Page:George Soule - The Intellectual and the Labor Movement.djvu/29



Labor during the past few years has been learning the value of facts—facts on wages, on profits, on the cost of living, on living standards, on the state of the market, on the efficiency of the industry, etc.; facts to serve as a basis for union strategy; facts to present to the public in time of strike; facts to bring before the impartial arbitrators in the settlement of labor controversies.

To obtain and present these facts in the most effective manner, some international unions, such as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, have organized their own research departments. Others, as in the case of the railway crafts, have combined with allied unions in establishing a joint bureau with headquarters in Chicago. A third group has hired economists and statisticians of the type of W. Jett Lauck of Washington. Others still are employing such statistical bureaus as the Labor Bureau, Inc., on a fee basis to do specific jobs. Labor organizations have also received a considerable amount of voluntary assistance from such organizations as the Bureau of Industrial Research.

The following addresses of labor research groups may be noted:

Labor Bureau, Inc., 2 West 43rd St., New York City.

Publicity and Information Service, A. F. of L. Building, Washington, D. C.

W. Jett Lauck, Southern Building, Washington, D. C.

Research Department, Railway Employees Department, A. F. of L., 4750 Broadway, Chicago, Ill.

Research Department, Industrial Workers' of the World, 1001 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill.

Research Department, Amalgamated Clothing Workers, Dr. Leo Wolman, Director, 31 Union Square, New York City.

Bureau of Industrial Research, 289 Fourth Ave., New York City.

Research Department, Rand School of Social Science, 7 E. 15th Street, New York City.

A number of other labor organizations have research and publicity departments more or less developed.

The Industrial Workers of the World have also taken a keen interest of late in industrial research.

Frank V. Anderson, librarian, calls attention to the need for labor architects and managers for trade union buildings, and for labor librarians. Bruno Lasker, in elaborating on the need for the last named group, has the following to say:

"Librarianship is becoming of increasing importance but is usually badly done if at all. Each of the larger craft unions should, for the use of its officers and members, have a library of books, laws, pamphlets, clippings."