сте

t de

the c

open

eacher tion

f physi

gain sed

ual spbe

1 with th

he teach aiting th ad throug active be

g the chi his relatin

t the cart

recognizing that no concrete rules of the game can be laid down, for each case requires a specific plan of action, fitted to the especial needs as determined through the careful study of each individual case.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A FAMILY AGENCY AT A TIME OF
INDUSTRIAL READJUSTMENT

Stockton Raymond, General Secretary, Family Welfare Society, Boston

The primary purpose of family social work is the promotion of sound family life. Such evils as ignorance, unrighteousness, poverty, and disease are attacked at the most strategic point-the home-by promoting the opportunity and incentive for education, health, recreation, industry, and spiritual development.

Seventy-five years ago in Massachusetts persons unable to care for themselves were farmed out to whoever would provide for their physical needs at the least cost to the community.

Today family social work is essentially constructive. It seeks not only relief but prevention and more than either of these the development of capacity. Every family has both assets and liabilities is both rich and poor. Family social work on the negative side seeks the relief of distress and protection against hazards; on the positive side the development of assets. The attitude is that of a father toward his son. It combines protection against adverse conditions with opportunities and incentive for the development of capacity.

As the family agency stresses more and more positive values it finds itself inevitably concerned with social and industrial conditions. Sound family life is dependent upon regular employment, a living wage, good industrial conditions, and leisure time for recreation, family duties, and self-expression.

The family agency must recognize the relationship between case work and industrial standards. Certain specialized agencies have been charged with failure in their treatment of the individual to consider the welfare of the entire family group. There is great danger that the family agency, engrossed by intensive work with families, may fail to recognize the relationship between case work and the larger aspect of the industrial situation. This must not be. Young workers are coming to the family agencies full of interest in social conditions. Case work must be done in such a way as to increase rather than diminish that interest. Unemployment, violent reduction in wages, decreasing prices, and frequent labor controversies are the factors in the present industrial situation which most seriously affect family life. All of them except decreasing costs result in applications to the family agency.

Under such circumstances what is the responsibility of the family agency? First, it must maintain own standard of work; second, it must square its policies with the social and ituation; third, it must interpret its everyday experience lly to conditions more favorable to the full developso closely interwoven it is difficult to con

THE FAMILY

to swamp the agency. Resources exist for dealing with the unemployed as long as there are enough jobs to go around, and with the underpaid when there is reasonable opportunity to find work more adequately compensated. Even the striker can be dealt with when it is possible for him to find work in some employment which is not involved in the strike. As long as jobs are obtainable at a living wage, the unemployed, underpaid, and strikers have the power to solve their iifficulties, and thus the process of adjustment may be approached from a case work angle without unfavorable effect upon industrial standards.

But an entirely different situation exists at ime of industrial depression, when unemployment is widespread because there are on tew obs to go around, when the underpaid has no alternative except unemployment, and when no work for the striker is available in industries not affected by the strike: Inder these circumstances the standards of the family agency are imperfect av ut avanche of applications with which it is without the resources to deal. The emedy sot me of individual adjustment but lies in the industrial and economic festurey mon the control either of the individuals involved or of the famly agency

Shall the family agency accept applications me to mausstral factors beyond its control, or that of the individuals concernest, withinout the means to cope successfully? The answer to this question youvess seus fifficulties. Can such applications be accepted without impairment as Will refusal to accept them involve useless suffering? Will refusal essut in the stablishment of emergency relief organizations which will be badly administeret Shunc acceptance be conditioned upon adequate public support and a bona fue for by the community to deal in a constructive way with the problem involved? Doss a public agency exist which should assume responsibility? Should applications be armented in order to secure first-hand information which may lead to progress in dealing with the problem? Will refusal to accept applications occasion the loss of support necessary to conduct the usual work of the agency? In general,, it may be said that applications due primarily to industrial factors should not be accepted unless public support sufficient to maintain standards is assured, and at the same time an earnest effort is made by the community to deal constructively with the problems invalbred.

standards. Nor can it be justified upon the grounds that it will not affect industrial standards, since it involves comparatively few individuals.

From the experience of agencies which have attempted at a time of industrial depression to deal with unemployment and its hand-maiden, underpayment, certain conclusions may be reached. Central relief funds and the central registration of the unemployed involve great dangers. Where central relief and registration have been attempted numerous applications have made case work impossible, and the result has been indiscriminate relief. Bundle days, bread lines, and soup kitchens should be discouraged, since they tend to distract public attention from more fundamental considerations and are likely to do more harm than good. The unemployed should be carefully distinguished from the unemployable. This is necessary for a correct analysis of the problem, as well as in order to insure proper treatment.

All agencies engaged in relief work should use the registration bureau. Registration with a reliable employment bureau should be insisted upon as a condition to the granting of relief. Made work is as likely to have a demoralizing effect as is relief. To employ a man in moving a sand pile from one place to another is surely more demoralizing than to give relief outright. Relief employment should approximate employment under normal conditions, with regard to the utility of the work done, and should be organized under the direction of agencies accustomed to deal with similar problems. The unemployed man must be stimulated to be constantly on the lookout for other work, and for this reason relief work should not be given on a full time basis. It is unwise ordinarily to provide work for women who are not usually employed instead of for their jobless husbands, but the unemployed man should be expected to do the things he can do in his own home. Employment is the only adequate remedy for unemployment. Relief may lessen suffering but is no solution of the problem. The family agency in meeting its responsibility during a time of industrial readjustment must continually urge the necessity for making every effort to promote real work.

In view of the factors involved it is not surprising that some family agencies have refused during the period of industrial stress to accept responsibility for dealing with the unemployed, the underpaid, and the striker. Nor is it surprising that some of the agencies which have attempted to deal with such applications have been criticized on the grounds that their policies have tended to undermine industrial standards.

The difficulty which the family agency encounters in the effort to adopt policies which will not undermine industrial standards arises out of the fact, already indicated, ** is impossible to deal on a case work basis with factors which are essentially

The public at the time of industrial readjustment may insist that no crisis exists. The fear that unwise action may follow should not deter the family agency from the effort to arouse the community to a realization of facts. The ostrich policy of burying the head in the sand must be avoided at all cost. The feeling that nothing constructive can be done to meet the situation should be combated in every possible way. The American Association for Labor Legislation will supply material which can be used effectively in showing that constructive measures for dealing with unemployment on a long time basis are not only possible but entirely practicable.

The view often expressed that there is no real unemployment, but that those out of work are either on strike or refuse to work at a fair wage should be met by a plain statement of the facts. Fluctuations in prices at a time of industrial readjustment result in misinformation and uncertainty regarding the cost of living. The publication of periodic statements showing clearly the facts about the cost of living is a constructive service which the family agency can render in the interest of a living wage. The family agency should continually bear witness to the importance of regular employment and to the demoralizing effect of unemployment on the worker and his family.

Immigration is a factor in the industrial situation upon which the family agency may throw light. The unskilled Italian workers living in the north end of Boston were the group hit first and hit hardest by the present industrial depression. Yet before the new immigration law became effective shipload after shipload of their countrymen arrived to swell the number of unemployed. If the facts about the labor market were available through the operation of an adequate national employment service the flow of immigrants might be regulated, at least to some extent, upon the basis of the demand for labor. This might be done on the present percentage basis by vesting in some administrative body the authority to increase or decrease the percentage within prescribed limits according to existing industrial conditions. In this way a logical relationship would be established between immigration and the possibilities for the industrial assimilation of the new arrivals.

The family agencies at a time of industrial depression must point out the need for additional facilities for the vocational training of young people who are unemployed and who will become either more efficient industrially or less so according to whether or not the opportunity and incentive for vocational training are provided.

The family agency should know something of economics. It should be able to show, not only how subnormal industrial standards affect family life, but how decrease in purchasing power tends constantly to widen the circle of depression.

The spirit of family social work is expressed by the axiom, "For every wrong there is a remedy." Unemployment, underpayment, and strikes are wrongs which have a pernicious effect upon family life. The family agency is justified in demanding action on the part of the community which will prevent industrial standards from falling below the point necessary for normal family life and for the development of individual powers. It can best perform its function by maintaining its own standards, by squaring its policies with the industrial situation, and by interpreting the facts of its everyday experience in such a way as to arouse the community to for dealing on a long time constructive basis with the industrial and econ presented by industrial readjustment.

creas

itions and the

par

aployed whether

able to decrease

y wrong gs which manding

rds from

pment of tandards, the facts

necessity problems

PROBLEMS

WOMEN'S WORK AND WAGES: THE WOMEN'S BUREAU AND
STANDARDS OF WOMEN'S WORK

Mary Anderson, Director, Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington

The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was created as a war service. It was found from its work during the war and the demand made for the kind of service it rendered that it would be expedient to make this war service a permanent bureau, and on June 5, 1920, just a little over a year ago, Congress passed the bill making this bureau permanent. As the Department of Labor is the youngest department in the government, so too is the Women's Bureau the youngest bureau in the Department of Labor. As the industrial workers grew stronger and stronger, a more insistent demand for a department of labor was made until finally it was created. And so it was with the Women's Bureau-as the women workers entered into industry more and more, there also became an insistent demand that there should be created in the government a bureau concerned with the problems peculiar to women in industry.

The function of the Women's Bureau is twofold: first, to develop policies and standards which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment; second, to investigate and report upon matters pertaining to the welfare of women in industry and publish the results of these investigations.

While the Women's Bureau is charged with these responsibilities, the federal government has no legal power to enforce any regulation. That is left entirely to the several states. Practically speaking, the entire enforcement of the regulations or laws pertaining to wages and conditions of work for women in industry is in the hands of the various state departments of labor. Therefore, the enunciation of standards and policies by the Women's Bureau is a guide rather than a law, and serves also as a guide toward uniformity in legislation in the several states. No two states out of the fortyeight have uniformity in legislation. Eight states have the eight-hour day, but this eight-hour-day legislation does not mean that all the women in these eight states are working eight hours according facturing establishments in one restaurants and hotels in anoth have been who have piloted this Often they have been obliged to com their ideal, but have only done the best The pointing out of the inadequacy enn best be done by a