METHODS OF PLACEMENT IN LARGE CITIES LESLIE S. WOOD, District Director of Rehabilitation, There are only two or three things that Miss Alvord mentioned in her paper that I wish to speak about. One is the question of selling the matter of rehabilitation to the employer in the first place. It seems to me that, in the last analysis, you will have to sell this rehabilitation question on the employability of the man. I like to go to the employer and tell him that I have a man I am convinced can do a certain operation. I am perfectly willing to tell the employment man that my applicant has a certain disability, but that the disability does not necessarily interfere with the operation that I wish to put him on. If we can sell our man to the plant we have, in our experience, comparatively little difficulty in selling other men to the same plant later on. The difficulty is in getting in the plant in the first place. The average employer apparently thinks that because a man is injured he is a cripple and can't do anything at all. I think that as rehabilitation workers our strongest asset is in knowing the various operations in the plants in our districts so thoroughly that we can go into those plants and tell the employment manager that we have a man who can do a particular thing, and convince him that we are right. That will sell the man, as an employee, in very much the same way that the employment manager would go to the State employment bureau and ask for a man from that agency to fill this job. I am thinking of one plant in Rochester, for instance, which has the reputation of being more or less conservative in a good many ways. We have had a good deal of difficulty in getting into some of those plants, but this one plant finally asked us, I think as a test proposition, if we could furnish a man to do a certain operation. I said, "No, we haven't any man at the present time. As soon as we get one that I think can fill your job I will let you know." This I did. A man was put on and was successful. We don't have any difficulty in placing men in that plant now. Any time that they want men and they think the job can be filled by our people, they telephone to our office, ask us what we have, and we are always perfectly honest in telling them whether or not we have somebody that we think can fill the vacant job. We tried the experiment of an advisory committee. We put on that committee representatives of some of the largest plants in the city-an industrial-relations manager of a plant employing about 15,000 people, and the vice president and general manager of the largest public-service corporation in the city. They were men of that type. I find that the employment managers and the executives look at this problem from quite different angles. If you can sell the thing to the executive he, in turn, will issue orders to the men further down the line and you will often get better results in that way. The advisory committee didn't work out very successfully. It hasn't so far. The principal reason for that is that we chose men who are big men in their particular branches and they are busy men. We have a good deal of difficulty in getting them together for any kind of a meeting where we can ask them for advice toward the placement of certain types of disability. On the other hand, the men who are not prominent in their line would not be very valuable as members of such a committee. So we have had to rely almost entirely on the personal contact. I think that if we could have enough workers so that we could keep making personal contacts, drop into a plant office once in a while, and be able to say "I have a man I think can do this operation, give him a chance," we would be able to do much more and better work. We do that whenever we have a little time that we feel can be spent in that direction. We will stop in at the different plants and talk to them about it. They may not have any opening at that time, but it keeps rehabilitation before them in a personal way. I try to make it very emphatic to them that it is always personal service. We don't take a card out of an index file and say this card can fill this job. We go over the cards in the file when we are asked. for a man, and always make the man and the job fit together. Then we get the man himself and take him to the plant and talk the thing over in a three-cornered conference. I think the best way to go about the problem of placing people in industry is by this method. Be very careful about the first placement that you make. Get the employment manager in the plant to place your trainee on the job that you are very sure he can fill. If the man makes good on that job, you are not going to have any difficulty in filling other jobs in that plant. If the first man you put on the job is a failure, your employment manager will come back to you in a great many cases and say, "I don't know; you gave us this man and he wasn't any good." I think of an instance of a man to whom I wanted to give training. It was a matter of five or six months' training. I went to the president of a fair-sized concern and put the case right before him: "Here are the conditions. This is the history of the man and the injury and his educational background. This is what I want to do. Will you give him a job when I fill my part of the contract?” He said, "Yes." I had occasion to talk before a group of men, most of them employers, about 15 or 18 months later, and after I had finished talking, this man, of his own volition-I didn't know he was theresaid, "I want to tell you men right now that the rehabilitation people are giving us men who are high grade, and when they send a man to us we are sure that he is going to fill the job. One of the best men we have ever had in our plant was placed with us by the rehabilitation service." (Adjournment.) THIRD SESSION WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1925. 2 P. M. Chairman: J. C. WRIGHT, Director, Federal Board for Voca- Chairman WRIGHT. The first speaker on this afternoon's program is Mr. Thomas J. Duffy, Chairman of the Industrial Commission of Ohio. Mr. Duffy. RELATION OF CIVILIAN REHABILITATION TO COMPENSATION THOMAS J. DUFFY, Chairman, Industrial Commission of Ohio Man can not find a nobler purpose upon which to expend his thought and his energy than that which has for its object the conservation of health, limb and life, and the rehabilitation of human beings who have been disabled by injury or disease. We advocate and urge the conservation of natural resources, such as minerals, timber, fuel, water power, and the like, because our success or failure to conserve these things affects the welfare of human beings in such a way as to increase or diminish their comfort and happiness. In the interest of human welfare, it is important to conserve our natural resources, but it is more important to conserve health, limb, life, and the undiminished use of remunerative human facilities. No matter what progress we make in the conservation of the efficiency of the things that administer to the needs of man, the individuals who have lost health or the capability to perform labor can not enjoy the fruits of such progress, and to the man who loses his life in an industrial accident it means nothing. If we reduce the hazards of industry and rehabilitate disabled workers, we not only save life and limb, but we save labor power, which is not only a natural resource in itself, but is also a vital element in most of the other agencies of conservation. We also conserve the happiness of the home, because nothing can be more detrimental to domestic peace and happiness than an injured worker whose helpless condition requires the constant care and attention of the family for a period of years, or whose death fills their hearts with grief. Payment of compensation is a blessing and a great help to the victims of industrial accidents, but it does not replace amputated limbs, rehabilitate crippled workers, restore human lives, or give back to widows and children their loved ones. After all has been done that skill and care can do to prevent accidents and occupational diseases we are still going to have crippled and disabled workers, some of whom will be unable to perform any manual labor during the remainder of their lives and some who will be permanently handicapped in earning a livelihood for themselves and their families. These unfortunate workers are much better off than were the victims of industrial accidents prior to the enactment of workmen's compensation laws. But the mere payment of compensation is not sufficient, if we wish to deal with this problem from a progressively enlightened standpoint. Under almost all State workmen's compensation laws the practice is to pay compensation for a limited period of time or until a specified amount of money has been paid to workers who have been partially and permanently disabled. After the payments of compensation have ceased the disabled worker is still handicapped as much as he was during the period that he was receiving compensation and he has got to bear the burden of loss himself for the rest of his life. These partially disabled workers constitute the biggest factor in the problem of rehabilitation. They are usually persons who have lost an eye, hand, arm, leg, etc., and because of which they have been compelled to change their occupations. If proper and adequate means of rehabilitation were provided, and workmen's compensation boards and commissions were authorized to arrange to have such persons given a course of training that would enable them to become proficient in such employments as their respective natural abilities and previous experience best fitted them for, most of them would have an earning capacity equal to or greater than they had before the injury. This could be done without any increase in the amount that is now being paid in compensation to such disabled workers. The good that can be accomplished through rehabilitation of disabled workers is illustrated in the following few cases selected from among those referred by the industrial commission of Ohio to the civilian rehabilitation service of the State board of vocational education: A workmen with a wife and four children rece ved an injury which crushed his vertebra and rendered him unfit to perform manual labor of any kind. The weekly compensation was not sufficient to enable him to properly provide for himself and family. He was turned over to the rehabilitation service. It was ascertained that he had a very good knowledge of poultry raising. A good chicken farm was purchased for h m which, with the assistance of his wife and family, he has operated so successfully that his income is now double the amount it was pr or to his injury. A workman had a fractured hip, which left him with a permanent partial disability. He found it very difficult to get employment because of his disabled condition, and he became very much discouraged. Under the supervision of the civilian rehabilitation service he was given a course of training in the |