Local transit workers.-Although a combined measure of the various increases received by unionized local transit workers within specific cities is not available for the postwar period, a picture of post VJ-day movement can be obtained from a summary of important rate increases occurring in Pacific Coast cities between July 1, 1945, and July 1, 1946. In Los Angeles, rates for local 1-man cars and busses after 6 months were increased 28 cents an hour, and for the Pacific Electric Co., in the same city, 182 cents. In San Francisco, rates for 2-man car operators in the municipal system rose about 10 cents during this period. In Portland, a gain of 17 cents was recorded for operators of 1 man cars and busses. In Seattle, regular bus operators, and in Spokane, bus operators after 1 year's service, received hourly increases of 11 and 10 cents, respectively. Since July 1, 1946, municipal system streetcar and bus operators in San Francisco received an additional increase of 121⁄2 cents. A further increase of 5 cents an hour has also been granted to bus operators in Spokane since that date. Transportation-railroads and busses.-Railroad workers were involved in Nation-wide developments which culminated, in May 1946, in a general wage increase of 181⁄2 cents an hour and a moratorium on changes in working rules for 1 year in the case of the operating brotherhoods.16 Transportation workers employed by the Pacific Greyhound Bus Lines also benefited by wage settlements extending over seven Western States. Settlement of an 18-day strike in October 1945, brought increases of approximately 10 percent. In October 1946, new increases averaging 12 percent were obtained through collective bargaining. Trucking industry.-Union wage rates for motortruck drivers in the period between July 1, 1945, and July 1, 1946, increased 15 percent in Los Angeles, 18 percent in San Francisco, 9 percent in Portland, 16 percent in Seattle, and 14 percent in Spokane, compared with a national average increase of 11 percent. 10 Railway Wage Changes, 1941-46, Monthly Labor Review, September 1946 (p. 335). Shipyard Workers 1 BY MID-1946 only a third of a selected group of wartime workers in the Northwest shipyards had returned to jobs similar to those they held before the war. A substantial majority of the group surveyed in April 1945 were still residents in the shipyard areas in June 1946, despite the fact that 57 percent of them had been newcomers during the war. Following cut-backs in production and resultant lay-offs in the shipyards after VJ-day, many had taken jobs in peacetime activities at wage rates lower than those paid at the yards. Average straight-time hourly earnings for the group of workers studied in the summer of 1946 were 6 percent lower than in the spring of 1945. Compared to their prewar earnings, however, they averaged an increase of 64 percent on an hourly basis. Gross weekly earnings of 53 workers employed in 1941 and in the survey periods averaged $56.43 in June 1946, compared with $37.59 in early 1941 and $71.49 in the spring of 1945. About 30 percent of the group studied in the summer of 1946 were unemployed. The Northwest Shipbuilding Industry Shipbuilding in the Pacific Northwest is concentrated in two areas— one around Portland and Vancouver on the Columbia River, about 100 miles from the Pacific Coast, and the other on Puget Sound. Before the war, the leading industries of the Portland-Vancouver area were lumbering, shipbuilding, fishing, and food processing. As shipbuilding expanded to meet the Nation's wartime needs, employment in shipyards, which was less than 400 workers in April 1940, grew in 4 years to a total of 120,000. In Seattle and Tacoma, the principal cities in the Puget Sound area, lumber products, transportation equipment, and food products were the chief industries in 1940. Shipbuilding developed into a major activity during the war, and employment in the yards increased from a prewar total of about 6,000 to 95,000 in the summer of 1944. In the Kaiser Co. shipyards, new construction methods and resulting high production early in the war attracted Nation-wide 1 Prepared by Jean A. Wells and Elizabeth S. La Perle of the Bureau's Wage Analysis Branch. The field work for the survey was done under the immediate supervision of Jean A. Wells in the Bureau's regional office at San Francisco. The study is part of the Bureau's Nation-wide work and wage experience studies, which covered more than 5,000 workers and were designed to illustrate the impact of reconversion. It summarizes the experiences of 400 workers selected at random out of an approximate 48,000 in the Todd-Pacific and Kaiser shipyards, in April 1945. Of the group originally studied, 371 were men and 29 women; 266 were white and 34 were Negroes. These workers were first interviewed in April 1945. Follow-up surveys were made in the winter of 1945-46 and in the summer of 1946. attention. In December 1943, employment at the Vancouver yard reached its peak-39,000 workers. The number had declined to 28,000 by April 1945, when the first survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was made. Within 2 weeks after VJ-day, the work force was reduced to 13,000; subsequent reductions were smaller but continual, and in the summer of 1946, less than 100 employees (clerical and supervisory) remained. The Todd-Pacific shipyard in Tacoma was used as a testing ground for prefabrication of ships. The favorable results of this technique led to its use in other yards on the West Coast. Aircraft carriers, numbering 52 in all, were the main product of the Todd-Pacific yard, although it also built many other types of vessels. In 1944, employment in this yard was at its peak, about 27,000 workers; but, by VJ-day, employment had dropped to 21,000, and it continued to decline. The 2,000 workers remaining in June 1946 were engaged in the decomissioning of Navy vessels. The Wartime Labor Force At the beginning of the war, only a small nucleus of skilled shipyard managers and workers was available in the Northwest. The ToddPacific yard drew largely on local sources for employees, but by the time operations were begun by the Kaiser Co. in Vancouver, other establishments had absorbed most of the available labor supply. The Kaiser Co. then inaugurated, in cooperation with the U. S. Employment Service, a Nation-wide recruitment program which brought workers from every State in the country. Because of the high rate of labor turn-over, this program was continued until early 1945. Personal characteristics. Of the 400 workers interviewed in the BLS survey of April 1945, 371 were men. At the Kaiser yards, in Vancouver, 15 percent of the workers studied were Negroes, in the ToddPacific yard at Tacoma, only 1 percent. Workers ranged in age from 15 years to 65 and over, averaging (median) 38 years. None of the women, however, was over 49 or under 20. About four-fifths of the workers studied were married and had dependents; three-fifths had from 1 to 3 dependents, and a fifth had 4 dependents or more. A majority were members of 3- to 5-person family groups, but less than two-fifths belonged to families with more than one wage earner. Migration. Fifty-nine percent of the workers at the Todd-Pacific yard lived in or near Tacoma in 1941, whereas only 18 percent of the Kaiser yard workers lived in the proximity of Vancouver at that time. Over half of the Kaiser workers migrated from communities a thousand or more miles from Vancouver, but not more than a fifth of the Tacoma workers traveled as far as a thousand miles. Of the 400 workers studied in April 1945, 43 percent were residents of the shipyard areas in 1941, 8 percent came from other parts of the States in which the yards were located, approximately two-fifths came from other States west of the Mississippi River, and a tenth from east of the Mississippi. area. Whether the in-migrant workers would remain in the Pacific Northwest became an important question after VJ-day. A substantial number could be absorbed in the peacetime work force, since additional workers were needed for postwar industrial expansion of the When 400 workers were interviewed in the spring of 1945, more than three-fifths of them indicated a desire to stay. In the summer of 1946, 70 percent of those 400 wage earners were still in the area; not more than 30 percent had departed, although 57 percent had been newcomers during the war. A former South Dakota farmer wanted to remain in the Northwest, if he could find a job there. Since he was 58 years old, he expected he would have to accept maintenance or janitor work after the shipyard closed. But he considered that "a small sacrifice for the privilege of living in the Northwest." At the latest contact, he was still there and was employed in demounting housing units. Of 96 out-migrants, slightly more than two-fifths returned to their 1941 communities. Some of the group (13 percent) remained in the same States as the shipyards but moved outside the area. The largest group of out-migrants (25 percent) went to the West North Central section of the country, which had supplied the greatest proportion of workers during the war. Some 23 percent were living in States east of the Mississippi River, 17 percent were in the West South Central section, about 8 percent were in the Southwest, and about 14 percent in the East North Central States. A larger number of in-migrants to the Tacoma yard remained in the Northwest than of in-migrants to Vancouver, since, in the former area, peacetime industry offered greater job opportunities at acceptable wage rates. About four-fifths of the white men, but only about two-fifths of the women, and one-fifth of the Negroes, remained in the summer of 1946. Reasons stated by women for leaving were such as, to join a husband released from the armed services, to accompany a husband looking for work elsewhere, or to care for sick relatives. Negroes left principally because of inadequate living conditions and difficulties encountered in finding jobs. A 28-year-old Negro, in his search for employment during the war had moved from Missouri to Pennsylvania, then to Tennessee and to Idaho, before entering a Washington shipyard. Following his lay-off after the war, he continued his active search for work, moving from Washington to Oregon, to Nevada, and to California. When last heard from, he had a job in southern California. Married, but without children, this young man was better able to travel in search of a job than some of his former coworkers. Postwar Employment Experience By mid-1946, only a handful of the workers were still employed by the shipyards. Of the 281 workers interviewed, about 60 percent had found jobs, 31 percent were unemployed, and 9 percent had withdrawn from the labor force. TABLE 1.-Employment status of Northwest shipyard workers, by sex, winter 1945–46 and June 1946 Sixty-six (or 21 percent) of the 317 workers reinterviewed in the winter of 1945-46 were unemployed. Unemployment of a week or more was experienced by 137 persons during the winter. Claims for unemployment compensation were filed by 88, and 59 actually drew benefits. Most of those who did not receive benefits were reemployed before the end of their waiting period. By the summer of 1946 the number of unemployed had risen from 66 to 87, and comprised 31 percent of the workers reinterviewed at that time. A 44-year-old Negro welder was unable to find any employment after his discharge from the shipyard. Most of his working life he had been a grain farmer in Illinois. When interviewed in the winter of 1945-46, he said he wanted to remain in the area and would take |