set up to protect several millions of her war workers, as a possible instrument of relief and prevention, but as yet no legislative proposals have been made except the bill introduced in Massachusetts in 1915 by the Massachusetts Committee on Unemployment in cooperation with the American Association on Unemployment.

It should not be overlooked that the extensive organization which is preparing to deal with the problem of demobilization is entirely a creation of the war emergency, set up under the President's war powers and financed by war funds. Unless Congress takes action at the next session to put the Employment Service on a permanent footing, the end of the war will find the United States. in the same situation as did the beginning, lacking that proven essential to industrial efficiency, an adequate, permanent, national system of public employment bureaus.

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"A compensation law is in these days one of the tests by which men judge the social status of a state."

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAWS IN THE UNITED STATES

Laws-1918

Workmen's compensation laws are now in force in THIRTY-EIGHT STATES, in addition to Porto Rico and the two Territories of Alaska and Hawaii. The Federal Government also provides such protection for its own million civilian employees.

The tendency of this legislation is to cover ALL EMPLOYMENTS except farm labor and domestic service, but some states still limit compensation to so-called "hazardous" employments.

MEDICAL CARE is usually provided at the expense of the employer.

In twenty states there is a "WAITING PERIOD” of seven days or less immediately following the injury during which no compensation is paid. Thereafter under the Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and Ohio laws, as well as under the Federal law, COMPENSATION FOR DISABILITY is 66-2/3 per cent of wages. In California, Illinois (sliding scale), Kentucky and Wisconsin compensation is fixed at 65 per cent; in Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota and Texas at 60 per cent; while in Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana and Utah it is 55 per cent. In other states it is still as low as 50 per cent.

Under the Federal law, IN DEATH CASES the widow receives 35 per cent of her deceased husband's wages, with 10 per cent in addition for each child, the total never to exceed 66-2/3 per cent. With variations a number of other states follow this general plan.

Most laws allow, in addition, about $100 for BURIAL.

In all states, except Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana and Minnesota, payment of compensation is made certain by requiring employers to INSURE their risk; fifteen states have established state funds to provide insurance at costseven of these having excluded private stock companies entirely from the business.

ΤΟ ADMINISTER workmen's compensation acts, industrial accident boards have been established in all states except Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Wyoming.

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION of disabled workmen has been neglected in America, but Massachusetts in 1918 authorized its Industrial Accident Board to aid in reeducating and finding employment for industrial cripples. Urgently needed Federal legislation is pending.

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