MIGRATORY WORKERS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LIV, Issue 22, 21 March 1933, Page 3

MIGRATORY WORKERS

PROBLEM FOR LOCAL BODIES.

WARNING AGAINST PRACTICE

A number of~ the Unemployment Board's certifying officers have reported the difficulty they are experiencing in placing in employment workers who migrate from one district to another. This position has been reached mainly because of local authorities, hard pressed to provide the finance necessary to cover cost of supervision, transport, and all those charges other than wages, in connexion with scheme 5 labour, having passed resolutions to hold themselves responsible for finding employment only for residents of three, and sometimes six, months' standing. While the Board holds the view that local bodies have a definite responsibility to assist in every way possible, it is not in a position to force them to provide work.

Workers who are unemployed are therefore warned against migrating from place to place with the intention of qualifying for relief work, and it is suggested that no married unemployed worker should remove his family from one district to another without having communicated with the certifying officer in the place to which he desires to move, and received his assurance that it will be possible for him to be placed on relief work pending the time when he obtains a position in ordinary industry.

An unemployed man takes a considerable risk by proceeding in search of work in the cities and provincial! centres, where the congestion of j workless men has already become for ' the authorities a problem cf major importance. Unemployed workers ignoring this warning may find themselves in the position of being unable to cbtain relief work.