THE U.C.C. QUARTERLY
VOLUME I, NO. 4 SUMMER, 1943
PUBLISHED BY UWIVISSITY LIBRAE
ft
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION OF NORTH CAROLINA ^
Page 98 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
The U. C. C. Quarterly
Volume I ; Number 4 Summer, 1943
Issued four times a year at Raleigh, N. C, by the
unemployment compensation commission of
North Carolina
Commissioners: Judge C. E. Cowan, Morganton; C. A. Fink,
Spencer; Mrs. F. L. Fuller, Jr., Durham; R. Dave Hall,
Belmont; Hon. T. Clarence Stone, Stoneville; Dr. Harry D.
Wolf, Chapel Hill.
State Advisory Council: Capus Waynick, High Point, Chair-man;
Willard Dowell, Raleigh; Marion W. Heiss, Greens-boro;
H. L. Kiser, Charlotte; Dr. Thurman D. Kitchin, Wake
Forest; Robert F. Phillips, Asheville; Mrs. R. J. Reynolds.
Winston-Salem; Mrs. Emil Rosenthal, Goldsboro; W. Cedric
Stallings, Charlotte.
WILLIAM R. CURTIS Acting Chairman
R. FULLER MARTIN Director
MRS FRANCES TREADWELL HILL Editor
Regular Contributions in each issue from the
united States employment service for
North Carolina
MRS. GERTRUDE K. CLINTON Director
Cover illustrations represent typical North Carolina industries
under the unemployment compensation program. Cover for
Summer ISJf.i—The Launching of a Liberty Ship at Wil-mington.
Photograph by courtesy of the North Carolina
Shipbuilding Company, shows the launching of the U. S.
Nathaniel Greene, one of the first of the company's Liberty
Ships to slide down the ways. Shipbuilding has now become
one of the state's leading industries, and this yard is ranked
as one of the two most efficient producers of Liberty
freighters in the country.
Sent free and upon request to responsible individuals, agencies,
organizations and libraries. Address: U. C. C. Informational
Service, Raleigh, N. C.
CONTENTS Pw
Launchings 98
Why Should the Social Security Program Be
Expanded Now? 99
Social Insurance—The Beveridge Plan 100
Shipbuilding—The State's New Leading
Industry 105
Strategic Spodumene Developed 107
Notes on U. C. C. Operations 108
Keeping Accounts for More Than a Million Workers
Present Claim Loads Unusually Light
Tax Reductions for North Carolina Employers
Few Violators of U. C. C. Law Escape
Largest Fund Receipts From Five Counties
U. C. C. Makes Refund
Outlook for Post-War Unemployment in N. C —Big
Drain on Fund
Benefits To Be Restricted For Seasonal Workers
Commission's Policy With Respect to Referring
Partially Unemployed Claimants to Full-Time
•Work
Employment Service Offices for North Carolina 114
The Plan for Labor 115
What Are Essential Jobs? By B. C. McCracken 116
Whan Can Women Do? 118
Extended School Services For The Children of
Mothers Engaged in War Work 119
Labor Reserves—A Message to the Resource-ful
Employer, By Mrs. Anne T. Freeman 122
Help From Prisoners, By M. R. Dunnagan 124
Manning Tables and Replacement Schedules,
By Blanche Lancaster 126
LAUNCHINGS
(From Ships)
No more dramatic spectacle exists than the launch-ing
of a great ship; it is an event filled with color,
excitement, and suspense. Few modern rites, aside
from those of a religious origin, have a background
of 4,000 years—yet the ceremony of launching a ship
reaches that far back into recorded history.
Human sacrifice, the spilling of blood, incantations
by high priests, undoubtedly marked the first launch-ing
ceremonies. The gods, it was hoped, would be
propitiated by such rites. Later the Romans and
Greeks used water as a token of purification in the
impressive priestly blessing of the ship, its officers,
crew members, passengers, and cargo. In the Middle
Ages, religious shrines were placed aboard ship and
effigies were carved on the figureheads and the cere-monies
became entirely religious in character.
In Tudor days, the launching ceremony took place
after the ship was in the water. A King's lieutenant
would then appear, announced by a fitting fanfare of
trumpets. With great and solemn dignity he was
escorted to the vessel, seated in an ornate chair on
the poop and presented with a goblet made of preci-ous
metal and filled with red wine. The official would
sip critically of the wine, politely speak the name of
the new ship, wishing her good luck and godspeed.
Then he would spill a little of the red wine on the
freshly scoured deck, marking precisely the four
points of the compass. He would then drink to the
King's health. He next would dramatically toss the
goblet over the side and leave the ship.
Red wine was long identified with ship launchings.
At first the wine was not spilled on the vessel but
lifted in a good-luck toast as the ship slid down the
ways. When champagne became widely known, it
was substituted for wine, since it was more costly,
and, therefore, held in high esteem.
It's a five-hour job fully to dress a champagne
bottle that is going to attend a launching. The
bottle is fitted with a "tuxedo," which consists of
a 1-16 inch flexible mesh holding jacket; this pre-vents
the glass from flying in the face of the fair
feminine sponsor and the spectators. In addition the
bottle is securely fastened to a double, 60-foot red,
white, and blue bunting of grosgrain cloth, now get-ting
more difficult to secure. While the champagne
is splashed on the ship's prow, the dressed bottle is
saved and presented to the sponsor.
Soon after the United States entered the war, the
government ordered that there should be no more
launching ceremonies when ships built to further
the war effort hit the water. Since then, however,
the order has been modified. Men who have built
the ships feel that it is fitting that some formal
ceremony mark a launching. Today's launching
ceremonies are brief but impressive. While their
frequency is on the increase, a launching always
remains a thrilling and inspiring sight.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 99
AVERAGE NUMBER DAYS FROM LAUNCH-ING
TO DELIVERY OF VESSELS DELIVERED
DURING MARCH, 1943
North Carolina 7.5 Days
Oregon 9.3 Days
Richmond No. 2 11.3 Days
Richmond No. 1 12.9 Days
Houston 14.4 Days
Bethlehem-Fairfield ___.: 15.6 Days
California 16.3 Days
South Portland 17.0 Days
Kaiser-Vancouver 20.0 Days
Delta 20.6 Days
MEMORY CHAIRMAN
OF MERIT SYSTEM COUNCIL
Professor J. L. Memory, of Wake Forest College,
has been appointed chairman of the State Merit
System Council, succeeding Col. John W. Harrelson,
who is now in active Army service. Professor
Memory was already a member of the six-man board.
James B. Boyce, of Warrenton, was appointed to fill
the vacancy. His term expires April 8, 1945. Dr.
Paul McCain, of the State Sanatorium, was reap-pointed
for a term ending April 8, 1949.
FROM WAR TO WORK
The May 1943 issue of the Survey Graphic is a
special number containing a symposium on the sub-ject
of "From War to Work—How to Get Full Em-ployment
and Keep It Going." Don't miss it! The
various articles by national leaders and authorities
are most timely, and decidedly thought-provoking.
Post-war job security, and the issues to be consid-ered
in drawing our plans to get the results we want,
is the keynote of the issue.
Titles include the following: Man is a Working
Animal; O'Day and the Change Over; Earn, Spend,
and Develop More Work; So the Willing Shall Not
Want; Looking Ahead; Labor and Employment
Planning; Employment and Private Industry; The
Expectation of the Land; Women and Their Jobs;
Where's the Money Coming From? ; The Backlog of
Social Security; Connecting Men and Jobs; Four
Outlets for Investment; A World Worth Fighting
For; Down Under—And Up; New Frontiers
Abroad; World Cooperation Begins at Home.
"E" AWARD WINNER
Revolution, White Oak, Proximiity, and Proximi-ty
Print Works mills in the Greensboro area have
been given the Army-Navy "E" Award for excel-lence
in war production.
WHY SHOULD THE SOCIAL SECURITY
PROGRAM BE EXPANDED NOW?
Proponents of expansion now argue from two view-points.
The first is social, the second, economic.
They hold it important to the morale of our
fighters and workers that we not only maintain
essential civilian services during war but expand
those that implement our war aims.
"In a true sense," President Roosevelt said in his
1942 Budget Message, "there are no longer non-defense
expenditures. It is a part of our war effort
to maintain civilian services which are essential to
the basic needs of human life."
One of the United Nations' war aims, as voiced in
the Fifth Plank of the Atlantic Charter (August
1941) is "to bring about the fullest collaboration
between all nations in the economic field with the
object of securing for all improved labor standards,
economic advancement and social security."
President William Green of the A. F. of L. urges
immediate expansion of social security with these
words: (December 1942)
"Great sacrifices can be made for the sake of great
social gains. Our sacrifices will be more willingly
and freely made if the people can see their sacrifices
not only serving the urgent needs of war but guar-anteeing
greater social security after the peace. For
this reason the Toronto convention of the American
Federation of Labor made the enactment of a broad,
adequate, national social security system our para-mount
legislative objective."
President Philip Murray of the C. I. 0., (October
1, 1942), in a letter to Senator Wagner wrote:
"Social security is the one field where we should
bend every effort toward extending and broadening
the benefits which the workers would enjoy under
such a program. This is an essential part of the war
program."
That this feeling is general is shown by move-ments
throughout the free nations for more adequate
social security—Britain (The Beveridge Report re-action
and plans) ; Mexico (new "cradle-to-the-grave"
social security act) ; plans in Canada, Aus-tralia,
New Zealand, Central and South American
republics.
Chairman Arthur J. Altmeyer adds another argu-ment
for action now. This is, that now Congress
can plan a better system in an atmosphere of relative
calm deliberation, whereas after the war problems
of peace, demobilization, reconstruction and unem-ployment
will make careful planning difficult if not
impossible.
U. S. TOTALS
Benefits.—The Social Security Board reports a
continuous downward trend in unemployment com-pensation
benefit payments from January through
April for the whole country. Disbursements totaled
only $7.4 million in April, 31 percent below the
previous month's total.
Beneficiaries.—The average weekly number of
beneficiaries dropped 27.7 percent to a new low of
131,213 during April, marking the fourth successive
month in which the average has declined.
Page 100 "HE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
Social Insurance—The Beveridge Plan
Many people these days are thinking, and some of
them are writing, on the subject of post-war plan-ning.
There are few who fail to include in their
consideration mention of social security as one of
the prime post-war aims—an embracing form of
social security designed to minimize if not remove
the common hazards to humanity among a nation's
people—hazards that are inherent in the circum-stances
surrounding old age, earning power and
employment, health, and family welfare.
The general kinship of democratic governments
whether united in war or in peace, gives mutual
interest to the social controls of each. Consequently,
the Report by Sir William Henry Beveridge,
K. C. B., entitled "Social Insurance and Allied Serv-ices,"
which was submitted to Parliament in No-vember
1943 (Cmd. 6404), has been an object of
study by many groups in the United States. The
Beveridge Report is of course related to a present
system of social security which in many respects is
not a close parallel to that in operation in this coun-try,
and its budgetary estimates are reckoned in
pounds and shillings. However, the broad general
principles on which it is based deserve our pro-foundest
attention.
The Report is the result of a survey conducted by
the Inter-departmental Committee on Social In-surance
and Allied Services appointed in June 1941
expressly "to undertake, with special reference to
the inter-relation of the schemes, a survey of the
existing national schemes of social insurance and
allied services, including workmen's compensation
and to make recommendations," submitted by its
Chairman, Sir William Beveridge, on his own re-sponsibility.
Leaving to others debate on the merits of the
Beveridge proposals, let us briefly analyze and study
the contents of the Report as presented to Parlia-ment.
This is best done by using, for the most
part, the words of the Report itself as set forth in
the introduction and summaries.
THE REPORT
The Plan for social security takes as its aim the
abolition of want after this war, making want under
any circumstances unnecessary. It includes as its
main method compulsory social insurance, with
national assistance and voluntary insurance as sub-sidiary
methods, from the main conclusion to be
drawn from the survey: abolition of want requires
a double re-distribution of income, through social
insurance and by family needs.
In proceeding from the comprehensive survey of
existing social insurance to the task of making
recommendations, the Report lays down three guid-ing
principles
:
1. The first principle is that any proposals for the future,
while they should use to the full the experience
gathered in the past, should not be restricted by con-sideration
of sectional interests established in the
obtaining of that experience. Now, when the war is
abolishing landmarks of every kind, is the opportunity
for using experience in a clear field. A revolutionary
moment in the world's history is a time for revolu-tions,
not for patching.
2. The second principle is that organization of social
insurance should be treated as one part only of a
comprehensive policy of social progress. Social in-surance
fully developed may provide income security;
it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of
five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some
ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease,
Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.
3. The third principle is that social security must be
achieved by cooperation between the State and the
individual. The State should offer security for service
and contribution. The State in organizing security
should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility;
in establishing a national minimum, it should leave
room and encouragement for voluntary action by each
individual to provide more than that minimum for
himself and his family.
The Plan built on these principles is first and fore-most
a plan of insurance—of giving in return for
contributions benefits up to subsistence level, as of
right and without means test, so that individuals
may build freely upon it. The Committee found from
its examination of all surveys and of existing con-ditions
and services that want was due primarily to
interruption or loss of earning power, and secondly
to failure to relate income during earning to the size
of the family. Abolition of want, the aim of the
plan for social security, requires a double redistri-bution
of income, through social insurance and by
family needs, that is first, improvement of State
insurance so that subsistence might be guaranteed
to all, and second, adjustment of incomes to family
needs by making allowances for children. The Plan
assumes also establishment of comprehensive health
and rehabilitation services and maintenance of em-ployment.
These three assumptions fall partly
within and partly without the Plan itself.
The Plan is based on a diagnosis of want. It
starts from facts, from the condition of the people as
revealed by social surveys, and it takes into account
population trends as to birth and death rates. The
provision to be made for old age represents the
largest and most rapidly growing element in any
social insurance scheme.
The main feature of the Plan for Social Security
is a scheme of social insurance against interruption
and destruction of earning power and for special ex-penditure
arising at birth, marriage, or death. It
embodies six fundamental principles: flat rate of
subsistence benefit; flat rate of contribution; unifi-cation
of administrative responsibility; adequacy of
benefit ; comprehensiveness ; and classification.
The plan covers all citizens without upper income
limit, but has regard to their different ways of life;
it is a plan all-embracing in scope of persons and of
needs, but is classified in application. For purposes
of social security, the population would be divided
into six groups as follows
:
1. Employees, that is, persons whose normal occupation
is employment under contract of service.
2. Others gainfully occupied, including employers,
traders, and independent workers of all kinds.
3. Housewives, that is, married women of working age.
4. Others of working age not gainfully occupied.
5. Children below working age.
6. Those retired above working age.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 101
The sixth of these classes will receive retirement
pensions and the fifth will be covered by children's
allowances, which will be paid from the National
Exchequer in respect of all children when the respon-sible
parent is in receipt of insurance benefit or
pension, and in respect of all children except one in
other cases. The four other classes will be insured
for security appropriate to their circumstances. All
classes will be covered for comprehensive medical
treatment and rehabilitation and for funeral ex-penses.
Every person in Class I, II, or IV will pay a single
security contribution by a stamp on a single in-surance
document each week or combination of
weeks. In Class I the employer also will contribute,
affixing the insurance stamp and deducting the em-ployee's
share from wages or salary. The contri-bution
will differ from one class to another, according
to the benefits provided, and will be higher for men
than for women, so as to secure benefits for Class
III.
Subject to simple contribution conditions, every
person in Class I will receive benefit for unemploy-ment
and disability, pension on retirement, medical
treatment and funeral expenses. Persons in Class II
will receive all these except unemployment benefit
and disability benefit during the first 13 weeks of
disability. Persons in Class IV will receive all these
except unemployment and disability benefit. As a
substitute for unemployment benefit, training benefit
will be available to persons in all classes other than
Class I to assise them to find new livelihoods if their
present ones fail. Maternity grant, provision for
widowhood and separation and qualification for re-tirement
pensions will be secured to all persons in
Class III by virtue of their husbands' contributions
;
in addition to maternity grant, housewives who take
paid work will receive maternity benefit for thirteen
weeks to enable them to give up working before and
after childbirth.
Unemployment benefit, disability benefit, basic re-tirement
pension after a transition period, and
training benefit will be at the same rate, irrespective
of previous earnings. This rate will provide by it-self
the income necessary for subsistence in all
normal cases. There will be a joint rate for a man
and wife who is not gainfully occupied. Where there
is no wife or she is gainfully occupied, there will be
a lower single rate ; where there is no wife but a
dependent above the age for children's allowance,
there will be a dependent allowance. Maternity
benefit for housewives who work also for gain will be
at a higher rate than the single rate in unemploy-ment
or disability, while their unemployment and
disability benefit will be at a lower rate; there are
special rates also for widowhood as described below.
With these exceptions all rates of benefit will be the
same for men and for women. Disability due to in-dustrial
accident or disease will be treated like all
other disability for the first thirteen weeks, if
disability continues thereafter, disability benefit at
a flat rate will be replaced by an industrial pension
related to the earnings of the individual subject to
a minimum and a maximum.
Unemployment benefit will continue at the same
rate without means test so long as unemployment
lasts, but will normally be subject to a condition of
attendance at a work or training center after a
certain period. Disability benefit will continue at the
same rate without means test, so long as disability
lasts or till it is replaced by industrial pension, sub-ject
to acceptance of suitable medical treatment or
vocational training.
Pensions (other than industrial) will be paid only
on retirement from work. They may be claimed at
any time after the minimum age of retirement, that
is 65 for men and 60 for women. The rate of pension
will be increased above the basic rate if retirement
is postponed. Contributory pensions as of right will
be raised to the full basic rate gradually during a
transition period of twenty years, in which adequate
pensions according to needs will be paid to all per-sons
requiring them. The position of existing
pensioners will be safeguarded.
While permanent pensions will no longer be
granted to widows of working age without dependent
children, there will be for all widows a temporary
benefit at a higher rate than unemployment or
disability benefit, followed by training benefit where
necessary. For widows with the care of dependent
children there will be guardian benefit, in addition to
the children's allowance, adequate for subsistence
without other means. The position of existing
widows on pension will be safeguarded.
For the limited number of cases of need not
covered by social insurance, national assistance sub-ject
to a uniform means test will be available.
Medical treatment covering all requirements will
be provided for all citizens by a national health
service organized under the health departments and
post-medical rehabilitation treatment will be pro-vided
for all persons capable of profiting by it.
A Ministry of Social Security will be established,
responsible for social insurance, national assistance
and encouragement and supervision of voluntary in-<
surance and will take over, so far as necessary for
these purposes the present work of other Govern-ment
Departments and of Local Authorities in these
fields.
Every citizen of working age will contribute in his
appropriate class according to the security that he
needs, or as a married woman will have contributions
made by the husband. Each will be covered for all
his needs by a single weekly contribution on one in-surance
document. All the principal cash payments
—for unemployment, disability, and retirement will
continue so long as the need lasts, without means
test, and will be paid from a Social Insurance Fund
built up by contributions from the insured persons,
from their employers, if any, and from the State.
This is in accord with two views as to the lines on
which income maintenance should be approached.
The first view is that benefit in return for contri-butions,
rather than free allowances, is what the
people desire, as shown both by the popularity of
compulsory insurance, and by the phenomenal
growth of voluntary insurance, as well as by the
strong popular objection to any kind of means test.
Page 102 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
The second view is that whatever money is required
for insurance benefits should come from a fund to
which the recipients have contributed. The plan
adopted in regard to prolonged unemployment and
sometimes suggested for prolonged disability, that
the State should take this burden off insurance, in
order to keep the contribution down, is wrong in
principle. The insured persons should not feel that
income for idleness, however caused, can come from
a bottomless purse. The Government should not
feel that by paying doles it can avoid the major
responsibility of seeing that unemployment and
disease are reduced to a minimum. The place for
direct expenditure and organization by the State is
in maintaining employment of the labor and other
productive resources of the country, and in prevent-ing
and combating disease, not in patching an in-complete
scheme of insurance.
The State cannot be excluded altogether from
giving direct assistance to individuals in need in
relation to means, since some, through physical in-firmity,
can never contribute at all and some will fall
through the meshes of any insurance.
The scheme is described as a scheme of insurance,
because it preserves the contributory principle. It
is described as social insurance to mark important
distinctions from voluntary insurance. While ad-justment
of premium to risk is of the essence of
voluntary insurance, this adjustment is not essential
in insurance which is made compulsory by the power
of the state. And in providing for actuarial risks
such as those of death, old age, or sickness, the state,
with its power of compelling successive generations
of citizens to become insured and its power of taxa-tion,
is not under the necessity of accumulating
reserves.
In the thirty years since state insurance began in
Britain, there has been an unmistakable movement
of public opinion away from the principle of adjust-ing
premiums to risks in compulsory insurance and
in favor of pooling risks. This change has been most
marked and more nearly complete in regard to un-employment,
where, in the general scheme, insurance
by industry, in place of covering a large part of the
field, has been reduced to historical exceptions
;
today the common argument is that the volume of
unemployment in an industry is not to any effective
extent within its control; that all industries depend
upon one another, and that those which are fortunate
in being regular should share the cost of unemploy-ment
in those which are less regular. The same
tendency of opinion in favor of pooling of social
risks has shown itself in the views expressed by the
great majority of witnesses to the Committee in
regard to health insurance. After trial of a different
principle, it has been found to accord best with the
sentiments of the people that in insurance organized
by the community by use of compulsory powers each
individual should stand in on the same terms; none
should claim to pay less because he is healthier or
has more regular employment. Hence the term
"social insurance" to describe the proposals of the
Report, implies both that it is compulsory and that
men stand together with their fellows.
With regard to rates of benefit and contribution,
the Beveridge Report states that social insurance
should aim at guaranteeing the minimum income
needed for subsistence, but that actual rates in terms
of money cannot be settled now for the reason that it
is impossible today to forecast the level of prices
after the war and that determination of what is
required for reasonable human subsistence is to some
extent a matter of judgment—estimates on this
point change with time and generally, in a pro-gressive
community, change upwards. Provisional
rates and provisional budgets are, however, set out in
the Report in detail. The procedure adopted in
arriving at the provisional rates was first a determi-nation
as to weekly incomes which would have been
sufficient for subsistence in normal cases at prices
ruling in 1938; and deriving from them an appro-priate
cost of living about 25% above that of 1938.
But the provisional rates themselves are not essen-tial,
since the whole level could be raised, though less
easily lowered, without affecting the structure of the
scheme.
The most important of the provisional rates is that
of 40/ (about $8.00) a week for a man and wife in
unemployment and disability and after the transition
period as retirement pension, in addition to allow-ances
for children at an average of 8/ (about $1.60)
apiece per week. Such amounts represent a large
addition to existing benefits.
Altogether the financing of the Beveridge Plan
would require increased contributions from all
sources. The relationship of these under the existing
system and under the proposed plan, including not
only the insurance benefits, but also health services,
national assistance, and children's allowance, is most
readily understood from the following table
:
SOCIAL SECURITY BUDGET—COMPARATIVE ESTIMATED
INCOME REQUIRED FOR EXPENDITURES
Under Present
Under Beveridge Social Security Plan
System
1945 1955 1965
£
Mills
%of
Total
£
Mills
%of
Total
£
Mills
%of
Total
£
Mills
%of
Total
Contributions from Insured
Persons
Employers, including Industrial
Disability levy on employers
69
83
15
265
16
19
4
61
194
137
15
351
28
20
2
50
196
135
15
418
25
18
2
55
192
132
15
519
22
15
2
Balance to be met from Exchequer.. 60
Total 432 100 697 100 764 100 858 100
It is seen at once that the most important source
of income to meet expenditures under the Plan is the
contributions from the insured persons themselves —chiefly from adult men in employment. The
balance would be provided by the employers' contri-butions
and by taxation based on capacity to pay.
The attempt to fix rates of insurance benefit and
pension on a scientific basis with regard to sub-sistence
needs encountered a serious difficulty in the
widely varying scales of rent in different parts of
the country. The Report devotes a whole section to
a discussion of the rent problem. But subject to
such problems and unavoidable difficulties, the
scheme for social insurance outlined in the Report is
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 103
designed to provide insurance benefit adequate to all
normal needs, both in duration and in amount. "It
is at the same time a scheme from which the
anomalies and overlapping, the multiplicity of agen-cies
and the needless administrative cost which mark
the British Social Services today, have been removed
and have been replaced by coordination, simplicity,
and economy."
In place of the present system of social security in
Great Britain, which consists of the following:
A. A national system of unemployment insurance ad-ministered
by the Ministry of Labor.
B. A health insurance plan with medical services limited
to the wage earner and limited to the medical
services of the general practitioner, administered by
the Ministry of Health through Approved Societies
with respect to cash benefits and County Insurance
Committees for medical benefits.
C. Old-age, widows and orphans insurance administered
by the Ministry of Health with payments made
through the Post Office.
D. Non-contributory old-age and blind pensions, ad-ministered
by the Commissioners of Customs and
Excise through the Post Office.
E. National assistance to needy individuals, adminis-tered
by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise
through the Post Office.
F. Workmen's accident compensation, administered by
the Home Office.
Report recommends the following specific
changes
:
1. Unification of social insurance contributions by en-abling
each insured person to obtain all benefits by a
single weekly contribution.
2. Unification of social insurance and assistance by
establishing a Ministry of Social Security with local
offices within reach of all persons.
3. Reorganization of the present system of Approved
Societies (which provide cash sickness benefits) by
limiting such societies to disbursing cash benefits as
the agent of the Ministry of Social Security and to
providing voluntary insurances to supplement the
social security benefits.
4. Reorganization of the present system of workmen's
accident compensation by including it in the unified
social insurance system.
5. Establishment of a comprehensive medical care
service for every citizen.
6. Provision to all women of a marriage grant ($40),
maternity grant ($16), widows benefit ($7.20 week
for first 13 weeks, and $4.80 week thereafter if the
widow has a child in her care), retirement benefit
($2.80 week if single), unemployment or disability
benefit ($3.20 week), and if gainfully occupied, a
special maternity benefit ($7.20 per week for 13
weeks in addition to the maternity grant )
.
7. Extension of insurance against prolonged disability
to all persons gainfully occupied and of insurance for
retirement pensions to all persons of working age,
whether gainfully occupied or not.
8. Provision for an unemployment training benefit to all
persons (workers, self-employed, housewives) for 26
weeks in order to encourage persons who lost their
former livelihood to obtain reemployment.
9. Provision for uniformity of weekly benefit payments
for unemployment, disability, and retirement.
10. Provision for making a uniform waiting period for
unemployment and disability of three days, which will
be compensated for if unemployment or disability lasts
4 weeks or longer.
11. Simplification and unification of the eligibility condi-tions
for social security benefits.
12. Making unemployment insurance benefits payable at
$8 week for a man and wife, or $4.80 for a single man
or woman, for an unlimited period, subject to the re-quirement
of attendance at a work or training center
after a limited period of unemployment.
13. Making the disability benefit payable (at the same
rate as unemployment insurance) for an unlimited
period.
14. Making old-age benefits conditional on retirement
from work at a basic rate of $5 a week for man and
wife (increasing every two years until it reaches $8
by 1965), and $2.80 a week for a single individual
reaching $4.80 by 1965), these basic rates to be sup-plemented
by 20 cents a year for each year an indi-vidual
postpones his retirement after age 6 5 for men
and 60 for women.
15. Amalgamation of the special unemployment insurance
systems for agriculture, banking, and insurance with-in
the general scheme of social insurance.
16. Abolition of the present exemptions from insurance
such as public employees, and persons with incomes
over $1680 a year.
17. Replacement of unconditional inadequate widows
benefits by provisions suited to the varied needs of
widows, including temporary widows' benefits, train-ing
benefit when required, and a guardian benefit so
long as there are dependent children.
18. Inclusion of a universal funeral grant in compulsory
insurance of $80 for an adult, $60 for persons age
10-20; $40 for children age 3-9, and $24 for children
under age 3.
19. Transfer to the Ministry of Social Security of the
remaining functions of Local Authorities with respect
to public assistance, other than treatment and services
of an institutional character.
20. Transfer to the Ministry of Social Security of responsi-bility
for the maintenance of blind persons.
21. Transfer to the Ministry of Social Security all func-tions
of collecting contributions and the payment of
benefits.
22. Substitution for the present Unemployment Insurance
Statutory Committee of a Social Insurance Statutory
Committee with similar but extended powers.
23. Conversion of the industrial (life and burial) in-surance
into a public service under an industrial
Assurance Board.
The Report contains a full discussion of all its
proposals, as well as of the underlying principles and
assumptions. The burden of the last two sections of
argument on abolition of want as a practical post-war
aim and planning for peace in war may be stated
briefly.
Abolition of want cannot be brought about merely
by increasing production, without seeking to correct
distribution of the product; but correct distribution
does not mean what it has often been taken to mean
in the past—distribution between the different
agents in production, between land, capital, manage-ment,
and labor. Better distribution of purchasing
power is required among wage-earners themselves,
as between times of earning and not earning, and be-tween
times of heavy family responsibilities and of
light or no family responsibilities. Both actual
insurance and children's allowances are primarily
methods of redistributing wealth. Such better dis-tribution
cannot fail to add to welfare and, properly
designed, it can increase wealth, by maintaining
physical vigor. It does not decrease wealth, unless
it involves waste in administration or reduces in-centives
to production. Unemployment and disability
are already being paid for unconsciously; it is no
addition to the burden on the community to provide
for them consciously. Unified social insurance will
eliminate a good deal of waste inherent in present
methods. It need have no depressing effect on
incentive.
In seeking security and in showing that it can be
combined with freedom and enterprise and responsi-bility
of the individual for his own life, the British
Page 104 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
community and those who in other lands have in-herited
the British tradition have a vital service to
render human progress.
Three facts are inalterable: that the purpose of
victory is to live in a better world than the old
world ; that each individual citizen is more likely to
concentrate upon his war effort if he feels that his
Government will be ready in time with plans for that
better world ; that, if these plans are to be ready in
time, they must be made now.
"Statement of a reconstruction policy by a nation"
at war is statement of the uses to which that nation
means to put victory. In a war which many nations
must wage together as whole-hearted allies, if they
are to win victory, such a statement of the uses of
victory may be vital. The proposals of this Report
are designed as a practical contribution toward
translating the words of the Atlantic Charter—"to
bring about the fullest collaboration between all
nations in the economic field, with the object of
securing for all improved labor standards, economic
advancement, and social security."—into deeds.
"If the united democracies today can show
strength and courage and imagination equal to their
manifest desire, can plan for a better peace even
while waging total war, they will win together two
victories which is truth are indivisible. [but]
Freedom from want cannot be forced on a democracy
or given to a democracy. It must be won by them."
THE AUTHOR
An examination of the 299 pages of the Beveridge
Report is an experience in itself. One cannot read
them without being tremendously impressed by the
ability, the beliefs, and the personality of the author.
One's admiration is immediately fired by the tangible
expression of an unusually broad intelligence—the
logical development of ideas shaped with a fine sense
of organization. The force of mind and the idealism
of the author are part and parcel of the fabric of the
text, and one immediately wants to know more about
him. What manner of man is this whom the British
Government designated to draft a blueprint for re-construction
as chairman of its inter-departmental
Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services?
Who's Who reveals that he is both a lawyer and
an economist, born in India, educated at Oxford,
unmarried, and at the age of 40, in 1919, knighted by
the Crown after distinguished public service as
Secretary for the Food Ministry at the close of the
last war. He has been Master of University College,
Oxford, since 1937, following sixteen years as
Director of the London School of Economics and
Political Science. Versatility is apparent from two
early years as leader writer for the Morning Post
and such publications as an "Anthology of Thoughts
on Women" and "Swish," a submarine game. But
the record of his government assignments and writ-ings
is primarily evidence of a lifetime devoted to
study and packed with administrative experience in
the field of labor problems, unemployment, and social
welfare. He was a Member of the Central (Unem-ployed)
Body for London, 1905-8, First Chairman of
the Employment Exchanges Committee in the Board
of Trade, Director of Labor Exchanges, 1909-16,
then Assistant Secretary of the Employment Depart-ment,
General Secretary of the Ministry of Muni-tions,
1915-16, Second and later Permanent Secretary
of the Ministry of Food, 1916-19, served on the Royal
Commission on the Coal Industry in 1925, and has
been Chairman of the Unemployment Insurance
Statutory Committee since 1934. Beveridge books
include "Unemployment: A problem of Industry"
(1909), "The Public Service in War and in Peace"
(1920), "Insurance for All" (1924), "British Food
Control" (1929), "Causes and Cures of Unemploy-ment"
(1931), "Changes in Family Life" (1932),
"Planning under Socialism" (1936), and (with
others) "Prices and Wages in England" (1939).
A personal sidelight on Sir William and his con-victions
comes from Mr. Merton Emerson, our Social
Security Referee for the states in Region IV, who
was a passenger companion of Sir William's on an
Atlantic crossing in 1929. According to Mr. Emer-son,
it was a rough, slow passage, but the author of
the Beveridge Report was a good sailor and missed
no meals. He was also a delightful companion and
many "bull" sessions were held in the smoking
saloon discussing the relative economic situations' of
Britain and America. He repeatedly stressed the
point that wealth is created only by doing work
—
also that he felt that in America the working week
is comparatively too short and wages too high—and
that this disparity could not be sustained under
world economic conditions. He made the particular
point, as Mr. Emerson recalls, that America could
not stand alone ; and since it is more difficult from a
practical viewpoint to bring the rest of the world up
to America's standards, America was bound to revise
hers to reach ultimate economic world stability.
SHIPYARDS REDUCE ACCIDENTS
The first quarter of this year has shown a decrease
in the frequency of accidents in shipyards holding
Maritime Commission contracts, according to a
recent survey made by the Commission. Measured
by the number of lost-time injuries per 500 men per
year, the accident frequency rate dropped to 31.4 in
March, completing a decrease of 5.4 below the
national average for 1942.
The survey was made in connection with the Mini-mum
Requirements for Safety and Industrial Health
program sponsored by the Commission and the Navy
Department, since the effectiveness of various safety
programs can be compared by the use of the accident
frequency rate. The program aims at eliminating
many of the current shipyard hazards.
Eye injuries, the survey shows, constitute the
greatest single hazard among disabling injuries in
the yards of the South Atlantic area, where they
amount to 26 percent of all cases. Only a few of
these are sufficiently serious to result in a great deal
of lost time and physical discomfort.
Eye flash from welding operations accounts for
almost half of the disabling eye cases. The term eye
flash is used to describe the painful injury to the eye
resulting from exposure to the welding arc. As in
(Continued on Page 107)
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 105
Shipbuilding—The State's New Leading Industry
In scarcely more than two short years, North
Carolina shipbuilding has grown from a handful of
relatively small yards making chiefly fishing boats
and pleasure craft to one of the state's leading
industries, employing 25,000 workers and breaking
many of the country's production records. As a
leading state industry, shipbuilding now ranks in
payroll importance with finished tobacco products,
logging and sawmilling, and the manufacture of
wooden furniture. It is turning out a variety of
ships for the war effort—EC-2 cargo ships, Liberty
ships, P. T. boats, sub-chasers, mine sweepers, net
tenders, salvage vessels and oil barges—as part of
the great program of building the "bridge of ships."
At the turn of the century, several of our coastal
towns were familiar with the construction of small
sailing craft, chiefly "sharpies." With the develop-ment
of the gasoline engine as a marine motor, they
began to turn out small power boats, such as the
menhaden shad boats, as well as a limited number
of small yachts. During the first World War, ship-building
facilities were expanded, especially around
Wilmington, New Bern, and Morehead City, to meet
the nation's demand for increased production at that
time. Now history is not only repeating but sur-passing
itself with the present boom in shipbuilding
activities along the North Carolina coast.
The story is primarily that of the state's largest
yard, the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company at
Wilmington, which is ranked as one of the two most
efficient producers of Liberty freighters in the coun-try.
Quoting from the May 1, 1943 issue of the
company's sheet, the N. C. Shipbuilder, let us briefly
review the history of this yard, formerly nothing
more than a barren stretch of cypress swamps and
flats along the eastern bank of the Cape Fear River,
but today the state's second largest single industrial
enterprise, in terms of employment.
It began on February 4, 1941, when the ground
was broken by a merged group of contractors, V. P.
Loftis company, of Charlotte, and Orrell and Under-wood,
of Wilmington for a six-way $5,140,010 pro-ject.
That date marked the return of shipbuilding to
Wilmington after an absence dating back to the close
of World War I. It was during the days of that
conflict that Homer L. Ferguson, now president of
the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry-Dock Com-pany
and chairman of the North Carolina Company,
toured the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in behalf of the
United States Shipping Board in search for ship-yard
sites.
After this trip, with reference to Wilmington, he
reported to the board "in my judgment it is the best
place on the South Atlantic coast to build an addi-tional
shipyard." As a direct or indirect result of
this report, this city has twice been selected as the
site for shipbuilding.
The early work of the contractors included the
filling in of the area and the dredging of adjoining
areas in the river. One building was erected to
house the contractors and another was built for the
Plant Engineers department. Roads were built,
railroad tracks laid, thousands of blueprints drawn
and redrawn and more buildings and cranes erected
as the sandy land grew quickly and steadily into the
rudiments of a shipyard.
Meantime, many skilled workers were borrowed
or transferred from the parent company at Newport
News and arrived to aid in supervision of construc-tion
and train new workers.
On March 18, 1941, the U. S. Maritime Commission
announced that the first contract in the President's
"bridge of ships" program had been awarded to the
North Carolina Company for 25 ships at an esti-mated
base cost of $37,500,000.
The first keel was laid on May 22 as the thrilled
eyes of a small group of officials and employees
watched the giant arm of the crane deposit the steel
plate in a "perfect landing." On December 6—just
a few hours before the Japanese sneak-attack on
Pearl Harbor—the first vessel slid down the ways.
During this time, the company received a contract
for 12 additional vessels, making 37 in all. This
meant that the original yard of six ways and two
piers had to be expanded to one of nine ways and
three piers. When the Maritime Commission award-ed
the third contract for 53 more ships in January
of 1942, it became necessary to buy more land for
the additional personnel and buildings and storage
space needed. This addition to the yard is used
mainly for storage and fabricating facilities.
During the two years and three months of its life,
the yard has grown to be one of the leaders in the
country in the production of Liberty ships for the
Victory fleet, now ploughing every ocean lane to
keep supplies moving to the widespread battlefronts
of the United Nations. Its good record in the speed
and quality of vessels constructed was soon recog-nized
by the Maritime Commission and on August
30, 1942, it was awarded the "M" pennant for out-standing
achievement. Since that time it has
reached greater and faster production, with the
result that six Gold stars have been placed on the
banner's blue field.
It has reduced the time of construction from 249
days for the first nine vessels to about 37 for the last
nine of the contracts. Monthly deliveries to the
Maritime Commission have climbed steadily from the
one vessel, which required 241 days to complete, in
February of 1942 to eleven in May of this year. Here
is the record for the 16 months: February 1942, one;
March, two; April, three; May, four; June, five;
July, five ; August, four ; September, five ; October,
six ; November, seven ; December, nine ; January
1943, nine; February, nine; March, ten; April, ten;
and May, eleven.
It was in February of this year that the yard set
its record for fastest ship production, delivering the
Edward B. Dudley, hull No. 67, after 35 days from
keel laying.
As the company has expanded, new employees
Page 106 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
have swelled the forces engaged in the construction
of ships from 6,000 to more than 20,000—a more
than triple gain indicative of all the achievements it
had made during its brief but extremely busy and
productive life. Plant facilities have grown tre-mendously
during the past two years with the com-pletion
of the North yard, where prefabricating and
other shops have been erected. A new mold loft and
additional storage facilities have been built and
many improvements in original facilities have been
effected.
The tremendous amount of employment and re-sultant
payroll—it amounted to over $32,000,000 last
year—has been the greatest single factor in the im-provement
of Wilmington's business conditions dur-ing
the past two years.
Having completed its first three contracts for 90
Liberty ships, the yard is now continuing their pro-duction
and going ahead with further construction
of C-2 type cargo vessels on a program calling for a
total of 67 such ships. These are bigger than the
Liberty ships and more expensive. In April the
North Carolina Shipbuilding Company delivered the
greatest number of ships from any Southern yard,
when it turned over ten ships to the Government.
Other types of vessels needed in the war effort are
being constructed elsewhere along the coast. The
Barbour Boat Works, located at New Bern, keeps
about 1.000 workers more than busy with a program
of building mine-sweepers, net tenders, and salvage
vessels.
The Elizabeth City Shipyard has around 600
workers engaged in turning out sub-chasers.
The Manteo Shipbuilding Company, with 200 em-ployees,
is at work on small sub-chasers, or P-T
boats.
At Washington, there is a new development in
progress at the Pamlico Shipyard, as a subsidiary of
the Elizabeth City Shipyard. On the advice of Em-
This giant ship propellor which will grace an American fight-ing
ship is receiving a pneumatic chipping operation from a
Negro worker in a large navy yard on the Atlantic coast.
Photo by Liberman, Office of War Information.
David L. Zimbough, age 70, came out of retirement to operate
a lathe to make parts for mine-sweepers in an eastern ship-yard.
He returned his last social security check, declaring the
money he made helping win the war was enough for him.
Photo by Hollem, Office of War Information.
ployment Service officials to federal authorities after
a survey as to available workers and housing facili-ties,
the Washington site was. selected as the best
location for construction of a new yard to make
wooden barges, to be tug-drawn, for transporting oil
from Texas via the inland waterway system. Em-ployment
on this project is expected to be around
1,000. Plans are also being drawn for two or more
other yards along the coast, to make additional steel
barges for the same purpose.
A report for May states that in just a little more
than six weeks after the Pamlico Shipyard was
opened the Gahagen Construction Company launched
the first of 30 wooden oil barges under a $2,000,000
contract from the U. S. Maritime Commission. The
yard has eight ways, and it is expected that specially
trained workmen will soon reduce the building time
to 28 days for each barge. The barges are being
built of Douglas fir, because of that timber's low
moisture content. They are 170 by 34 feet, with a
10V1> f°°t draft, and a carrying capacity of 6,000
barrels of crude oil—or approximately that of 25
tank cars.
Altogether, the shipbuilding industry in North
Carolina in the last six months has increased its em-ployment
by 30 percent, and has probably just about
reached a maximum with present operations. How-ever,
it will shortly be further expanded when the
contemplated construction of large drydocks on the
northeast branch of the Cape Fear River at Wilming-ton
gets under way.
•
The first Liberty ship built in North Carolina
—
the S. S. Zebulon B. Vance—still is in service today
with a battle-scarred record that includes more than
35,000 miles of travel through waters of the Euro-pean
and African seafronts. Her crowded career is
highlighted with participation in the invasion of
Africa.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 107
Strategic Spodumene Developed—Rings Mountain Mineral
Also Important For Peacetime Uses
Buried for aeons in Cleveland County's immense
rocks, spodumene and other minerals are now being
forced forth from these rocks to aid our Army and
Navy. Spodumene's most important ingredient,
lithium, and its salts are used in alloys, in aluminum
welding, and in several ways important to the uses
of war. Its peacetime functions are just as im-portant.
From it can be made metallic lithium, a
metal so light—atomic weight, 6.940, while that of
water is 18—that it can easily float. Lithium is No.
3 in the list of 96 chemical elements. It can be used
as an agent in the glazing of china.
So great are its uses that the corporation, The
Solvay Process Company, which has other kinds of
plants in Syracuse, N. Y., Detroit, Mich., Baton
Rouge, La., and Hopewell, Va., spent large sums of
money in Cleveland County developing the only pro-cessing
plant of its kind in the world. This company
came after spodumene, but it will make extensive
use of the other minerals which it recovers in the
milling process, mainly tin, feldspar, and mica.
The Solvay plant at Kings Mountain is not the
only plant which recovers spodumene. But no other
development using this kind of processing has been
achieved upon any other mining property in any-thing
like such an extensive way. Deposits of
spodumene exist along several places on the Atlan-tic
coast, notably in Maine, as well as in the Black
Hills of South Dakota. But the deposit in Cleveland
County is one of the largest and has the richest con-tent
of minerals.
Claims have been worked on this property, mainly
for tin, since the year 1880. Several old mining
shafts can still be seen. For the past several years
Mr. L. M. Williams, of Charlotte, has been carrying
on an operation there, handpicking out the spodu-mene,
in a slow and expensive process. It was some
time last year that he leased the mineral rights on
about 400 acres of land to the Solvay Company,
which made preparations for immediate operations.
The new milling plant was put under construction
on the first of last November, contract being let to
the Lee Construction Company of Charlotte, which
seven months later, turned the completed plant
over to the Solvay Company. This construction
company saw the installation of the plant equipment
under the direction of its construction superintend-ent,
Mr. W. W. Tolleson. He had never built a plant
like this one before. There is no other like it in the
United States. All he had to go on was timber, steel,
a mass of machinery, and about 150 sets of blue-prints
; but he did it, and he himself admits, it's a
good job. Operated in connection with the milling
plant is a laboratory for testing and analysis of ore
and product. It is equipped with precision devices,
one set of scales weighing accurately down to a
tenth of a milligram.
First of all Solvay Company had to get the rock
out of the earth. This extraction of rock is done for
Solvay by its neighbor the Superior Stone Company,
which mines the rock under contract and gives it a
primary crushing at its plant. The ore is delivered
to the Solvay plant by the truck load in about one-half
inch size. It is then given a thorough crushing,
which brings the stone down to the size of fine sand.
It is then given several washings and the impurities
allowed to float away. Next it is sent into condi-tioners
where chemical reagents are added. From
here the wet pulp is moved into flotation cells where
the feldspar and mica settle to the bottom and the
spodumene floats off the top in a substance which
looks much like soapsuds. The water bearing the
spodumene is then put through filter wheels and
from there it goes through the dryer to the stock
pile, whence it is shipped by either the Southern or
the" Seaboard to wherever it is needed in industrial
enterprises. The water has to be pumped from a
nearby creek, specially softened, and piped. It was
necessary to build extensive pipe lines to route this
water. It was also necessary to build several miles
of highway, usable by the heavy trucks which must
haul the ore and the finished product.
The Solvay plant will mill over 100 tons of ore per
day, shipping out several carloads of spodumene per
week, but there is sufficient ore on its holdings to last
for a hundred years or more. This belt of spodumene
ore is estimated to be around 25 miles long and from
one-half to three miles wide. It has been known to
exist for some time, due to the tin prospecting that
has gone on here for more than 60 years and also to
the activities of the North Carolina Geological Sur-vey,
the United States Geological Survey, and the
United States Bureau of Mines in this vicinity. The
general superintendent of operations is P. M. Le-
Baron, who, prior to his connection with the Solvay
Company, was with the United States Geological
Survey and the American Zinc Company. The mill
superintendent is Joseph H. Weiss, now living in
Shelby.
People in general, then, knew—in general—about
the spodumene, but it remained for the Solvay Com-pany
to develop the practical way of recovering it in
commercial quantities.
SHIPYARDS REDUCE ACCIDENTS
(Continued from Page 104)
the case of skin sunburn, the ultra-violet rays and
not the light or glare of the arc, burn the delicate
tissues of the eye. The victim is seldom aware of
the injury until some hours after exposure. The rays
do not penetrate the lens of the eye or permanently
injure its deeper structure, and the use of proper
protective equipment issued to all shipyard workers,
prevents injury and consequent lost time from the
job. The fact that many flashes reported by yards
are experienced by workers other than welders,
particularly shipfitters, emphasizes the importance
of consistent use of eye protection by all shipyard
workers.
Page 108 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
Notes On U. C. C. Operations
KEEPING ACCOUNTS FOR
MORE THAN A MILLION WORKERS
For each and every worker who at some time es-tablishes
wage credits toward job insurance, and for
whom, in effect, his employer his paid a premium on
an unemployment compensation policy, the Unem-ployment
Compensation Commission of North Caro-lina
maintains an individual record. As its six years
of operation have progressed, the number of these
worker accounts has reached gigantic proportions.
Today the Commission has in its files wage reports
for well over a million people in 1942 alone.
As covered employers report to the Commission on
the earnings of their workers, wage credit slips for
each employee are carefully sorted and filed accord-ing
to that worker's social security account number.
For purposes of setting up the file, the Commission
receives regularly from the Social Security Board a
list of all employee account numbers established in
North Carolina under the old age and survivors in-surance
program.
With some 725,680 social security numbers to start
with, many new ones have been added. The increase
in the number of these employee accounts has been
most noticeable in the last two and a half years.
Some 208,066 new social security accounts were es-tablished
in this state in 1941 and about 180,402
more in 1942; the total on January 1, 1943 was
1,565,951.
Of course not all the workers who have social
security account numbers in North Carolina have
wage credits reported for them under the unemploy-ment
compensation program, since its coverage pro-visions
are limited to establishments with eight or
more employees. But a larger proportion of the new
accounts receive wage slips in the Commission's files
each year, as new workers tend to become part of
the larger war production industries. In addition to
accounts first established in North Carolina, the
Commission keeps wage records for an increasing
number of workers who have come into the state
bringing their social security numbers with them.
Altogether the Commission has close to two million
account numbers on file.
Of all the thousands of accounts with unemploy-ment
compensation wage records in North Carolina,
some must be regarded as inactive. There are those
for workers who have dropped out of covered em-ployment
prior to the base period with regard to
which a claim for benefits would now be processed.
Some workers will have died. But it is significant
that the 1942 reports from employers listed wages
for 1,061,332 individual workers—over 200,000
more than for the previous year. Wages were re-ported
for 814,666 workers in 1941, and for 698,300
in 1940.
Furthermore, one can only guess how many wage
record accounts are being held for men and women
now in the military services ; consequently all records
are retained. Since the Unemployment Compensa-tion
law of North Carolina provides that on
reentering civilian life after discharge from military
duty, a worker who cannot find employment may
apply for benefit payments on the basis of his earn-ings
prior to entering the service, a considerable
number of the currently inactive accounts may be
brought forward.
• The responsibility of the Commission to all the
thousands of workers insured under its program
against loss of employment must be taken very
seriously indeed, when it is remembered that the
desperation born of unemployment which so many
have known in the past may come to more in the
future, if our economic planning, or lack of it, should
prove unsound or insufficient. There have been
times, and there may be more, when an unemploy-ment
compensation benefit check, modest though it
be, spells the difference between something to eat
and going hungry, between respectability and abject
begging.
PRESENT CLAIM LOADS UNUSUALLY LIGHT
Since January 1943, fewer than 15,000 benefit
checks have been issued by the Unemployment Com-pensation
Commission each month. It is estimated
that the checks have been sent to an average number
of unemployed workers throughout the state of ap-proximately
2,000.
1943 claim loads are the lowest this state has
experienced since the inauguration of its unemploy-ment
insurance program over six years ago. In
June 1942, the number of benefit checks fell below
all previous levels and has been declining ever since.
April checks, 11,347 for instance, were less than one
percent of the number written during the peak of
unemployment in August 1940. The amounts paid
fell below $100,000 in February of this year and
below $60,000 in May.
Insured workers who lose their jobs through no
fault of their own are entitled to draw unemploy-ment
benefits when no hew suitable work is avail-able
for them. The fact that as few as 2,000 persons
in all of North Carolina were currently in this situ-ation
last month, is the result primarily of war de-mands
for all unavailable labor—few workers today
are losing their jobs and not finding new ones im-mediately.
It is also a reflection of the efforts of the
U. S. Employment Service in seeing that no man-power
remains idle, and of the Commission's claims
deputies who have been active in prosecuting any
claimants attempting to draw checks on the basis of
misrepresentations, and who are following instruc-tions
to scrutinize closely all claims where there has
been a refusal of work on the ground that it was
not suitable.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 109
TAX REDUCTIONS FOR
NORTH CAROLINA EMPLOYERS
Some 1,564 employers this year will be paying
reduced taxes on 1943 payrolls to the Unemployment
Compensation Commission of North Carolina in sup-port
of its trust fund. In these days of bigger and
better taxes, such an announcement by the Commis-sion
of reduced rates would seem to be taking a
different turn, if such rates were not part of a plan
extending over many years.
The system of employer experience rating, de-signed
to give an employer with a good record as
regards unemployment the benefit of his experience
in the form of a reduced payroll tax, was first
formulated here in 1939 and perfected by the 1941
General Assembly. The system was then inaugu-rated
in North Carolina on July 1st of the past year,
as of which date the rates for this year's tax have
been computed by the Commission. Under the em-ployer
experience rating plan, the rate of each
employer's payroll tax to be paid in the following
calendar year is reckoned on the basis of his indi-vidual
account as to the amount of contributions
previously paid into the fund in relation to the
benefit charges deducted. The system contemplates
that the first reductions from the standard rate of
2.7 percent of payrolls should not be great, but that
with continued good experience as to unemployment
among his workers, an employer's rate in years to
come could fall as low as .27 percent of payrolls
—
one-tenth of the standard rate. Following the rather
complicated system as prescribed by law, the Com-mission
set up individual reserve accounts for each
employer filing reports, and after allocating a certain
portion of this to a pooled fund, computed his re-serve
balance and sent him a statement as to his rate
of tax for 1943.
However, both the number of employers who
will pay reduced taxes this year, and the in-dustrial
classification of many of them have been a
surprise. It was not expected that the first compu-tation
would entitle quite so many as 1,678 accounts
to a reduced tax rate. Even with 114 of these ac-counts
now inactive, the number of the State's em-ployers
who will contribute less to the fund this year
is 1,564, or close to a fifth of these with active
accounts and an established reserve balance.
A tax reduction under experience rating is sup-posed
to be the result of relatively stable business
practices as regards employment. Yet, while most
of the reductions apply to employers engaged in
wholesale or retail trade, an unexpected number of
them occur for local building-construction contrac-tors,
saw mill operators, and employers carrying on
automotive supply and garage repair shops—the
same groups among which the mortality rate of
those ceasing operations in 1942 was found to be
high. The probable explanation is that even though
war's restrictions have hit employers in these indus-tries
pretty hard, forcing some out of business, and
undoubtedly reducing employment for others, never-theless
the labor market has absorbed their workers
so readily as practically to eliminate any benefit
charges against their reserve accounts.
Of the larger groups, printers and publishers have
about the highest proportion of reduced rates among
them, with 40 percent of their establishments on the
receiving list. Other sizeable groups where the
average number of employers to pay reduced rates
represent about a third of the industry more or less,
include all wholesale and most retail merchants
bankers and insurance agents ; manufacturers of
iron and steel products and non-electrical machinery
;
repair shops, medical and health services, and motion
picture firms.
In the majority of cases the amount of the reduc-tion
is the difference between 2.7 and 2.5 or 2.13
percent of payrolls. While to individual employers
this may not seem so much in dollars and cents, it
must be remembered that this is the first year in
which any reduction could be made, and that all of
the 1,564 employers may be in a position to receive
greater tax reductions next year, eventually scaling
down to the minimum of .27 percent of payrolls. By
the same token, others who did not qualify for 1943
reductions may receive them for 1944, and so on.
Theoretically, no North Carolina employer has yet
had an opportunity—even with a perfect record and
not a dime paid out in unemployment benefits to any
of his former employees—to develop a reserve which
would entitle him to a rate lower than 2.13 percent
for 1943. The hundred-odd employers who will pay
rates lower than this for the coming year do so be-cause
their payrolls are now smaller than they were
in one or more preceding years.
The effect that the smaller contributions from ex-perience
rating will have on the unemployment trust
funds remains to be seen. Up to the present time,
the fund has been steadily growing. Of the total
sum collected since the Commission began opera-tions,
about a third has been paid out in benefits to
unemployed workers. The balance on hand with
which the Commission will meet the contingencies of
the future is less than sixty millions. On the basis
of the July 1, 1942 computation, less than a third of
the fund was in the pool and the rest credited to
employer reserve accounts.
Meanwhile, with the industrial boom of the war
effort, the number of workers who have come under
the protection of the unemployment compensation
program has decidedly increased. There are now
more than a million workers for whom their em-ployers
have reported wage credits and who will be
entitled to apply for unemployment benefit payments
should they lose their work through no fault of their
own. Unless a post-war economy is carefully
planned, it is conceivable that the trust fund might
be insufficient to meet the demands made upon it
over a period when readjustments could bring wide-spread
and continued unemployment.
FEW VIOLATORS OF UCC LAW ESCAPE
Every law has its violators and the unemployment
compensation law of North Carolina is no exception,
even though few get away with it. To claim work
insurance payments on the basis of a former job
while earning wages on a new one, or to cash a check
Page 1 1 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
intended for someone else, is a wrongful act both
morally and legally.
Tracking down those persons who, through fraud
and misrepresentation, forgery and falsification,
obtain benefits to which they are not rightfully en-titled
is one of the responsibilities of the Unemploy-ment
Compensation Commission's claims deputies.
Operating under the claims investigation section of
the benefits department, headed up in the central
office by Mr. S. F. Teague, the deputies constantly
match wits with those of criminal intent. Investi-gations
involve for the most part instances of
misrepresentation; occasionally there will be a case
of downright forgery.
For instance, take the experience of one office.
From claims handled through the Winston-Salem
office over the last three years, the Commission dis-covered
that some 45 persons had violated the law,
and collected $1800.00 in overpayments. Against
the total of $793,431.38 paid out on 152,737 checks
to Winston-Salem beneficiaries during the same
period, the amount obtained by fraud appears rela-tively
small. Yet as a warning to others who might
attempt illegal collections, violators are brought to
the attention of the courts. 41 of the 45 offenders
in Winston-Salem were prosecuted and convicted.
As a result of court orders suspending sentence on
repayment to the Commission, $1,543 has been
restored to the unemployment insurance fund.
It is just another story that most acquisitive crime
is small pickin's, and it definitely doesn't pay. What
few of the workers who attempt to continue to draw
benefits while they are again earning wages seem to
realize is the certainty with which their fraud will
be found out and catch up with them. It works this
way, in most cases.
The Commission maintains an individual record
for each and every worker who at some time estab-lishes
wage credits toward job insurance, and for
whom, in effect, his employer has paid a premium on
an unemployment compensation policy. This record
shows that worker's reported earnings on the one
hand, and also all benefits payments claimed and paid
to him. If an employer is reporting wages for any-one
at the same time insurance payments, the clerks
who keep the records at Commission headquarters
soon spot the discrepancy.
The case is then immediately referred to a field
representative who calls on the employer of the
suspected party to make sure there is no mistake.
Then the evidence, thus double-checked, is given to
one of the Commission's fifteen claims deputies to
handle. He puts the case before the solicitor in the
proper jurisdiction, and the law takes its course.
The penalty provision in the U. C. law, under
which violators are prosecuted is an important para-graph.
Unemployment compensation was established
as a form of insurance for the workers of covered
employers against a time when such work might be
denied them through no fault of their own. The law
was framed for the purpose of paying job insurance
benefits to qualified workers losing their jobs, to tide
them over a wage-less period until they could become
reemployed ; it did not contemplate continuing pay-ment
of benefits to workers after their enforced
idleness ceased. It is illegal for anyone claiming
unemployment compensation knowingly to fail to
report earnings. The express provision of the
statute for such misrepresentation is punishment by
a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $50, or im-prisonment
for not more than 30 days.
Instances of forgery are another story. As a rule,
it is only an occasional check that some person other
than the beneficiary is tempted to sign for and cash.
But a particularly flagrant case of wholesale forgery
developed through the Wilmington office a while
back, which called for special measures before the
offender was finally run to earth. He is now serving
a term of six to eight years in state prison.
This forger was first suspected because he was
obviously living too high for his income. Then a first
positive clue developed when a claimant failed to
receive an unemployment compensation check due
him, but was given cash by the man in question. So
Commission representatives, led by R. A. Wads-worth,
then Supervisor of Employment Office Man-agers,
began painstakingly to investigate the
endorsements on cancelled checks known to have
passed through the suspect's hands. This meant
canvassing stores where the checks had been cashed
to see if storekeepers had been making sure of identi-fications.
It meant a search of the claims records
files by day and contacting Negro claimants after
work hours night after night and holidays—in the
football season too—for over a month, and overcom-ing
their reluctance to testify. And there was a real
element of danger, for certain numbers and bootleg
racketeers mistaking the purpose of the investiga-tion
were ready to put the searchers "on the spot."
On the basis of the first few irregularities dis-covered,
the culprit was arrested and kept in jail
under high bond and his bank accounts attached.
Meanwhile the investigation continued, finally piling
up evidence as to between five and seven hundred
phoney signatures, many of them countersigned and
deposited by the forger himself. A lot of money had
been wrongfully appropriated. However, the com-mission
was able to recover a large part of it in
settlement of a civil suit brought against the bank
which had guaranteed the endorsements.
LARGEST FUND RECEIPTS
FROM FIVE COUNTIES
Five North Carolina counties have paid over a
million dollars each as taxes on 1942 payrolls to the
state's unemployment insurance fund. The five
counties are Forsyth, Guilford, Durham, Mecklen-burg,
and New Hanover. Their combined contribu-tions
amount to well over a third of the total receipts
for 1942.
In previous years, only two of those counties,
Guilford and Mecklenburg, have paid as much as a
million dollars in payroll taxes in a single year. The
increase is a reflection of recent high employment
levels throughout the state. Total receipts to March
1, for the unemployment insurance fund were higher
for 1942 than for 1941 by $3,733,819.95.
Other counties which paid over half a million for
1942 include Alamance, Buncombe, Cabarrus, Gas-ton,
and Onslow. The most noticeable increase in
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 1 1 1
1942 receipts were from Durham, New Hanover,
Craven, and Onslow counties, as a result of ship-building
and war construction activities.
Unemployment Compensation Commission officials
point out that since most of the increased receipts
to the fund stem from war employment, the fund
may have to stand considerable drains from it when
such employment ceases. It represents not only un-employment
insurance for the state's workers, but
insurance for the state against a burdensome relief
load.
As of June 1st, North Carolina's fund amounted
to $59,459,960.00 exclusive of this year's benefit pay-ments.
Payments in previous years have averaged
one-third of contributions. Compared to other state
unemployment compensation funds on deposit in the
National Treasury, a recent analysis made by Mr.
Campbell from available figures indicates that North
Carolina's balance per covered worker that it in-sures,
is about 30 percent below the average.
LARGEST COUNTY RECEIPTS TO
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION FUND
(March, 1943)
1941 1942
% of 1942
Total
State $ 14,568,429.33
1,345,745.67
593,339.01
1,274,416.65
571,448.23
918,852.01
759,213.52
715,867.94
535,716.86
505,411.38
100,540.57
405,457.58
105,149.67
t 18,302,249.18
1,614,589.83
1,411,585.75
1,374,469.67
1,204,462.40
1,024,409.24
995,843.04
777,434.76
605,675.18
589,034.75
501,826.72
469,722.50
424,227.70
8.8
Durham 7.7
Guilford 7.5
New Hanover 6.6
Forsvth...
Gaston __ _ ._
5.6
5.4
Cabarrus. 4.2
Alamance _ . 3.3
Buncombe 3.2
Onslow 2.7
Wake 2.6
2.
U. C. C. MAKES REFUND
An opinion by the Unemployment Compensation
Commission of North Carolina recently allowed a
refund of several thousand dollars to two construc-tion
companies which jointly elected voluntary cov-erage
and had paid taxes under a misapprehension
as to their liability.
The two companies who paid the taxes and share
in the refund are: Boyle-Kahn Construction Com-pany
and Boyle Construction Company and J. R.
Suber Company. They had elected voluntary cov-erage
in this state while engaged in work at Camp
Butner which did not last for as many as 20 weeks
in either 1942 or 1943, having been misinformed as
to the provisions of the unemployment compensation
law for North Carolina, which holds an employer
is liable for unemployment insurance taxes on his
payroll if he employs eight or more workers for 20
weeks in any one calendar year.
OUTLOOK FOR POST-WAR UNEMPLOYMENT
IN N. C—BIG DRAIN ON FUND
Looking to the possible effect of readjustments on
employment in the immediate post-war period, Silas
F. Campbell, head of the Unemployment Compensa-tion
Commission's Bureau of Research and Statis-tics,
estimates that the Commission's fund balance
available for payments to unemployed workers is
likely to be adequate to meet its liabilities, although
it may be more than halved. His views as to what
North Carolina may reasonably expect with regard
to the solvency of its unemployment insurance, are
stated in a memorandum to the Commission.
Mr. Campbell starts with the assumption that the
war will end in 1944 ; should it continue longer, the
effect of immediate employment dislocations on the
fund might be less drastic. He takes into account
both the number of workers who have recently been
added to the labor force for war production and
whose employment would probably cease, as well as
all the workers who will be demobilized from mili-tary
service, and the effect which reduced employer
contributions as the result of experience rating
might have on the fund.
Taking the amount of employment which would
be curtailed as the difference between the average
number of insured workers before the war and the
average number in 1942, he estimates a minimum of
105,000 claimants from war production jobs. Their
checks would average $8.63 a week as a result of
their higher wages. Allowing for benefits to some
75,000 ex-service men, also for some "normal" un-employment
as in 1941, and for seasonal unemploy-ment
lasting as long as a recent study has shown
that it usually does, Mr. Campbell expects the drain
on the fund in the first and second post-war years
would exceed $28 millions a year. This would
be more than three times the amount of benefits paid
by the Commission in any previous year.
He expressed the opinion, however, that post-war
readjustment for North Carolina may be more rapid
and a less serious problem than for some other
states, for two reasons : First, the dollar value of its
primary war contracts per capita of covered em-ployment
is less than half the average of 16 other
southern states. Second, few plants have been built
in North Carolina expressly for war production.
It is largely a producer of consumer goods, and con-version
to war production has meant mainly an in-crease
in production along regular lines, with a
minimum of new equipment and occupations.
Meanwhile, of course, the unemployment compen-sation
fund which now stands at $59 millions, will
have increased somewhat, although progressively
less each year with employer experience rating in
operation. Payments from the fund may be expect-ed
to far outweigh contributions to it in the first
post-war years, Mr. Campbell believes, in which case
the fund might rapidly shrink to less than half its
present total.
BENEFITS TO BE RESTRICTED
FOR SEASONAL WORKERS
The unemployment benefit rights of seasonal
workers may be limited in the future, according to a
statement issued by W. R. Curtis, acting chairman
of the Unemployment Compensation Commission.
His statement follows action taken by the Commis-sion
at a regular meeting in approving regulations
drawn up on the basis of a recent legislative revision
of the U. C. law. Under these regulations, now
Page 1 1 2 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
available to employers, out-of-season unemployment,
under specified conditions, in certain industries, or
their branches, may be made non-compensable after
July 1st.
Mr. Curtis further outlines how these new regu-lations
under the law enable employers in seasonal
industries to establish with respect to all or only
part of their business a special period, or season, of
insured employment of less than a full calendar year.
Workers who lose their jobs within this specified
period, may draw unemployment compensation for
jobless weeks while the season lasts; but in the off-season,
unemployed workers will not be entitled to
draw benefits chargeable to their seasonal employers.
It is expected that employers engaged in such
enterprises as tobacco processing and the resort
hotel business may wish to take advantage of the
new provisions. By doing so, their reserve accounts
in the Commission's trust fund will be relieved of
charges due to unemployment of their former
workers during their industries' off-season.
The law stipulates that an employer who wishes
to have his business, or a part of it, declared seasonal
must apply to the Commission to establish such a
season with respect to unemployment compensation.
The season must be not less than four, nor longer
than 36 weeks. The regulations prescribe the man-ner
in which application for a seasonal classification
of an employer should be made, and define what such
an application has to show as to the amount and
kind of employment offered during a season, so that
the Commission may decide when employment is
seasonal within the meaning of the law.
The effect on workers will be to reduce the possi-bility
of drawing unemployment benefits during their
off season and to encourage them to find work of
another kind, as for instance in domestic service or
on the farms.
SSSON'S POLICY WITH RESPECT
ERRING PARTIALLY UNEMPLOYED
TS TO FULL-TIME WORK
On August 1, 1942, the North Carolina Unemploy-ment
Compensation Commission adopted the policy
of notifying the last employer and base period em-ployer
(s) at the time a former worker files a claim
for benefits or reinstates his claim for benefits.
These notices are sent to the last and base period
employer (s) whenever a claim is filed regardless of
whether such claim is for total or partial unemploy-ment.
The question has arisen as to whether it was the
intent of the Commission to encourage partially
unemployed workers to secure full-time work when
such full time work is available. The Commission
discussed this question and directed the Unemploy-ment
Compensation Division to continue the policy
of notifying the last and base period employer (s)
on partial claims just as these notices are sent on
total claims.
The Commission also requested the United States
Employment Service offices to refer such partially
unemployed claimants to any base period employer
provided such employer makes an offer of full-time
suitable work to the partially unemployed claimant.
The Commission's action is based on a recognition
of a necessity of channeling all available manpower
into the war effort. This action, it is thought, would
assist in bringing about a greater absorption of all
available manpower into the war effort. The adop-tion
of this policy by the Commission tends to pro-tect
the claimant by providing a greater work oppor-tunity
and at the same time enables the base period
employer to conserve his reserve account credit.
The United States Employment Service will make
referrals of partially unemployed workers and in
making such referrals will follow the policy of con-tacting
the employer of such partially unemployed
workers before making a referral. This policy is
-
deemed wise since it is recognized that the referral
of certain partially unemployed claimants might
result in a complete disruption of the operations of
the employer's whole plant.
An employer who wishes to regain the services of
a former worker who is partially unemployed, may
request the United States Employment Office at
which the worker files his claim to refer such worker
provided an offer of full-time suitable work is made.
RAPER ADVISES BOARD
Hugh M. Raper, the Commission's administrative
assistant was called to Washington to serve through
June as consultant to the Social Security Board in
its preparation of a national guide for employment
security administration. Mr. Raper has been con-nected
with the Commission since 1937, and became
its administrative assistant when that staff post was
created in March 1942. He has been responsible for
developing operating procedures for both the cen-tral
and local offices. The Board sought his advice
following the recent visit to Raleigh of severad Board
officials engaged in making a special study of agency
operations in North Carolina.
U. C. LAW—IN CHINESE
When Payroll Auditor Ray Work of the Columbus,
Ohio, local Compliance office attempted to interview
a Chinese hand laundry proprietor whose liability
under the Ohio unemployment compensation law
was in question, he received the answer, "No speekee
English." Mr. Ray secured the aid of Mr. Walter
Ming, one of the owners of the Far East Restaurant
in east Columbus. Mr. Ray dictated the words, and
Mr. Ming wrote a brief Chinese version of the law.
Here, then, was the answer to all Chinese who said,
"No speekee English," when questioned about the
unemployment compensation law.
BENEFITS DENIED 7,000 OHIO MINERS
Ruling that miners, idle during April, 1941, while
a new work contract was being negotiated, refused
offers of work for which they were reasonably fitted,
the Ohio Board of Review, in a two-to-one decision,
denied them unemployment compensation for the
period they were unemployed.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 1 1 3
CUMULATIVE COLLECTIONS AND INTEREST, CUMULATIVE BENEFIT PAYMENTS, AND FUNDS
AVAILABLE FOR BENEFITS, JANUARY 1938 TO JUNE 30, 1942. (IN MllUONS OF DOLLARS)
1 excess of Collections 2 Contributions 3 Benefit
ovgr Payments and Interest Payments
4 Total Funds Available
For BenefvtS
5 Funds Available as
of December 31, 1937
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CANNERS URGENTLY NEEDED
Unless an extraordinarily effective job is done this
year in recruiting new workers in the food canning
and processing industry and in maintaining the
nucleus of experienced workers accustomed to work-ing
in each local cannery, according to the W. M. C,
some crops will go to waste and the supply of canned
and processed foods will become tighter.
Normally, about six times as many people are em-ployed
in canning around the first of September as
at the beginning of May. W. M. C. estimates that
roughly 400,000 canning workers will be needed in
the U. S. at the peak season this year.
Canning, though a major industry, is essentially a
seasonal, hometown industry, manned by local
workers—youths, housewives, mechanics, and others —who are otherwise occupied during the rest of the
year when the local cannery is not in operation or is
operating on a reduced schedule. Wherever there is
a cannery, local people have been accustomed to
helping out the family income by seasonal work in
the neighborhood plant.
Last year, however, a great many of these towns-folk
were missing from the canneries. This year,
the normal reserve of experienced local canning
labor shows signs of serious depletion, exceeding that
of 1942, yet the demand for canned and processed
foods, will be far greater than ever before.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The greatest contribution which workers can make
towards winning the war is get into a vital war job!
If you are not using your highest skill you can ob-tain
a statement of availability for work in an essen-tial
industry. The War Manpower Commission's
Employment Stabilization Plan is designed to
utilize every worker to the best advantages of the
war effort. If you are not in one of the 35 indus-tries
listed by the War Manpower Commission as
essential you are not doing your utmost for your
Government. See your nearest United States Em-ployment
Office for a list of these essential indus-tries,
and if you have a skill which you can use in
one of these industries, ask them how you can get
into a war job. And, if you plan any change in
employment, see the U. S. Employment Service for
advice as to how the Employment Stabilitzation
Plan can help you and your Government. Get into
a war job to speed Victory!
COAL PRODUCTION LOST THROUGH STRIKES
The Bituminous Coal Division estimates that work
stoppage in the anthracite mines since April 1 has
resulted in a production loss of silghtly more than
1,500,000 tons, or somewmat more than a full week's
production.
Page 1 1 4 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
EMPLOYMENT SERVICE OFFICES FOR NORTH CAROLINA AND COUNTIES SERVED
BY EACH
Office Counties Served
Albemarle Stanly
Asheboro Randolph
Asheville* Buncombe
Madison
Bryson City Graham
Jackson
Macon
Swain
Burlington Alamance
Charlotte* Mecklenburg
Union
Concord Cabarrus
Durham* Durham
Orange
Person
Elizabeth City Camden
Chowan
Currituck
Dare
Gates
Pasquotank
Perquimans
Fayetteville Cumberland
Harnett
Hoke
Sampson
Gastonia Gaston
Lincoln
Goldsboro Duplin
Wayne
Greensboro* Guilfordx
Greenville Pitt
Henderson Granville
Vance
Warren
Office Counties Served
Hendersonville Henderson
Transylvania
Hickory Catawba
High Point* Guilfordx
Kinston* Greene
Lenoir
Lenoir Caldwell
Lexington Davidsonx
Lumberton Bladen
Robeson
Morganton Burke
McDowell
Mount Airy Surry
Murphy Cherokee
Clay
New Bern Carteret
Craven
Jones
Pamlico
Onslow
North Wilkesboro Alexander
Alleghany
Ashe
Watauga
Wilkes
Raleigh* Franklin
Johnston
Wake
Reidsville Caswell
Rockinghamx
Roanoke Rapids Halifax
Hertford
Northampton
Rockingham Anson
Montgomery
Richmond
Scotland
Office Counties Served
Rocky Mount* Edgecombe
Nash
Rutherfordton Polk
Rutherford
Salisbury Davie
Rowan
San ford Chatham-Lee
Moore
Shelby Cleveland
Spray Rockfnghamx
Spruce Pine Avery
Mitchell
Yancey
Statesville Iredell
Thomasville Davidsonx
Waynesville Haywood
Washington Beaufort
Bertie
Hyde
Martin
Tyrrell
Washington
Wilmington* Brunswick
Columbus
New Hanover
Pender
Wilson Wilson
Winston-Salem* Forsyth
Stokes
Yadkin
* Local office with Negro divisional office.
xCounty served by two offices.
COMMISSION ACTS
Six members of the Unemployment Compensation
Commission—W. R. Curtis, C. E. Cowan, C. A. Fink,
Mrs. F. L. Fuller, R. Dave Hall, Prof. H. D. Wolf-recently
meeting in regular session at Raleigh head-quarters,
took action designed to discourage any
workers who might attempt to draw benefit checks
instead of remaining at or taking jobs helpful to the
war effort.
A definition of availability for work, with respect
to claimants, which conforms to W. M. C. rulings as
to the availability of workers transferring from one
job to another, was agreed upon. Also the Commis-sion's
policy was emphasized in instructing claims
deputies to scrutinize carefully refusals to take jobs
on the grounds of suitability.
SMALL MANUFACTURERS SHARE IN WAR
PRODUCTION
A representative sample survey of the Nation's
small manufacturing concerns by the Office of War
Information indicates that 58 percent are engaged
directly or indirectly in war production. Of the re-maining
42 percent, about one-quarter have been
unable to get war production contracts and about
three-quarters have not tried to get war contracts
because their products were not required for war,
because they had enough civilian business, or for
other reasons.
Only concerns employing no more than 125 wage
earners were included in the survey ; less than 5 per-cent
of the firms studied employed more than 80
workers.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 1 1 5
The Plan For Labor
The key to the War Manpower Commission's plan
for labor stabilization, as announced on May 15th, is
the United States Employment Service. Mrs. Ger-trude
K. Clinton, Director of the Employment
Service for North Carolina, and deputy director
WMC, outlines this plan as follows
:
THE PURPOSE
The purpose of the plan is to provide government,
management, and labor with an effective system of
providing workers where needed to do war produc-tion
and essential civilian work. It provides for
holding workers on their jobs where needed or per-mitting
them to transfer to other jobs under certain
conditions.
So long as employers and workers conform to pro-visions
of the plan they will be in compliance with
W.M.C.'s regulation 4 restricting the transfer of
workers which was issued under the President's
"Hold the Line" order stablizing wages, prices and
employment.
THE PLAN
1. Provides that employers in essential industries
may not hire a worker whose most recent employ-ment
was in an essential industry unless such a
worker presents either a statement of availability
from his most recent employer or a statement of
availability from his local United States Employ-ment
office.
2. Sets up machinery enabling workers, under
certain conditions, to transfer from one essential
industry to another if such a step will aid in the
effective prosecution of the war or compelling per-sonal
reasons make such a step advisable.
3. Establishes valid reasons which entitle an em-ployee
to a statement of availability and sets up
procedures under which statements may be obtained.
The plan provides that statements of availability
shall be issued to any worker by his most recent
employer or the Employment Service, whenever the
employee
—
A. Is discharged by his last employer.
B. Is laid off for an indefinite period or for a
period of 7 days or more.
C. Can establish that his present employment does
hot utilize him at his highest skill or that he is not
being employed full time.
D. Has compelling personal reasons for change in
employment.
4. Provides that under certain conditions a state-ment
of availability may be issued if it is established
that the change of employment will aid in the effec-tive
prosecution of the war.
5. Stipulates that where an employee has a valid
reason for a job transfer within essential industries,
the Employment Service is authorized to grant such
statements of availability when the employer refuses
to grant a statement of availability.
6. Provides that employers may not hire in-migrants
(workers who have not lived within the
normal commuting distance of the prospective em-ployer's
establishment) except through the local
Employment Service office.
7. Permits workers to transfer freely from other
than essential to essential activities. No statement
of availability is needed unless the worker is going
to work outside the local commuting area.
8. Stipulates that while the worker may appeal
from the decision of an employer or the Employment
Service when not granted a statement of availability,
the worker must remain on the job until the appeal
has been decided.
9. Authorizes the Employment Service to grant
statements of availability, upon request, to any em-ployee
of an employer who violates the regional plan,
or the area plan, if one is in effect. These state-ments
may be issued regardless of whether the
workers otherwise would be entitled to such state-ments.
10. Prevents workers from transferring from an
essential activity to an activity other than essential
at a higher rate of pay unless there is no full time
job which he can fill, available locally in an essential
activity.
11. Provides that a worker wishing to seek or
accept employment outside the commuting area must
obtain a statement of availability from the USES
covering the locality in which he is currently or was
most recently employed. Without such a statement
of availability he will not be able to obtain employ-ment.
12. Provides that the granting or denial of a
statement of availability may be appealed by an
employee or an employer from a decision of the Em-ployment
Service, provided an appeal is filed within
seven days from the date of such determination with
the area manpower director or the regional director.
13. Permits a worker to transfer from agricul-tural
employment to other agricultural employment,
irrespective of the wages in either employment.
14. Permits a worker in non-federal govern-mental
employment to transfer to other non-federal
governmental employment, irrespective of the wages
in either employment.
15. Provides that hiring by departments and
agencies of the federal government which are sub-ject
to the rules and regulations of the U. S. Civil
Service Commission shall be made only with the
approval of the U. S. Civil Service Commission,
which shall conduct its recruiting activities and make
referrals in accordance with W.M.C. policies, pro-cedures,
and standards.
16. Provides that nothing in the stabilization
program shall be construed as applicable to state
governments and local subdivisions thereof, nor to
casual employment (those employed for 15 days or
less) domestic servants, or employers of fewer than
eight employees.
Page 1 1
6
THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
THE REGIONAL PROGRAM
The program in North Carolina is a part of a
regional plan which has also become effective in
the states of Maryland,, West Virginia, Virginia, and
North Carolina and the District of Columbia.
In announcing the regional plan, Leo R. Werts, act-ing
regional WMC director, explained that it is
subject to amendment to fit peculiar problems within
a state or a locality within the region. Until further
notice, however, the regulations outlined above will
be in effect throughout North Carolina.
"The aim of the plan," Werts said, "is to eliminate
wasteful turnover, to reduce unnecessary migration
by encouraging the full use of local labor, to direct
scarce labor to employers engaged in essential activi-ties
in preference to others, and to obtain the maxi-mum
utilization of the manpower resources of the
region under standards protecting the rights of all
concerned. The plan for realizing these aims was
worked out during conferences between manpower
officials, management, and labor.
"Through the use of statements of availability,
workers may move between essential activities and
into essential industries. In effect, these statements
of availability are written statements authorizing
an employee to leave his present employment and go
to work for another employer in an essential
activity."
It should be emphasized that workers in trans-ferring
from one essential activity must have these
statements to the effect that the worker may be
hired elsewhere in an essential activity. It is highly
important that all workers who contemplate seeking
work beyond normal commuting distance from their
homes must have statements of availability. With-out
them, they will not be able to secure employ-ment.
All hiring of in-migrant workers will be
through the Employment Service, and before any
worker can be hired outside his home area, he must
have a statement of availability from his home town
employment office.
To aid in administering the plan, WMC labor-management
committees for both the region and the
state will serve in an advisory capacity on policy.
The members of the regional committee follow:
Management Representatives—S. W. Pickering II
of South Charleston, W. Va., Union Carbide and
Carbon Corp., C. D. Mackay, of Washington, South-ern
Railway Systems, Leroy H. Smith, of Roanoke,
Va., American Viscose Corp., Charles P. McCormick,
of Baltimore, Md., McCormick & Company and L. K.
Clyde Council, of Wananish, N. C, Council Tool
Company.
Labor Representatives—James H. Blake, of Wash-ington,
Secretary-Treasurer of the National Marine
Engineers Beneficial Association, A. E. Brown, of
Durham, N. C, American Federation of Labor Or-ganizer,
Frank T. Coleman, of Washington, Mary-land
and District of Columbia Federation of Labor,
Frank J. Bender, of Baltimore, Regional Director of
the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and Sidney
J. Katz, of Washington, Secretary-Treasurer of the
Maryland and D. C. Industrial Union Council.
What Are Essential Jobs?
By E. C. McCracken, Asst. Director, U. S. E. S.
We must see to it during this global war that all
of our people who are capable of productive effort
perform tasks in which they can make contributions
toward winning the war. Any job which contributes
directly or indirectly to the maintenance of our
armed forces or to the production of civilian necessi-ties
on the home front is an essential job. The lists
of essential activities which have been published by
the War Manpower Commission define the jobs and
activities which are making the most direct contri-bution
to our war effort.
Essential jobs are not merely those jobs that have
to do with making planes, or ships, or ammunition,
or bomb sights because no nation at war can suspend
all activity on the home front while the armed forces
fight on the battle front. There are, of course, occu-pations
and activities at which people work in
normal times that contribute very little to the neces-sary
requirements of either the military forces or
civilian life.
These lists of essential activities and occupations
were designed to provide the United States Employ-ment
Service and other governmental agencies with
a guide to be used in directing this nation's man-power
resources into the channel that will make the
greatest contribution toward winning the war.
The first directive issued by the War Manpower
Commission instructs the United States Employ-ment
Service to prepare and keep current lists of:
1. Essential Activities
2. Essential Occupations
3. Critical War Products
In preparing and setting up the lists of essential
activities, the industries and activities normally en-gaged
in by people in this country were carefully
examined and studied to determine those which were
really essential to the maintenance of our armed
forces or essential to the civilian life of the nation.
Before any activity can be considered essential, it
must meet one or more of the following criteria:
1. Fulfilling a contract of the Army, Navy, Mari-time
Commission, or other governmental
agency engaged directly in the prosecution of
the war.
2. Performing governmental services directly
concerned with promoting or facilitating war
production.
3. Performing a service, governmental or private,
directly concerned with the maintenance of in-dispensable
civilian activities, health, welfare,
or security.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 1 1 7
2.
3.
4. Supplying material under subcontracts for con-tracts
or activities included in 1, 2, or 3.
5. Producing raw materials, manufacturing ma-terials,
supplies, or equipment, or performing
services necessary for the fulfillment of con-tracts
(including necessary clothing and other
supplies required by workers on these con-tracts)
included in the above criteria.
In general, the lists of essential activities which
meet these criteria include the following types of
industries or activities
:
1. Production, repair, and maintenance of all
types of combat material.
Production of all pharmaceutical chemicals.
Production and manufacture of all fuels.
4. Communication services and the production of
communication equipment.
5. Basic agricultural activities.
6. Processing or manufacture of basic foods.
7. Production of necessary apparel for the armed
forces and civilian needs.
8. Production of selected equipment and machin-ery
used in the manufacture of essential pro-ducts
and maintenance of essential materials
and furnishing of essential services.
9. The production of all parts necessary to the
proper operation of machines utilized in the
production of essential items listed above.
Maintenance of facilities needed for transpor-tation
of essential goods and of workers in
essential activities.
Production and maintenance of facilities and
services necessary for civilian safety, health,
morale, and security.
WAR SHIFTS AMERICA'S MILLIONS*
(Each V symbol equals 1,000,000 men and women)
10.
11.
All local United States Employment Service offices
have complete lists of the activities which are con-sidered
essential. These offices in recruiting and
referring workers for employment are required to
accord priority to these essential activities. This
simply means that every local Employment Service
office in making referrals to jobs must give first con-sideration
to filling jobs in these industries and
activities that are considered more essential. This
does not mean that the Employment Service office
does not serve all types of employers or all types of
applicants, but it does mean that it must serve essen-tial
activities first.
Recently the War Manpower Commission pub-lished
a list of non-deferrable activities and occupa-tions.
In this list of non-deferrable activities were
36 industries and services. All of the personnel
engaged in these activities were declared to be non-deferrable.
Also listed were 29 specific occupations.
Jobs such as gardeners, night club employees, and
hairdressers were declared to be non-deferrable re-gardless
of where these jobs were to be found. The
determination that these activities and occupations
were non-deferrable was merely a determination
that during this war we can get along more easily
without fancy glassware and night clubs than with-out
food and tanks.
CLASS DECEMBER 1041 DECEMBER 1942 DECEMBER 1043
Civilian
Industries
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVV
29 Million
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVVVVV
21 Million
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVV
18 Million
War
Industries
VVVVVVV
7 Million
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVV
18 Million
VVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVVVV
20 Million
Armed
Forces
VV
2 Million
VVVVV
5 Million
VVVVVVVVVV
10 Million
Agriculture VVVVVVVVV
8% Million
VV\ VVVV\ \
8i4 Million
VVVVVVVV
8 Million
Self-Emp.
Proprietors
Servants
VVVVVV
6 Million
VVVVV\
5J4 Million
VVVVV
5 Million
Johless WW
3% Million
V\
!> Million
V
1 Million
War is bringing increasingly drastic changes in jobs. 1942 government estimates
show war industries employing 17,500,000 men and women, up more than 10,000,000 from
a year before. The total will be 20,000,000 or more a year from later. Armed forces, of
5,500,000 or more, are expected to rise to at least 10,000,000. Farm workers, now a
little over 8,000,000, had been expected to shrink a little, but increased food requirements
may change that.
* From A. P. Features, revised.
Ample opportunity was given to persons in these
non-deferrable occupations and industries to shift
to other jobs which are more important to the coun-try.
Unfortunately there were some people in a
great many activities who did not stop to consider
whether the activity in which they were engaged
might be an essential industry and left their jobs to
search for other jobs in shipyards, airplane plants,
or ammunition factories. Many of these persons
left essential activities in which they were already
skilled and went to find jobs in other activities for
which they possessed no skill.
No reason exists for shifting from job to job,
industry to industry, merely because a worker feels
that the activity in which he is engaged may be
declared non-deferrable. All local offices of the
United States Employment Service have current in-formation
on essential activities that are prevalent
in the local area. Before a worker leaves a job to
seek another, the Employment Service offices should
be able to advise him as to whether he can make the
greater contribution in the job he now has or in
some other job.
NATIONAL LABOR TURNOVER
It is reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
that in March 1943 for the country as a whole, the
labor turnover could be measured as follows. For
every 100 employees, in all manufacturing indus-tries,
there were 8.3 accessions and 7.7 total separa-tions,
of which 5.4 were voluntary, 1.1 were dis-charges
and lay-offs, and 1.1 represented military
inductions. In the aircraft industry, voluntary
separations occurred at the rate of 4.7 for every 100
workers; in shipbuilding the rate was 7.1, and in
machine tools it was 3.4.
Page 1 1 8 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
What Can Women Do?
The answer is they can do almost anything. In the
past two and a half years, the United States has
swung toward total war production. Vast new war
industries have created new and crowded communi-ties.
Older industries have converted to the uses of
war. All agriculture has been keyed to the food-for-freedom
program. In the course of this gigantic
movement, women by tens of thousands have gone as
workers into the war factories. Women have also
gone to work in the fields and orchards. To manipu-late
the machines that produce guns, tanks, ammuni-tion,
hundreds of thousands of women who have
never been in the labor market before will eventually
be holding jobs. A prediction that 50 percent of the
workers on these machines will be women is re-garded
as not overshooting the mark.
Women expertly apply the finishing touches to the nose of a
war plane. Photo by Office of War Information.
Most employers and many labor unions in peace-time,
and some of both groups even now, oppose the
employment of women, largely on the excuses of ad-ditional
expense, lack of strength of the female
worker, breaking up of homes, and just plain pre-judice
against the idea of women outside the home.
But the pressing need of industrial manpower has
already exploded most of this opposition. English
experience as well as our own, both in the first
World War and later, has proved they can do the
job. Britain is now using large numbers of women
in tank arsenals, where the work is very heavy.
Here, however, tanks and ships are being built
mostly by men, and the larger employment of women
tends to be in airplane, ammunition, and small arms
manufacture, electrical goods, parachute making,
precision instruments and similar war industries.
Women form the largest part of "local labor"
which war plant employers must employ if dis-astrous
migration, crowded housing, and pirating of
workers is to be avoided.
Even larger numbers of them are entering the so-called
essential services—ranging all the way from
street-car conductors and store-clerks to hospital
workers and truck-drivers—and on farms, to replace
men who go to war and to war industries. In some
rural communities, where shortages have developed,
women are being recruited by the United States
Department of Agriculture and the Employment
Service to help on the farms, to replace the men
whom the Great Fortune Teller might refer to as
crossing water.
The experience of plants hiring large numbers of
women shows they excel in occupations requiring
patience, care, and constant alertness, keen eyesight,
and perhaps most important, finger and hand dex-terity.
Many women have the ability to work to
precise tolerances.
Women are now used extensively on such manipu-lative
jobs as the operation of drill presses ; all types
of light sub-assembly and final assembly requiring
the use of hand tools ; electrical work including wir-ing
and assembling parts, winding coils and arma-tures,
soldering and taping.
In some occupations, such as the operation of
light-duty and automatic screw machines, light tur-ret
lathes, sheet-metal forming and riveting, acety-lene
torch welding and electric arc welding, they have
shown they can readily and successfully be used.
A survey of occupations in 21 key war industries
indicates that women can do 80 percent of the jobs.
Even in the ship and boat-building industry, it is
found that women can function as boilermakers'
helpers, draftsmen, machinists' helpers, blueprint
machine operators, and flash welders. And they can
be satisfactorily employed in such foundry work as
casting cleaners, finishers, polishers, machine core
makers and facing mixers. (1)
According to the United States Women's Bureau,
women in general have about one-half the average
man's lifting strength and about two-thirds of the
average man's pulling strength. They are more
susceptible to dermatitis and certain other health
hazards in the presence of specific chemicals. Some
of these limitations can be overcome by special
health measures, by lifting machines, and adjust-ment
of tools and machinery. Roller conveyors,
pedestal lifts, lower work benches, and new kinds of
mechanical aids can be installed.
Unusual activities in which North Carolina women
are now engaging are used as subjects of news-paper
stories from time to time. Women are man-ning
the police force in Asheville; they are serving
as guards at the State Prison ; they are driving army
cars and jeeps from point to point; they are driving
dairy trucks; they are making successful munitions
inspectors; they are serving as instructors in air-plane
mechanics at one of the state's Army Training
Commands ; more women doctors are now on hospital
staffs. In an Elizabeth City plant a group of 200
negro women are making veneer for aircraft.
Labor placements in the state have been showing
(1) For an analysis of the possibilities of women in industry
see (Dec. 1942) 55 Monthly Labor Review 1170-1185.
Summer, 1 943 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Page 1 1
9
a rapidly increasing ratio of women to men. In
addition to taking their places in the specialized war
production industries that have recently been de-veloped
in North Carolina, women are doing their
share in all types of manufacturing plants. For
instance, the same combed yarn they helped produce
in a textile mill in peace-time, is being turned out
today, but for army uniforms instead of for its
former destined uses.
A recent survey by the Employment Service cover-ing
420 of North Carolina's largest and most repre-sentative
industrial establishments indicated that
two-thirds of their current production is directed to
the war effort. Among the workers in these plants
today one in every three is a woman.
N. C. LABOR LAWS RELAXED FOR GIRLS
The Governor, with the approval of the Council of
State, has proclaimed that girls between 16 and 18
years of age are now permitted to work as late as ten
o'clock in the evening of any day, where formerly
they could work no later than nine o'clock. Further-more,
the Commissioner of Labor has been author-ized
to grant permits for 16 to 18 year old girls to
work as late as twelve o'clock midnight in essential
war services, when it is found that the employer has
provided adequate safeguards for the general health
and welfare of such minor female employees. How-ever,
the general understanding is that these special
permits will be issued only when other employees are
not available.
Extended School Services For The Children of Mothers
Engaged in War Work
Under the direction of W. F. Credle, state Director
of School-house Planning, who was appointed last
January to act as administrative head of the pro-gram,
a full fledged plan is now under way to pro-vide
care and instruction, beyond regular school
functions, for children two to 14 years old of
mothers engaged, or to be engaged, in essential war
production activities. Mr. Credle's official title for
this undertaking is Chairman, Child Care Committee
of the Office of Civilian Defense. Agencies partici-pating
in the plan are the State Board of Health,
the Works Projects Administration, State Board of
Charities and Public Welfare, the United States
Employment Service and the State Department of
Public Instruction.
Through the use of school facilities, the plan con-templates
two types of child care: (1) for pre-school
children, ages from 2 to 6 years, it will include an
all day program, for a 6 or 7-day week. The daily
schedule of a 10, 12, or 14-hour day is to be adjusted
to suit the needs of the families served. (1) For
children of school age, the program would add an
hour or so before and after school and service until
5 or 6 o'clock, or later as work hours require, and
on Saturdays and holidays. For children who at-tend
school for half-day sessions, due to crowded
conditions, additional services may be needed for a
full half day.
This involves of course 12-hour service in the
schools, for six days a week, 12 months in the year,
as an extension of the regular school system. The
whole program is placed in each community under
the supervision of the local superintendent of
schools.
The Federal Government supplied Mr. Credle with
the services for three months of three child-care
specialists who have surveyed with him the needs
for such extended school services throughout North
Carolina.
The greatest need was found to exist in the
proximity of the various military bases located in
the state. In these localities, ordinary commercial
and business enterprises have enjoyed a boom and
drawn on most available sources of labor, so that
war-production industries in nearby communities
have turned to unused reserves of womanpower
—
often mothers—for their production lines. One of
the standards used in measuring need was whether
the mother's work is performed for a company oper-ating
under a war contract ; and in the case of some
Negro mothers in domestice service, whether that
employment is for workers in war-contract indus-tries.
Typical needs making children eligible for the
extended services include the following situations:
where a father works nights and must have undis-turbed
sleep in daytime, where a child is in a mother-less
home and the father has no way of providing
care, where home conditions are such that suitable
care for the child is not possible; where father and
mother both work and the child is at home alone
during out-of-school hours. In determining eligi-bility
on the part of a community to share in this
program, justification had to be directed specifically
to an explanation of how the war effort would be
impeded if the requested services were not ren-dered.
Extra care of the pre-school type is planned wher-ever
there is found to be a group of 30 or more 2-6
year olds requiring it. In many instances where it
is proposed to form such groups, building facilities
and equipment not at present available through the
public school system may be required. Mr. Credle
expects about 100 of the pre-school groups to be
established in the state, and contemplates for each
group a staff of three teachers, two assistants, and
a maid and janitor.
. That employers are heartily in favor of the plan
is evidenced by the vote of the board of directors of
one company to set aside funds for a building to
house a pre-school group, such building to be erected
Page 120 THE U. C. C. QUARTERLY Summer, 1 943
on public school grounds and to be hereafter com-pletely
at the disposal of the local school board.
Before and after school programs for children
of school age will be set up where there are groups
of 100 or more pupils to be cared for. This means
opening the doors of the schools before the regular
time, depending on the work hours of parents, and
keeping them open as long into the afternoons as
may be necessary, with qualified teaching staff and
recreational personnel in charge.
Mr. Credle is most keenly interested in seeing
that all personnel connected with the child-care
program meet the best professional standards. A
system of special training courses for such positions
is being set up.
The funds for this extended school service will
come jointly from the individual communities and
from appropriations under the federal so-called
Lanham Act, or Community Facilities Bill—by a
procedure requiring certification of necessity from
the United States Office of Education to the com-bined
security agencies. The Federal Government,
after approving local plans, agrees to take care of
setting up the project, seeing that certain initial
overhead expenses are met, and thereafter to meet
one-half of the operating costs.
About two dozen North Carolina communities may
eventually participate in the program. Up to June,
with the exception of Durham, all of those which
had been made the Government had accepter, and
their projects are already becoming well estab-lished.
These include Asheville, Burlington, Char-lotte,
Cherry Point, Cumberland County, Elizabeth
City, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Kinston, Laurin-burg,
Raleigh, and Wilmington.
Plans have also been submitted by Gaston County,
High Point, Lexington, Onslow County, Scotland
County, and Thomasville. And six additional com-munities,
namely, Erwin, Goldsboro, Mecklenburg
County, Monroe, Mount Airy, and Salisbury are
likewise interested in obtaining the extended school
services.
WOMEN MAY GET SAME PAY AS MEN
Adjustments to equalize the wage or salary rates
paid to women with rates paid to men for comparable
work may still be made without Board approval
under the "Hold-the-Line" Executive Order of April
8, according to the National War Labor Board.
4,500,000 NEW WOMEN WORKERS HAVE
ANSWERED CALL TO JOBS
The Census Bureau's most recent estimate shows
15,900,000 women employed in the United States in
May 1943, as against 11,500,000 at work two years
ago.
AVAILABILITY OF TEACHERS
Employees of state, county, and municipal govern-ments
are not covered by the provisions of the War
Manpower Commission's Employment Stabilization
Plan, in deference to the principle of State's rights,
and, therefore, do not require a statement of avail-ability
in order to take jobs with other employers,
essential or not, Dr. J. S. Dorton, State manpower
director, announces.
Conversely, since state, county, and municipal
governments are not covered, they are free to em-ploy
any individual from any other employer, es-sential
or not, without a statement of availability
from that other employer.
Of immediate application, teachers who desire
summer vacation work, are free to accept employ-ment
from any local employer without a statement
of availability, and, when teachers are ready to quit
the summer job and return to teaching, they are
free to do so without such a statement.
However, if a teacher desires to move to another
area to work, or is not in normal commuting distance
of the work he expects to accept, he should have a
statement of availability from the United States
Employment Service office serving the area in which
he resides. !
Also, if a teacher starts on one summer job for
an essential employer and wants to shift to another
essential employer for further work, he is required
to secure a statement of availability from the first
employer, in order to be available for work with the
second employer.
The Federal government, on the other hand, is
covered by the provisions of the Stabilization Plan
and all of its agencies are required to give state-ments
of availability when laying off workers, or
must requ