James Clark McReynolds

“ We know of cases where $5, $9, $10, and even $16 apiece has been paid for jobs at common labor. In one city the fees paid by scrubwomen is at the rate of $24 a year for their poorly paid work. Then there is discrimination in the charges made for the same jobs. Often, too, men are sent a long distance, made to pay fees and transportation, only to find that no one at that place ordered men from the employment agent. A most pernicious practice is the collusion with foremen or superintendents by which the employment agent 'splits fees' with them. ”

“ The fees which private employment offices must charge are barriers which prevent the proper flow of labor into the channels where it is needed and are a direct influence in keeping men idle. In the summer, when employment is plentiful, the fees are as low as 25 cents, and men are even referred to work free of charge. But this must necessarily be made up in the winter, when work is scarce. At such times, when men need work most badly, the private employment offices put up their fees and keep the unemployed from going to work until they can pay $2, $3, $5, and even $10 and more for their jobs. ”

“ Where the states and cities have spent much money for inspectors and complaint adjusters there has been considerable improvement in the methods of private employment agencies, but most of the officers in charge of this regulation testify that the abuses are in 'the nature of the business' and never can be entirely eliminated. They therefore favor the total abolition of private labor agencies. ”

“ The necessity laid upon so many workers of constantly seeking new jobs opens a peculiarly fertile field for their exploitation by unscrupulous private employment agencies. There is much testimony to the fact and frequency of such exploitation. The most striking evidence of this is that in the state of Washington private agencies made themselves so generally distrusted that in 1915 their complete abolition was ordered by popular vote. ”

“ Investigations show, however, that instead of relieving unemployment and reducing irregularity, these employment agencies actually serve to congest the labor market and to increase idleness and irregularity of employment. They are interested primarily in the fees they can earn, and if they can earn more by bringing workers to an already overcrowded city, they do so. Again, it is an almost universal custom among private employment agents to fill vacancies by putting in them people who are working at other places. ”

“ The welfare of the state of Washington depends on the welfare of its workers and demands that they be protected from conditions that result in their being liable to imposition and extortion.
'The state of Washington therefore exercising herein its police and sovereign power declares that the system of collecting fees from the workers for furnishing them with employment, or with information leading thereto, results frequently in their becoming the victims of imposition and extortion and is therefore detrimental to the welfare of the state. ”

“ Appellants' occupation as agent for workers cannot exist unless the latter pay for what they receive. To say it is not prohibited because fees may be collected for something done in behalf of other principals is not good reasoning. The statute is one of prohibition, not regulation. 'You take my house when you do take the prop that doth sustain my house; you take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.'
We have held employment agencies are subject to police regulation and control. ”

“ That is, the foreman agrees to hire men of a certain employment agent on condition that one fourth or one half of every fee collected from men whom he hires be given to him. This leads the foreman to discharge men constantly in order to have more men hired through the agent and more fees collected. It develops the 'three-gang' method so universally complained of by railroad and construction laborers, namely, one gang working, another coming to work from the employment agent, and a third going back to the city. ”

“ Men are told that they will get more wages than are actually paid, or that the work will last longer than it actually will, or that there is a boarding house when there really is an insanitary camp, or that the cost of transportation will be paid, when it is to be deducted from the wages. ”

“ The mere fact that a court may differ with the legislature in its views of public policy, or that judges may hold views inconsistent with the propriety of the legislation in question, affords no ground for judicial interference, unless the act in question is unmistakably and palpably in excess of legislative power. . . . If there existed a condition of affairs concerning which the legislature of the state, exercising its conceded right to enact laws for the protection of the health, safety, or welfare of the people, might pass the law, it must be sustained ”

“ This necessity of paying for the privilege of going to work, and paying more the more urgently the job is needed, not only keeps people unnecessarily unemployed, but seems foreign to the spirit of American freedom and opportunity. ”

“ We are of opinion that Initiative Measure Number 8, as constructed by the supreme court of Washington, is arbitrary and oppressive, and that it unduly restricts the liberty of appellants, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, to engage in a useful business. It may not therefore be enforced against them. ”

“ In the state of Washington the suffering from unemployment was accentuated by the lack of staple industries operating continuously throughout the year and by unusual fluctuations in the demand for labor, with consequent reduction of wages and increase of social unrest. ”

“ They are not told of other deductions that will be made from wages; they are not informed about strikes that may be on at the places to which they are sent, nor about other important facts which they ought to know. These misrepresentations, it must be said, are often as much the fault of the employer as of the labor agent. ”

“ By this transfer the scope of the division's work was enlarged to correspond with the broad powers of the Labor Department. These were declared by Congress to be:
'to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.'
Then its efforts 'to distribute' (that is both to supply and to find places for) labor were extended to include citizens as well as aliens; and much was done to develop the machinery necessary for such distribution. ”

“ Also the employer will place his call for help with several agents, and each will send enough to fill the whole order, causing many to find no jobs. Labor agents and laborers alike are guilty of the misuse of free transportation furnished by employers to prospective help. And it is true also that many applicants perpetrate frauds on the labor agents themselves; as, for example, causing them to return fees when positions actually were secured. This is the result of the general feeling that the whole system of paying fees for jobs is unjust ”

“ This will make possible the complete organization of the labor market, which we hope is the first step toward the organization of industry itself.
'The aggressive attitude of the leaders among the workers has impressed upon the mind of the people the fact that the problem will have to be met in another way than by providing food and clothing for a period of distress such as we are passing through at the present time. ”

“ Managers of agencies and managers of jobs, their superintendents, foremen, or subforemen, were in this scheme for fleecing the workingman. Men in large numbers would be sent to contract jobs, and if on the railroads 'free fare' was part of the inducement, or perhaps the agency would charge a nominal fee if the distance was great, and this, too, would become a perquisite of the bureau, to finally go through the clearing house. In many cases men would be unsatisfactory ”

“ Plaintiffs, who are proprietors of private employment agencies in the city of Spokane, assert that this statute, if enforced, would compel them to discontinue business and would thus, in violation of the 14th Amendment, deprive them of their liberty and property without due process of law. ”

“ The bill alleges 'that the employment business consists in securing places for persons desiring to work,' and unless permitted to collect fees from those asking assistance to such end the business conducted by appellants cannot succeed and must be abandoned. We think this conclusion is obviously true. As paid agents their duty is to find places for their principals. To act in behalf of those seeking workers is another and different service, although, of course, the same individual may be engaged in both. ”

“ Because abuses may, and probably do, grow up in connection with this business, is adequate reason for hedging it about by proper regulations. But this is not enough to justify destruction of one's right to follow a distinctly useful calling in an upright way. Certainly there is no profession, possibly no business, which does not offer peculiar opportunities for reprehensible practices ”

“ Their patrons are frequently men and women with only a dollar or two, which they are eager to give up for the opportunity of earning more. They are often of small intelligence and easily duped. Stories of how these agencies have swindled and defrauded those who sought employment through them are heard universally. Some of the more common of the fraudulent methods said to be used by these agencies are the following:
'1. Charging a fee and failing to make any effort to find work for the applicant. ”