Milking the Unemployed
Brown, Paul
MILKING THE UNEMPLOYED By PAUL BROWN FOR many years I had thought that employment agencies were valuable instruments in the social and economic organization of any fair-sized city. Even after I...
...If the applicant had been out of work for a long time he was unable to pay the fee in advance...
...While our office did not run a commissary department to feed and house large numbers of laborers on isolated jobs some agencies do—and it is generally the most profitable activity of the agency, if it is possible to call such gains "profits...
...the workmen were evidently not holding their jobs...
...It was exactly the same as the other except that the man's abilities would be described in short sentences and terse terms, the message being multigraphed on an office blank much like a telegram in appearance...
...Even after I had started to work for one of them I believed that they performed a public service which was considerable by bringing men who needed work and jobs which needed men together for the mutual benefit of both...
...It was with the laborers and skilled workmen that we expected to operate to greatest advantage...
...From these men we would ask for—and generally receive—a deposit of from $50 to $100...
...I also found that the agency had not been credited with the full $4.00 fee on two big contracting jobs although I knew that it had been paid...
...Even the desperation induced by unemployment cannot justify such practices...
...By that time we had $100 of the applicant's money...
...50 on deposit which might have to be returned and $50 for service which was never rendered as he anticipated that it would be...
...Occasionally we would establish contact with a contractor who had just gotten a big job which might last from six months to several years...
...However, those I am familiar with, and there are a great many of them now, embrace methods which cannot be regarded as anything but dishonest and despicable...
...There is nowhere else to live and the company and agency always have an iron-clad agreement...
...When we couldn't, we hooked them again for what we called our letter service...
...Sometimes we even bled them for a little more, if we thought we could get away with it...
...The fee for this additional procedure was also $25 but the seeker for employment was to get 300 of them, rather than 250...
...If the applicant was a workman in the trades or a laborer he was charged a fixed fee in advance for the information needed to get the job we had, then given a card of introduction and sent on his way...
...the actual providing of a job is privately regarded as relatively unimportant...
...Just how that came about I do not know, but I have enough suspicions to last me the rest of my life...
...Lots of ordinarily able men fell for that, too, but I know of no cases where more than 100 of the "grams" were actually mailed...
...We would agree to furnish his men for him, give him permanent quarters in our office where applicants could be interviewed, and handle the details of labor supply until the work was completed...
...The agency charged, and had the company deduct from the mens' pay before they got it, prices which should have entitled them to considerably better accommodations and food...
...When a man hunting work came into our office the general attitude was not one which emanated from a desire to be of help to the man...
...theoretically it was an excellent scheme but it just does not work...
...We never charged less than $4.00—although I never knew why that amount was fixed—and we often charged them as much as one week's pay...
...I was wrong...
...The fees we charged low-paid men varied according to the nature of the work or our estimate of the man...
...Then I found it out from the bills we would get from the multigrapher who prepared our "grams" and letters, for they always called for so many less letters than were promised the applicant...
...but they wouldn't if they knew that it is mighty expensive to them because of their labor turnover...
...I tried many times to get the manager of the office to permit men to pay the fee after they had secured work, but I succeeded only once, when the manager happened to be personally acquainted with the job hunter...
...It was frankly a recognition that his visit merely represented more business for the agency...
...He told me that he had applied there that morning and had been refused work and told that bricklayers were being laid off...
...Even after a man paid his fee and got the job he was never certain that he could keep it...
...I still think that the basic idea that created employment agencies is good, but my experiences with several of them—all large agencies and apparently reputable and ethical—has served to change my opinion of them drastically...
...Unfortunately the men could never do anything about it...
...Naturally the applicant anticipated that 250 letters would be distributed...
...The men are quartered in the typical rough board bunkhouses and fed food which, while it is substantial and sustaining, is nevertheless cheap and mediocre...
...Sometimes we would get calls for laborers from the various railroad companies for construction work at distant and often remote points...
...I filled out our card and sent him to the contracting job but he objected to going...
...It always seemed to work...
...This rule was not enforced so strictly with girls and women...
...I know of many cases where the agency charged an entire week's pay for a job and the applicant worked less than a week at it—he had paid more for his job than he got from it, but he never received any refund from us because of that fact...
...With the high-grade applicants who had a past record of considerable accomplishment and excellent references we worked differently...
...It meant freedom from worry about personnel details to the contractor and some of them operate that way...
...When he gets his money back there is suddenly a great lack of interest in him thereafter, and if he gets a job it is remarkable...
...Usually we got our names from the classified telephone directory...
...There usually is a pretty large turnover among those men...
...However, on the last job of that kind we had the turnover was practically negligible...
...There is never any hesitancy in giving it back to him—that would be too palpable—but there is always a tremendous effort made to persuade him not to ask for it...
...It seemed most desirable to me...
...After we had their check we really tried to place them...
...After the manager's visit lots of workmen were needed and our card seemed to make a great difference...
...It never seemed to occur to them that the fault was ours, not theirs...
...Of course, there is no basis for criticism...
...We soon began to get requests for men of all trades...
...I was expected to make his search for work through our office a source of profit...
...In fact we always told them, after the preliminary interview, to return the following day with their check book...
...The most of the income of the agency where I last worked came from placing lowpaid men in large numbers, but after that the two socalled services ranked as a source of income...
...We would give them a card to a prospective employer whom we felt might use their ability and then call up the employer to make the way for our applicant as easy as possible...
...Somebody else, apparently, had received part of it...
...There seems to be a general deliberate intent to extract as much money as possible from applicants for work...
...the means I used in doing it were of secondary consideration...
...When a man has been out of work for any time $100 becomes important...
...We regarded the failure of the letters to produce a job—when sympathizing with the applicant—as an exceptional and peculiar condition...
...No more men will pay me money for service which they do not get, or for the privilege of working for someone else...
...They were really valueless to the job hunter...
...Lowpaid jobs are handled on a different basis than those commanding larger salaries...
...We would make a newspaperman an advertising copywriter, for instance, or a magazine crew manager an insurance salesman...
...The stimulus of needed employment is too powerful...
...It was nothing but an impressive-looking note, describing the applicant in glowing terms and covering his past record and abilities which would be sent to possible employers...
...but even being that brazen about it did not seem to prevent their coming back...
...They may do some slight good to the community where they operate, but they unquestionably do much more good to themselves...
...Manifestly that frequently served to defeat the purpose of the agency...
...We always tried to get the fee in advance but would accept 10 percent at the time of being sent to work with the understanding that the balance would be paid in not less than two weeks...
...Despite the fact that he was more in need of work than a man with a few dollars left in his possession, he was unable to get it...
...I got a requisition for eight brickmasons and shortly after I got it a bricklayer came to me for a job...
...It was sufficiently convincing for me...
...We assisted in the deception by glibly telling the employer what was on the man's application card and how favorable it all looked—after we had told him to complete it that way...
...He asks for the return of his money...
...Nevertheless, the rule was strictly enforced—no fee, no job...
...We had our agency divided into two general departments, as most of the agencies are arranged...
...I quit...
...Some of the applicants would complain about the size of the fee when we asked for a week's pay...
...One morning he visited all the foremen of the various gangs and came back to the office mighty pleased with himself...
...Having spent $50, even though it was futile, the applicant is naturally reluctant to withdraw from the responsibility of our help—but the time eventually comes when he is almost destitute...
...Under such arrangements we conscientiously filled every responsible job we could...
...I did not know these things until recently, when I was moved up into our accounting department...
...Of course, many times we were unable to place these highly skilled men promptly...
...For this alleged service we got $.10 a letter, with a minimum charge of $25...
...We would then suggest our "gram" service...
...Thinking of the requisition I had I finally prevailed upon him to go and he was promptly hired by the same foreman who had just previously refused him work...
...Our story to him was that while they were sufficiently well done they no doubt failed because they had not been impressively presented...
...a man of his undoubted ability and high attainments might be reasonably expected to do things in a better and more modern way...
...Our instructions were then to agree with i58 THE COMMONWEAL June ii, 1930 him and change the fee from one week's pay to 2 percent of his annual salary...
...The little bit of flattery usually won them to our way of thinking...
...The agencies are commercial enterprises and no one could complain if they profited by legitimate means...
...It paid us to do that with scrupulous care for it meant future good-will with department heads...
...There was nothing particularly wrong with the practice except that we were forbidden to give the man the needed information until we had received the fee...
...Often he got the job and kept it quite satisfactorily...
...There were hardly ever more than fifty sent out and rarely was there a reply to any of them...
...It was easy to refer to this small percentage so deprecatingly that they would never realize that it was actually a bit more than the fee previously objected to...
...Transportation was always furnished free for these laborers, yet I know that several of the men in our office charged foreigners not only the fee for the job but railroad fare as well...
...We had to, for they were intelligent men and able to see through any deception which was too transparent...
...If it did happen that there would be a reply and an applicant was placed through this medium we always got a testimonial from him regarding our sincere interest in his affairs, the excellence of our methods and lots of other "hooey" to impress future applicants...
...The manager of the agency was not only disappointed but furious about it, although I couldn't understand why...
...They were even compelled to sign an agreement that they would be willing to have their employer deduct our fee from their pay if they failed to keep their promise...
...Often, however, when we had no job for a highly specialized man, we would frankly instruct him to represent himself as something else...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 6
