BIENNIAL REPORT OF DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INTRODUCTORY In presenting to you the Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Department of Labor I cannot refrain from commenting upon the phenomenal growth of the industries of our state, as is evidenced by the statistical part of this report. The increased acreage of crops the past year attests the fact that Nebraska has not yet reached her capacity for production. Not only so, but it shows that she is heart and soul with the President and the government in their work to win the War. It is well to note that the report of the Compensation Commissioner is also included in this report. This is due to the fact that the Commissioner of Labor has been deputized to take care of this in addition to his other duties. During my tenure of office it has been my constant aim to increase the efficiency of the department wherever possible. The war has greatly added to the work of the Commissioner. The Department of Labor is co-operating in every way with the government in its efforts to make labor efficient because we recognize that the success of the war depends in no small way upon the labor of the country. The government has created two new bureaus in the United States Department of Labor; one is called the Public Service Reserve, and the other the United States Employment Service. Their duty is to supply the employer with labor and to secure positions for those in need of employment where they will be able to do the most good. Both of these bureaus are working largely through the labor bureaus of the various states. If the work of this office is to be done well it will, therefore, require the service of more clerks, and it need hardly be added that Nebraska does not desire to be behind any of our sister states in their efforts to render efficient stewardship to the government in this hour of her greatest need. RECOMMENDATIONS It has been noted by citations from the law the numerous duties imposed on the Labor Commissioner. To carry on this work only a limited number of clerks can be kept, owing to the small appropriations. We cannot help but feel that the importance of the work to be done by this office is not truly sensed by the people of the state. A comparison of the appropriations of some of our neighboring states whose conditions are very similar to our own will help make this point clear. Kansas, for example, for the same work appropriated upwards of $80,000.00 for the biennium, Missouri, $42,000.00, Minnesota, $56,000.00. The above cited appropriations do not include such items as printing, postage, etc. The Kansas Department of Labor employs 15 people, Missouri 10, and Minnesota 20. In Nebraska, where the labor conditions are quiet analagous to the states just mentioned, but $9,000.00 are appropriated for the biennium. Besides this, printing and postage, office supplies, etc., must be taken from this amount. Then the legislature of 1917 added the Compensation work to the Department. Only $2,500.00 for the biennium were appropriated for this work. This makes the total appropriation to maintain the Labor Department and the Compensation work only $11,500.00. As compared with the three states named above it will be seen that Nebraska is far and away behind her sister states, in adequately caring for the labor conditions of the state. Since the United States has entered into the war the duties of this office have doubled. A glance at the regular duties imposed by law, to say nothing of the new ones, will give some idea of the magnitude of the work to be done. According to the law, "The duties of the Commissioner shall be to collect, collate, and publish statistics and facts relative to manufactures, industrial classes, and material resources of the state, and especially to examine into the relations between labor and capital; the means of escape from fire and protection of life and health in factories and workshops, mines and other places of industries; the employment of illegal child labor; the exaction of unlawful hours of labor from any employee; the educational, sanitary, moral, and financial conditions of laborers and artisans; the cost of food, fuel, clothing, and building material; the causes of strikes and lockouts, as well as kindred subjects and matters pertaining to the welfare of industrial interests and classes." To carry on all this work we are permitted to have but one regular stenographer. We may, it is true, employ extra help from time to time, but so many clerks coming and going, makes against efficiency. Not only so, but the salaries we are allowed to pay are not adequate to meet the increased cost of living. This makes it hard to retain competent clerks because they can secure more pay elsewhere. We therefore rcommend, first, that an increase in salary be granted to the Chief Deputy Commissioner and the entire office force. Secondly, that permission be given to employ at least two permanent clerks, and not less than three factory inspectors. Nebraska spends less for the Department of Labor than any other state in the Union. It certainly is not because there is less need here than elsewhere, but it is because we have not come to realize the importance of this department in dealing with labor conditions. Some states, which do not have the economic importance that Nebraska enjoys spend more than three times as much as we do for the maintenance of their labor bureaus. We therefore recommend that an appropriation of $20,000 for the biennium be made so the Department of Labor may be able to carry out the enforcement of the law more efficiently; that an appropriation be made to help maintain the free employment offices established throughout the state by the government in co-operation with the State Department of Labor. The following extract, taken from the Employment Bulletin of the Public Service Reserve, makes clear what is wanted: "The United States Employment Service is a national service and therefore the national interests will at all times prevail. The employment service in each state should be conducted on a co-operative basis between the state and nation; and each state should ultimately be expected to share the expense with the Federal Government." This shows the degree of importance the government has attached to labor, and money thus expended by the state will come back to us many times by increasing the efficiency of labor distribution, and at the same time increasing the productive capacity of the commonwealth. Last year, with the co-operation of the United States government and the Department of Agricultural Extension of the University of Nebraska, we placed more than thirteen thousand people in positions. This year these figures are more than doubled, but we have not been able to cooperate with the government as we should because of lack of funds. Indeed the offices opened by the government at Omaha, Lincoln, North Platte and Hastings was the result of our inability through insufficient appropriation to meet the situation. Without question the duty of this department is to serve those in the market to purchase labor and the laborer himself who seeks employment. However, this takes careful organization, and this in turn calls for more money than we now command. PART III Labor and the Increased Cost of Living OH, BEAUTIFUL, MY COUNTRY Oh, Beautiful, my country, Be thine a nobler care Than all the wealth of commerce, Be it thy pride to lift up The manhood of the poor, Be thou to the oppressed Fair Freedom's open door!, Oh, Beautiful, our country, Be righteousness thy sceptre, And in thy shining forehead For thee our fathers suffered; Upon the holy altar Their willing lives they laid. Grand memories of thee shine; The blood of pilgrim nations Commingled flows in thine. LABOR AND THE INCREASED COST OF LIVING One of the greatest problems with us now and the one that will very likely bear closely on labor agitation in the future, is the increased cost of living. Prices have gone up by leaps and bounds. For the present labor has thrown its differences aside and is standing nobly by the president in his prosecution of the war. The following occurring in one of the labor publications is thoroughly indicative of the stand of labor in this war: "We must eliminate from our daily lives the nonessentials. We must have but one thought-to strike the blow that will forever free the world from the nightmare of Prussian militarism." But when this war is over labor is going to insist upon its rights, and the cost of living, if an equilibrium is not found, is going to prove a serious problem. It is at least interesting to conjecture on the action labor will take should it be convinced that action is necessary. The average laborer with an average sized family is finding it difficult to support his family, to say nothing of educating them, because of the great increase in the cost of living. In many cases the increase in wages of the laboring man has not been commensurate with the rise in prices of the necessaries of life. This is going to be the cause of social unrest unless adjustment comes. The United States Government, through its Department of Labor, has been making some careful investigations on the cost of living, and following are its findings which are worthy of the careful consideration of all who may be interested in the subject: The distribution of budget items just given is an average based on cost of living studies made by several United States Government bureaus and other agencies covering in all 12,000 families. The proportions of these major items of expenditure can be varied within narrow limits, but no reasonable arrangement would cause a wide change in the increase in the total cost of living as given above. If, for example, instead of this average distribution of the budget, food be allocated as much as 45%, rent and clothing 15% each, fuel and light 5% and sundries 20%, the indicated increase in the total cost of living would be 54%. T Great differences in local conditions and in standards of living among individual families, any average of increase can be applied only in a broad way. A range of 50% to 55% is, however, considered fairly representative of the increase in living costs for the majority of in |