HARVEST LABOR PROBLEMS IN WHEAT BELT. 33 



EFFECT OF EMPLOYMENT OFFICES UPON WAGES. 



Farmers and some county agents on the one hand and the harvest 

 laborers on the other frequently criticize the influence of the Govern- 

 ment employment offices upon wages. These farmers and their 

 friends have an idea that the offices raise the wages, while the men 

 think that the offices depress them. While it may be true that an 

 occasional employment official believes that wages are too low and 

 rather encourages the men to " stick out " for a higher rate or con- 

 siders the rates the men want too high and encourages the farmers 

 in holding them down, the majority of the men in the Federal and 

 State employment offices have tried to maintain an entirely neutral 

 attitude on the question of wages and to act as impartial agents to 

 bring the farmers and the men into contact with one another. A 

 public employment office can follow only one policy successfully, and 

 that is to fill all orders at the " going wage." 6 It can not force 

 wages above that rate or depress them below it without destroying its 

 business. 



Wage rates in the harvest field are of two kinds, natural or un- 

 standardized wages and standardized wages. In 1920 an effort was 

 made to fix a standard wage in Kansas, where wages were for the 

 most part unstandardized, to be paid regardless of the size of the 

 labor supply. 7 The State employment offices naturally endeavored 

 to adhere to this wage. If individual farmers refused to pay the 

 rate fixed the office would accept their orders at lower rates, but 

 inform them that it could hardly be expected to get men for them 

 at 60 cents when most of the farmers were paying 70 cents. On the 

 other hand, if a particular farmer placed an order at 80 cents, the 

 office was justified in refusing to advertise the order at that price 

 because if it offered the harvest hands one 80-cent job they would 

 become dissatisfied with 70 cents. To post the 80-cent offer would 

 " spoil the market." The only policy under which the employment 

 offices could operate successfully in Kansas in 1920 was to adhere as 

 closely as possible to the " going rate," 70 cents. 



The ease with which the market can be " spoiled " was illustrated 

 at Hays, Kans. A few days before the harvest opened a number of 

 laborers sought employment there at the State rate, 70 cents an hour. 

 After having waited a few days these men were called to the county 

 agent's office in the city hall and an agreement made that they should 

 be placed on farms at 70 cents an hour. Later that day, during the 



8 The expression " going- rate " of wages is used here to signify that rate which the 

 majority of farmers are willing to pay and at which labor can be secured for them. If 

 a majority of the farmersi offer a, wage which the laborers refuse to accept, no " going 

 rate " has been established. 



T " Kansas Handbook of Harvest Labor," loc. cit. 



