the insurance company to pay $22,000 where it had been paying $5,000, on a of employer's liability. The calculation was probably correct on the firm's recor accidents. But they changed their claim agent into a safety expert, made their fa "fool proof," and at the end of the first year their accident liability was only $5 instead of $22,000. They had reduced the accident burden go per cent. It is an how much business men can accomplish if they have sufficient inducement. A present time, through their great National Safety Councils, through their state and safety councils, through their shop safety councils and safety engineers, they are di more to prevent accidents than the state, the philanthropists, the employees, unions, had even imagined was possible. They even operate safety campaig the streets and in the schools, indirectly reducing accidents in the shops. Aco.. to statistics, the employer probably was never legally responsible for more the third of the accidents. The "hazard of the industry" and the carelessness workers and fellow-workers, caused the other two-thirds. Yet the employer made responsible for all accidents. The secret is that he knows how to money by educating the public as well as his own employees and his fellow ployers, on the subject of "safety first." Public business will generally be less efficient than private business, if for no reason than salaries. In Wisconsin, a dozen or more of the safety experts, employ by the state industrial commission to start the safety movement, have been th over by the National Safety Council, by the state employer's mutual insunt company, and by individual employers, at salaries two to five times the amou paid by the state. At the hearings on the Huber bill a leading employer, while ope ing the bill, showed how it would work in his case. He figured that the proposed would cost his firm $50,000 a year. If it should go into effect he would not trust state employment officers he would hire his own employment manager to find j for his men when he laid them off. This is the business way of looking at it. The state will pay low salaries to responsible for spending $20,000,000 a year, because the people cannot meas inefficiency, and the legislature can save the state from bankruptcy out of the pocke of the taxpayers. But the business man, who must measure inefficiency and ba ruptcy in dollars and cents, will pay an employment manager two to five times t state salaries in order to save $50,000 a year. Incidentally, efficient employment management, as it has come to be know during the past ten years, may be expected to make money for the employers, under unemployment compensation law, if organized like their safety work. The labo turnover, the dovetailing of jobs, the training of employees for different jobs, the selection, promotion, and transfer of employees, the spreading out of the overhead expense, the encouragement of home ownership, the cultivation of willingness, improved morale of steady workers, all belong to this new profession of the "industrial engineer." The saving effected by the efficiency of this new profession may expected to exceed the cost of the unemployment compensation which makes it necessary and opens up a wider field for it. This is the answer also, in part, to the objection that one state cannot pioneer the way, on account of interstate competition. Such objections did not eventually hold back accident compensation laws. The increased efficiency in avoiding accidents may be repeated in avoiding unemployment. But this objection has validity, and the be 1 vas there it had beeɔe met in full only by introducing the system gradually. Certain transitional probably ures are required. A preventive measure cannot prevent a condition already gent into a saying. Hence a revision of the Huber bill provided that the law should not go into ar their accident until a finding should be made by the Industrial Commission that business cident burdenditions are improving and workmen are being re-employed in reasonable numbers. hey have sun is the time when companies begin to set aside their reserve funds for investors ty Councils, they may also set them aside for unemployment. Then they may begin to pay their ils and safety geniums to the mutual insurance company. hilanthropists Further than this, there is no actuarial experience on which to base premium even opens. The best statistics are from Massachusetts, which show that in the factories accidents in hat state, over a period of twenty-five years, the amount of unemployment averaged gally responsiout five weeks a year. It went as high as 30 per cent in the years 1893 to 1897 and istry" and the low as 2 per cent in the best years. The average was about ro per cent. That is o-thirds Fost the only existing basis for calculating premium rates. Consequently, an initial s that he iod of three years is provided in the Huber bill, during which the maximum period of employees mpensation is fixed at six instead of thirteen weeks. And further, if, during this tial period, the reserves of the insurance company run low and menace the solvency the company, the Industrial Commission is authorized to shorten the period to en less than six weeks, in order to protect the solvency of the company. This ature is taken from the insurance plan of the Dutchess Bleacheries. Drivate busies the safety movement, ployer's to five time ng employer red that th the wo it manag y low s Ople ca out of 2 ficiency a o to Eve me to loyer rk. Th rent the o Lingue With these initial provisions, it is necessary to create a single Employers' Mutual mployment Insurance Company, to which all employers are eligible, rather than ave the field open to competition. The company is both a prevention and an surance company, managed by the employers. During this initial period, the remium rates can be worked out, under the approval of the state Insurance Comnissioner, and the rules and regulations can be worked out under the approval of the Industrial Commission. For the purpose of working out the rules and regulations, a state Advisory Board of employers and employees is provided. This has been the method, in Wisconsin, by which the safety and sanitation orders of the Industrial Commission were made. Out of three hundred labor laws in the state, only one hundred pages were enacted by the legislature. The other two hundred pages were framed by advisory committees of employers, employees, and experts, serving without compensation, and then after public hearing, were issued as orders having the effect of law. So the unemployment compensation bill provides a framework, and leaves the details to the employers' insurance company and the advisory committees of employers, employees. and employment managers, under supervision of the existing state authorities. The duty of the latter is simply to see that the law is carried into effect and to decide disputes. The employers themselves make the rules and the state acts as umpire. The twelve state free-employment offices are already managed by these joint committees co-operating with the state commissions, and no material change is needed in their administration. They become, mainly, recording offices for the unemployment compensation law, since the employers will do the job-finding themselves through their employment managers and their state-wide insurance company. The question of public policy depends on practicability, but also on public opinion. One person may think unemployment insurance desirable; another that it is untimely; another that it pauperizes labor. One person may agree that it is desirable for the em ployer individually, but to require it by legislation is a needless burden on employers. These differences, in the long run, must be settled by good judgment as to the future of the state and nation, and by an understanding of the causes of labor unrest. If the labor problem is a serious problem ahead, it is because it gets its bitterness from the inability of business to safeguard the security of employment. American states, with the approval of most employers, have removed from the struggle of capital and labor the bitterness of uncompensated accidents. Labor spokesmen formerly could, with justice, stir up hatred of employers with the accusation of profits taken out of flesh and blood. No longer do we hear that indictment. But we do hear that capital gets its profits out of the reserve army of the unemployed-and there is no effective reply. For the sake of capitalism and even of a civilization which, like capitalism, depends on confidence, capitalists should look ahead and assume legal responsibility for security of jobs parallel to their legal responsibility for security of investments. B. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OFFICES IN RELATION TO UNEMPLOYMENT Professor F. S. Deibler, Chairman, General Advisory Board, Illinois Free Employment Offices, Chicago Unemployment is the most serious industrial risk that comes to the man or woman who is working for wages. The burdens resulting from unemployment fall not alone upon the individual worker, but are borne also by his family. The worker is helpless at such times as there is little that he can do to avert the effects which such a period brings. In other words, the causes for unemployment are entirely beyond the control of the worker. He can do nothing but seek work. The by-products of long-continued unemployment are discontent or degeneration, both of which are socially bad. The importance of these by-products is the cause of the general public interest in the problem. When the stability of our social order is threatened public opinion becomes aroused and constructive measures can be more easily developed and put into effect as the result of the general discussion and the awak realization as to the importance of the problem. In laying plans to cope with unemployment the causes should receive fir sideration. Previous studies have shown that unemployment may be (a) due to maladjustment of the local supply and demand for labor; (b) seasonal, di the irregularity in industry; (c) national, due to serious disturbances in the bala between production and consumption. Over-investment in ticular lines, or to rapid change in investment, or even a marked change in the for commodities, as is being witnessed at present in pass consumption to one of peace consumption, may so distu duction and consumption as to cause widespread unemploy When unemployment is local the public employment o agencies in adjusting the supply of labor to the existing dem the employment office at this point is to furnish information com of work to persons seeking employment. What is needed under is a better organization of the labor market. I need not argue in extension and general improvement of public employment exchange our various states are not performing this function as well as they should. Only a few states have a well-organized system of employment offices and no state has anything like an adequate number of offices to handle the problem, and even in those states that have done most in providing offices, we do not find the pay or personnel adequate for the important work they are doing. The public offices should be extended until the need for fee agencies would disappear. When it comes to seasonal unemployment, public employment offices can, by careful study of industries, aid in dovetailing demand and supply of labor. I am convinced that employment offices are far from perfection in this type of service. In most states the information necessary for efficient service of this character is not available. Control records are just as essential for effective work here as in private business, and there is great need for intelligent organization in the public employment offices along these lines. If the cause for unemployment is due to the more deepseated influences mentioned above, the employment offices can do little to relieve unemployment. Like other agencies, they have to mark time till a normal balance between production and consumption, between investment and spending, has again worked itself out in industry. Among the remedies for unemployment, an argument for regularization of industry is frequently advanced. We are told that any program should aim to prevent unemployment. So far as this objective is attainable, prevention should play a large part in the plans for dealing with the problem. Our experience with workmen's compensation and accident prevention is made the basis for an argument for the prevention of unemployment. May I advise, in passing, caution in the use of this argument? In the case of industrial accidents, the installation of safety devices and the inauguration of "safety first" campaigns are within the control of the managers of the individual establishments. The economies from the reduction of industria accidents are immediate and direct. In the case of unemployment, the conditions are by no means so controllable by the individual concern or establishment. It is true that intelligent management can dovetail different products and give continuous employment to a much greater extent than is now done or thought possible by many business men. We have so many illustrations of successful regularization of a plant by such meth rive confidence in the belief that similar business intelligence applied to the ther lines would bring similar results. However, every limits to regularization by an individual estab quite agree that, so far as it is possible and feasible, the economic motivescor ment should be enlisted in the prevention of this serious industrial risk to The employment offices can do little to assist in the application of remedy. Their function at this point would be to gather information gra be used as the basis of determining the amount and duration of unemploy in thus develop an experience table as a guide for dealing with the problem du the employment service should collect information regularly as to the state mi ment. This information should be collected by occupational or industrial as that the industrial situation could be interpreted from time to time in the as the facts collected. It is my belief that one of the most important functions C well organized employment service is the collection and dissemination of info concerning the state of the labor market. With few exceptions the state empi offices fall far below the standard which they could attain along these lines. be The collection of information of this character is important for several pup first, such information becomes an aid by which the community can foresee the ch in industry and the approach of a period of unemployment. Plans can intelligently developed to cope with the problem. Second, the information a made the basis of control in the operation of the employment offices. By c planning, the seasonal slack and local disturbances can be eased off by a knok which such information will reveal. Third, the facts can be used in the event that state decides to distribute the risk in some form of insurance or charge on industry a basis for an employment experience table. Such information is necessary if= charges are to be distributed on an actuarial basis. Other uses no doubt may be served by a systematic collection of employ data in our various states. The purposes mentioned are sufficiently important b to industry and to the state to justify the expenditure necessary. I trust that social workers represented in this conference will make it their business in their respe tive states to stimulate the collection of this information on a scientific basis. C. UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT this Joseph Remenyi, Immigration Expert, Cleveland Trust Company, Cleveland In dealing nowadays with the question of that heterogeneous element called the immigrant we have to pay serious attention to the effect of unemployment upon multitude of different racial units. If unemployment lasts much longer it will destroy the tissue-thin practical merits of Americanization, that well-meant, but frequently misinterpreted movement, which, aside from its substantial achievements, which we all know, is rich in humorous episodes, farcical occurrences and sad experiences This statement may sound irritating to people of semi-abstract tendencies. The resentment of their mental faculties may give rise to the following remark: "So, ubi bene, ibi patria. Then the immigrant's Americanism is but a pocket-book philosophy?" And as there is always time and space for airing belittlement of superficially approached issues, they may even indulge in mellifluent approval and sense of satisfaction for their cherished skepticism as to the foreign born's ability of spiritual assimilation. Those who believe that the problem of unemployment as related to the immigrant is settled with the foregoing questionable attitude, contradict the principle of sound judgment. It is quite evident that the immigrant cannot be fed merely with ideas in also. be to m |