compensation agencies which have shown high rates of disqualifications and determine whether the language and interpretation of provisions of "suitable employment" in State unemployment compensation laws are in compliance with the purposes of the act, and that the State unemployment compensation agencies cooperate with the Social Security Board in taking whatever corrective measures are available and necessary. 4. Recommendation B. Coverage It is recommended that State unemployment compensation laws be amended to extend the coverage to all employees. 1. Findings C. Experience or merit rating The experience rating provisions in State laws have not proven effective in stabilizing employment but have proven to be powerful incentives to the adding of disqualification and restrictive eligibility provisions to the State laws and to narrow interpretation of these provisions with the result that many persons in need of protection of unemployment insurance are deprived of their benefits. 2. Recommendations The Conference recommends that the experience rating provisions be removed from State unemployment compensation laws. D. Benefits It is recommended that the present maximum limitations on weekly benefits be raised to at least $25 with additional adequate allowances for dependents and that the maximum duration of the beneät period be extended to at least 26 weeks. E. Responsibility of agencies to inform workers of rights It is recommended that each State agency in cooperation with the Social Security Board and with organized labor in the States inform all workers of their rights in regard to unemployment compensation. A. Findings II. THE UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 1. Modern methods of production, transportation, distribution, and business control have made the labor market Nation-wide, and many millions of war workers and veterans are seeking work without regard to State lines. 2. An efficient, unified, national employment service adaptable to both national and local needs, is essential to prompt placement of these Americans during the reconversion period. 3. Splitting the United States Employment Service into over 48 different State systems would, under any conditions, seriously interfere with efficient operations and would be particularly disastrous during the reconversion period. 4. Against President Truman's recommendation, both Houses of Congress have passed a bill providing for return of the employment service to the States within 100 days, with at least seven-eighths of the funds to be supplied by the United States Treasury. 5. The untimely transfer of the employment service to State control will result in very serious maladjustments even with the very best cooperative efforts of State and Federal agencies and with the application of minimum Federal standards. Without them, such untimely transfer will prove disastrous in many communities. B. Recommendations 1. That this Conference urge President Truman to veto the pending bill providing for return of the employment offices to the States (H. R. 4407). 2. That Congress be called upon to provide for the continuation and strengthening of a unified national system of public-employment offices under the direction of the United States Employment Service in the United States Department of Labor. 3. In the event that by congressional action the Employment Service offices are returned to the States this Conference recommends as follows: (a) The Secretary of Labor in accordance with the provision of the WagnerPeyser Act issue minimum standards for the operation of the State employment services such standards to include the following: (1) Cooperation among the several State agencies with a view to maintaining a complete, well-rounded placement program. (2) An over-all policy of service to job seekers and employers seeking workers. Such policy to be developed in a manner to require maximum cooperation with hiring channels developed by employers and employees including union hiring halls and the placement activities of union offices. (3) Referral standards based on the proposition that there shall be equal referral opportunities to all individuals on the basis of their qualifications for the job, regardless of sex, creed, or color. In addition, no individual should be required to accept referral to a job in which the wages, hours, or other conditions of work are less favorable to the individual than those prevailing for similar work in the locality. Further, no individual should be required to accept referral to a job not utilizing the applicant's highest skill until every effort has been made over a period of time to place the individual in a job which will utilize his highest skill. (4) Provision for unified administration of local employment service offices serving natural labor market areas transversed by State lines, and provision for interstate arrangements for the referral of workers to the most suitable and desirable job openings without regard to State boundaries. (5) Assurance that referrals will not be made to positions left vacant because of labor disputes. (6) Counseling service to be provided veterans and other job seekers in all areas in which such service is deemed necessary. (7) Requiring of each State agency that it make reports as frequently as necessary on operations and on local labor market conditions and characteristics of job seekers, which will be valuable in the counseling service for veterans and other job applicants and in the formulation of policies. (8) Protection of employment and reemployment rights of personnel of the USES including those who have been appointed to the Service during the war and who have acquired experience under the wartime operations of the Service. (b) It is further recommended that in case any State employment agency fails to meet the above-recommended standards of the Secretary of Labor direct the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor to assume control and operation of the employment service in that State; (c) That the Secretary of Labor be called upon in consultation with the appropriate officials of organized labor and representatives of industrial management to appoint a National Labor-Management Advisory Council to assist in the development of appropriate policies for the operation of the USES and that the appropriate administrators in each State in like manner appoint State and local Labor-Management Advisory Councils to advise employment office managers and State administrators. Such advisory councils should include representatives of agriculture when appropriate and be so constituted as to include adequate counselling on problems of veteran's placement. All such advisory bodies should maintain equal representation of employers and labor; and (d) That this Conference go on record as in favor of making the State employment agency administratively responsible to the State Department of Labor or to said department in each State which is responsible for the enforcement of State labor laws. A. Findings III. A FEDERAL UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION SYSTEM 1. The problem of unemployment is a recurring problem, national in character. 2. It has been amply demonstrated that any substantial amount of unemployment cannot be overcome by purely local efforts. 3. The hardships to workers resulting from unemployment are not related to their places of residence. 4. The present State unemployment compensation systems contain confusing, contradictory variations in the degree of protection afforded workers that have no relation either to the nature of their employment or to their needs. B. Recommendation 1. That this Conference call upon Congress immediately to enact legislation establishing a uniform national unemployment insurance system as provided in the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill (S. 1050). EDITORIALS [From the Courier-Journal, Louisville, October 21, 1945] A HEEDLESS ACTION OF PARTISAN POLITICS Dispatches and headlines made much of the "rebuff" to President Truman in the uproarious House vote to break the United States Employment Service into 48 pieces and return it in 30 days to the basis of operation by States. But it is likely that many an alarmed advocate of orderliness in programs for postwar reconstruction and reconversion will see this development as something that goes deeper and is more dangerous than any mere political reverse or the prestige of any individual, even the President. National stability is not going to be attained as a piecemeal process. If the people of the United States learned anything from the terrible depression that began after the last war, it should have been the fact that economic problems cannot be compartmented, State by State, region by region, even nation by nation. Stagnation or collapse in Detroit affects Kentucky, as we learned from the plight of some 25,000 Kentuckians who were drawn by the war program to Willow Run and elsewhere in Michigan; and a drought in Kansas concerns the employees of an eastern manufacturer of farm implements. And when our national industrial structure underwent a transformation so immense as that involved in conversion to all but total war, there were shifts of population that now must be redeployed according to a plan, fitting men to jobs. President Truman and his economic high command had this elementary truth in mind when they asked that USES be retained under integrated Federal control at least until June 30, 1947. This was no capricious request but part of a plan to be administered for the Nation as a whole. It was not even an attack upon States' rights, because the duration of Federal control was limited to the duration of the prospective emergency. One cannot escape the impression of heedlessness of common welfare in the insistence of Republicans, aided by southern Democrats rallied by the dubious battle cry of "States' rights," on ending this control at once and thus ripping out one of the pillars of the reconstruction plan-one of the essential parts, at least in the opinion of the administration which is responsible for the outcome. If there were honest doubts in the matter, it would seem they might have been resolved in favor of coordinated planning rather than decided on partisan lines. The great danger in reducing the Employment Service to 48 elements, it must be obvious, is that centers of unemployment and industrial stagnation must now remain so, festering and growing in national contaminations, for lack of an agency to adjust a broad pattern of men and production. One may only hope that the Senate will display less irresponsibility. [From the Washington Post, October 22, 1945] Both Senate and House are in a tearing hurry to return the United States Employment Service to the various States, in disregard of President Truman's appeal that no action be taken at this critical stage of reconversion. Before passing the ill-fated unemployment compensation bill last month the Senate appended an amendment providing for the return of USES to the States within 90 days. Last week the House approved a similar proposal attached as a rider to a bill cutting Federal expenditure authorizations by $52,000,000,000. Rejecting a compromise that would have deferred the transfer to the end of the fiscal year, the House required the shift to be effective 30 days after enactment of the bill. Undoubtedly Congress has been greatly influenced by pressure from the governors of various States and State directors of unemployment compensation. Almost to a man they have urged an immediate return of the unemployment services to the States. Representative Ramspeck hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "it is perfectly natural that the governors and the State officials who operate these agencies would be glad to get back under their wing 23,000 employees who are now in the Federal services. I do not think I have to explain to any Member of Congress why they want these services back," Mr. Ramspeck continued. "We all understand that. The Federal Government pays the bill, 95 percent. They get the employees." It would be unjust to the State authorities to infer that the lure of patronage fully accounts for their eagerness to regain control of the public employment services. But it has probably been a compelling factor together with the natural wish of certain State officials to strengthen their hold on State-administered unemployment compensation systems, operated in close conjunction with the employment services. One really strong argument for ending Federal control of employment offices is the reported existence of friction between Federal officials and administrators of unemployment insurance. The USES sets the standards as to what constitutes suitable employment for job seekers, while the States make compensation payments to those insured for whom USES is unable to find suitable jobs. It is easy to see how trouble arises when these State and Federal officials do not see eye to eye. The remedy for this unsatisfactory state of affairs lies, in our opinion, in federalization of the State systems of unemployment insurance. At present, however, opposition has closed the door to this reform and the return of the employment services to the States appears to be inevitable. However, there is a right and a wrong time for all things. And the present is assuredly the worst possible time for undertaking to shift the administration of the employment services. The emergency that led to the temporary federalization of the State employment agencies for more effective mobilization of war workers has changed form, but the emergency itself remains acute. Furthermore, USES will find its task becoming increasingly onerous for a good many months to come as millions of veterans seeking jobs are added to the millions of war workers in search of jobs. The scope and the character of the postwar employment problem, involving mass movements of displaced war workers seeking new jobs in localities remote from their former homes, create national problems. The situation clearly requires continued Federal supervision and control of placement activities until conditions become more stabilized and can fairly be regarded as normal for peacetimes: [From the Cincinnati Enquirer, October 19, 1945] NEEDS THINKING OVER Congress is moving to return the functions of the United States Employment Service to the individual States. The Senate approved the transfer a few weeks ago and the House Appropriations Committee has voted to recommend similar House action. If the Houses concur, the Nation's 51 employment offices will revert to the States within 30 days. It seems to us that Congress should stop and think this matter over a little before proceeding. We certainly have no quarrel with the principle of State control of the Employment Service, and at the proper time the move will be a logical step away from the overfederalization of government. At the moment, however, there are excellent arguments why the USES should remain in Federal hands. Unfortunately, no one seems to have developed these arguments persuasively as yet. First, there is the matter of greater efficiency and freedom from political entanglement. The USES took over the employment services of the States as a wartime measure January 1, 1942. Its personnel has been maintained on a Federal civil-service basis, and the quality of administration and freedom from politics has been notably higher than was previously the case. Naturally, there are arguments on both sides of the fence, and perhaps the difference is not decisive. Much more important, we think, is the fact that we are now at the critical moment of reconversion. Wthin the next half year or so the Employment Service will have to deal with many millons of job placements. The firing and rehiring of industrial reconversion imposes a severe strain on the agency, and there are the men in the armed forces for whom jobs must be found-or jobs must be found for the persons they displace. The USES is handling the program now. It has the records, the personnel, the equipment, the know-how to deal with the immense task. It could only result in widespread disorganization, with probably serious inconvenience to the employment program, to stop now and transfer the program back to State management-which in many cases would be handing it into inexperienced hands. In any event, until we achieve real peacetime stability, the problems of reconversion and unemployment will be national, or at least regional, in scope. The USES is better situated to continue through this period of urgent need. [Editorial-News-Herald, Hutchinson, Kansas, October 22, 1945] Congress appears to be prevailing over the White House and in a short time the Nation's Employment Service will be turned from Federal operation to that of the States. This marks a great victory for State's rights but a highly questionable one for the unemployed. Whoever is running it, the existing Employment Service is pretty good. At least it is 10 times better than anything this country has had before. Under State direction this uniform and unified service will be replaced by 48 varieties which is a distinct loss since jobs aren't offered with any relationship to State lines. Unless the Federal Government can still write the rules through pocketbook control, it will be only a matter of time before there are as many types of aid to the jobless as there now are regulations of divorce. Some States may evolve employment services better than the present Federal one. There will be more, however, that will make a shambles of their services by considering them primarily as sources of political patronage. [Editorial News Press, Santa Barbara, Calif., August 22, 1945] STATE AND FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT SERVICES Governor Warren has returned to his "summer capital" in southern California from a conference with President Truman and other governors in Washington and has reported that administration of the United States Employment Service will be returned to the separate States according to a program and policy that was in effect before the war. This would seem to be a solution of State and Federal employment services that is too simple to be effective. It is a general assumption-well supported by many observable facts and conditions-that this Nation and the world will not go back to prewar conditions. From that assumption there must be the further assumption that prewar methods and policies will not be the best available methods and policies for postwar conditions. There are literally hundreds of striking proofs and evidences that the population of the United States has been disrupted tremendously by the war. War production has shifted millions of population to new employment. California is supposed to have gained from 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 during the war. Other States have gained or lost in numbers which represent appreciable fractions of former populations. Now demobilization of all fighting forces will return millions of men to civilian life. But a considerable proportion of these men do not intend to reenter civilian life in the same place or at the same employments from which they were taken into military service. With these millions of men who propose a change in residence will be millions of wives children, parents, and other relatives whose future residence and activities will be determined largely by the future residence and activities of their servicemen. In view of this situation and the responsibility that national affairs have had and will have in shifting the populations of States, it seems that something different from the prewar methods of handling National and State employment problems should be devised. The responsibility of the National Government in employment control and assistance seems to have increased. |