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put millions of women in war jobs they could do as well as men, failed to made full use of the skills and potentiality of millions of Negro workers, and many large plants maintained strict regulations against the hiring of aliens. This discrimination caused widespread problems, because the manpower problem under the system of voluntary cooperation was essentially a local problem. Full use should have been made of local labor before encouraging in-migration, because of the overloading of housing and supply facilities for incoming workers. The effect on war production of these practices is exemplified by the request of the War Manpower Commission to the War Production Board in 1942 to see that procurement agencies not award or renew contracts for production with employers in 31 areas nationwide. The spirit of voluntary cooperation caused employers to learn to hire women and members of minority groups, but it thinned out completely when efforts were made to transfer workers out of non-essential industry into war work. Labor pirating and drifting of labor constituted serious problems. One ammunition factor was forced to shut down because it could not obtain copper for shells; upon investigation it was discovered that the copper miners were behind schedule because the ammunition factory had pirated labor from the copper mines.

An alarming situation occurred in 1942 when the supply of copper, zinc, manganese, mercury, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, and vanadium fell to low levels. At the same time, there was a sag in the lumber industry in the Pacific Northwest. The cause was determined to be two-fold: First, the induction of large numbers of skilled miners and timber hands into the armed forces; and second, bright lights, high wages, and good working conditions had lured others into construction and shipyards. 

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