THE INSIDE STORY ON MANPOWER
The Inside Story On Manpower TO the brass hats who troupe along behind Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal up and down Capital Hill everyday to press Congress for a...
...A 15,000 Reduction The WMC report stresses the need for better utilization of the present labor supply as the best answer to the manpower problem...
...The reason for the confusion came to light last week when Labor, the militant publication of the Railroad Brotherhoods, disclosed that the brass hats and the Administration have teamed up to suppress information on manpower gathered by two outstanding war agencies in the nation's capital...
...There was no evidence of voluntary quitting, the report declares, and the only employment decline shown was due to layoffs and discharges resulting from cutbacks...
...The Inside Story On Manpower TO the brass hats who troupe along behind Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal up and down Capital Hill everyday to press Congress for a compulsory labor draft and to the busy little "assistant presidents" scurrying around Washington shouting, "Work or fight...
...In some spots there was a rapid turnover, but this was found to be where there was lack of housing, poor transportation, and low wages...
...The War Production Board and the War Manpower Commission have both made exhaustive surveys of the problem...
...If Congress revolts against this effort to put over a labor draft...
...Most of those interviewed felt that to introduce coercion would simply lead to unnecessary resentment and irritation among workers...
...it will be because the few remaining champions of regimentation have tried to ram it through with arrogant threats, rather than evidence of need...
...In one big war plant, it asserts, workers and management cooperated to make management more efficient...
...The report lauds the efforts of organized labor to meet existing difficulties and says that cooperation with employers is at a "very high level...
...and, above all, reveal no facts...
...The report also blasts Jimmy Byrnes' hysterical charge that workers are quitting their jobs in droves...
...A 5 to 10 per cent improvement in manpower utilization would be sufficient to provide all necessary labor," the report continues...
...Considering that these surveys have been kept hidden from Congress there is little wonder that conscientious Congressmen have developed the blind staggers listening to the brass hats and Administration yes-men...
...there seems to be one inviolable creed: "See no facts...
...Many expressed the idea that the most efficient worker was the one who felt he worked of his free will...
...There is not a factory in this country which could not easily improve its utilization to this degree and this action could add the equivalent of 500,000 to 800,000 workers to the labor force...
...The West Coast, where the manpower problem is said to be most critical, the report says, is "now in ' the best condition it has been in since the situation became tight" and that voluntary controls "are working very efficiently...
...At least that seems to be their operational plan for pushing through legislation to regiment the American worker...
...hear no facts...
...No Need Found The WPB report declares that all persons interviewed—employers, workers, and local representatives of Government war agencies—"were outspoken in their objection, to national service...
...But fortunately Labor came into possession of them...
...Their reports, both of which establish the absolute lack of need for draft legislation, were pigeonholed...
...They were convinced that its introduction at this time would serve only to reduce war production...
...The result was a reduction of 15,000 employes "without impairing production...
...Congressmen genuinely concerned about manpower problems have been left staggering around in circles by the conflicting testimony among brass hats and Administration wheelhorses on the facts concerning manpower...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 14
