The Parasite Trade: Fighting the Employment Sharks
A scathing report to the State Federation of Labor exposes how corrupt employment agencies trap migratory laborers in a cycle of debt and exploitation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Employment agencies have become a parasite that we must attack with vigor in behalf of the migratory, unskilled laborer, who is now almost dependent upon them for an opportunity to work. These agencies are becoming more numerous and unscrupulous employers and their representatives have misrepresented conditions and divided the fees extorted through them. The chance to rob poor laborers by collecting a few dollars and then directing them to some job so far away that there is little likelihood of their returning to complain is enticing to these operators. None have been critically prosecuted, as they easily protect themselves with office records. Mayor Pratt of Spokane recently reported collecting and returning over $7,000 to laborers cheated by such agencies, including one man who was sent to the same job fourteen times only to be fired each time to make room for another victim. This evil must be eradicated. We should press for legislation modeled after the federal statute protecting seamen, which makes it a misdemeanor to charge a fee for providing employment.
“These agencies have, year after year, become emboldened by successful extortion from the cheapest class of labor until they are today a parasite which we must attack with vigor.”
The 'employment sharks' described here, who profited by churning laborers through temporary jobs to collect fees, mirror modern concerns about gig-economy exploitation and the predatory fees charged by some temporary staffing agencies. Today’s labor advocates still grapple with how to protect vulnerable workers from systems that profit more from the friction of turnover than from stable employment.
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