National Reports

...But in 1957, when there were 20,000 foreign workers in the state, the U. S. Department of Labor set prevailing wages for cotton picking at $2 and $2.50 in the counties where they were mainly employed...

...Those employers, on our authorization, the 366 certification, the wage we put on there is the wage offered by the nonuser who comes to the office and places orders for workers...

...Hayes: Is it established...

...Manpower shortages during World War II forced a relaxation of this policy, which resulted in the temporary importation—as distinguished FAY BENNETT, a specialist in the problems of agricultural workers, is secretary to the recently formed National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor...

...Hayes: We merely report it...

...Up to this November, according to Mexico's Department of Interior, 409,940 Mexicans had already worked in the United States...

...Interestingly, the immigrant contractlabor system, used to build oui" railroads, was outlawed in 1910 when the then-Commissioner of Labor roundly condemned it as "peonage...

...William Burkett merely was "kicked upstairs" to the post of Superintendent of Banking...

...Is there a severe shortage of domestic farm workers...

...Were conditions corrected in California...

...Thanks to the recent extension of Public Law 78, first adopted in 1942, such exploitation will pot only be legal through June 30, 1961, but more than a million L. S. citizens will be forced to continue working under substandard conditions...

...But the big-farm lobby has succeeded in keeping appropriations too low for effective policing...

...An exchange between the chief of farm placement in California's Department of Labor, Edward Hayes, and Congressman Harlan Hagen of California shows in part how a "'prevailing wage" becomes the "frozen wage": "Hagen: I still haven't found out how the wage is set...

...At the same time, the number of foreign workers employed there rose to the point where 90 cents out of every wage dollar went to the braceros...

...Clearly, the contract laborers, who are being exploited themselves, are the unwitting tools for an even greater exploitation of U. S. workers...

...Burkett had his deputy, James Reimel, send agents qualified for all phases of farm work to the department's own Farm Placement Bureau offices throughout the state...

...Present figures, which hover around the half-million mark, represent a new high for the use of contract-labor...

...The most telling illustration of the real situation, however, comes from a Government source: In August 1957, the NAWU's secretary, Ernesto Galarza, complained to California Director of Employment William Burkett that Mexican nationals were displacing local workers...

...Above all, the large growers like December 15, 1958 11 the contract-labor system because the foreign national works for lower wages than his domestic counterpart...

...They are available when needed and can be sent away when work runs out...

...0 HOURS hours of work...

...Hagen: Does the employer-unilaterally decide what he will pay...

...Only one-third of those surveyed by a public health officer, according to the House subcommittee's published hearings, knew about their health insurance coverage— the cost of which is deducted from their pay by international agreement...

...Also, the foreign nationals leave their families behind so they can be housed very cheaply and isolated from surrounding communities very easily...

...One growers' representative put it this way to the House subcommittee: "The whites sometimes have families while the Mexicans do not...

...Braceros were employed in every area where his men applied, yet they were refused employment at every office, with the exception of the one in Watsonville...

...He housed them in overcrowded barracks and paid them $54 for a 60-hour week...

...And by extending Public Law 78, which has already cost over $100 million to administer, the Government is in fact withholding from its own agricultural workers the basic standards that have long since been won by industrial workers: minimum wages, maximum hours, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize and bargain collectively...

...Despite the doubletalk, it is clear that the employers set the prevailing wage and the workers have no say in the matter...

...By using an increasing number of contract workers, the growers have been able to enforce a virtual wage freeze in agriculture for imported and native workers alike...

...Tlxe same thing is true in most other crops throughout the northern states...

...But the facts prove otherwise...

...If the Labor Department had more than its one compliance officer for each 10,000 foreign nationals employed in this country, a great many similar violations might be uncovered...

...Cotton-chopping wages in Crittenden County, Arkansas, last year were set at 30 cents an hour...

...Public Law 78 requires the local Government employment office to certify the non-availability of domestic labor before an area can qualify for the importation of workers...

...Why was the law extended...

...To the large growers, of course, the contract-labor system has many advantages...

...W. B. MoFarland, head of the Bureau of Employment Security office in Dallas, conducted an investigation which revealed the following: "One large association was taking out a large group of braceros at 6:30 A. M. and returning them at 7:30 P. M.—13 hours—yet our investigators found the men actually worked and got paid for five EMPLOYER BYRD: $54 FOR...

...Early this year, concern over rising unemployment brought increased protests against the system...

...The consumer-oost of fruits and vegetables has risen approximately 31 per cent since 1949...

...Their share in the consumer dollar paid for produce has been estimated at from one to two-and-one-half per cent (the higher figure ccming from the Spring 1958 issue of Agricultural Life, an employer publication...

...The Department of Labor responded by announcing that there would be sharp cutbacks in the employment of Mexican contract nationals, but this now looks doubtful...

...In such circumstances, wages are almost certain to move down rather than up, particularly when an abundant supply of povertystricken foreign laborers is available...

...Since the foreign workers do not know the language or customs of the country, they are not aware of their rights of how to register complaints...

...Thus, when the whites are out of work thev and their families become a charity burden on the city, whereas the Mexicans are transferred to another area where there is work or sent back to Mexico for a furlough...

...Where that wage is up, there is no great worry about the uncertainty of the labor market...

...I don't know...

...Only very rarely do we hear of a labor need for the cherry harvest...

...They earn $1.20 an hour...

...The National Agricultural Workers Union also produced impressive testimony to this effect...

...You know why...

...This summer, at hearings held by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture, many workers testified' that they were unable to find employment in areas using imported labor...

...The NAWU also has shown that wages in the tomato-growing area of Sutter County, California, dropped from 18 cents an hour in 1952 to 11 or even 10 cents in 1957...

...Hayes: The whole community will pay the reported wage because, remember, all of our employers don't use Mexican nationals...

...How does the contractlabor system affect the wages, working conditions and benefits afforded U. S. workers...

...Hagen: I think your response is confusing...

...Working at an employer's whim entails many evils...

...In the last Congress, it even managed to push through a $219,000 cut in the funds available for this purpose...

...from immigration—of railway-maintenance and agricultural workers...

...Later, while extension of the law was under consideration, its critics charged that it depressed farm wages to the point of creating its own "labor shortage...

...Hagen: Who does it then...

...A sharp contrast to the above was provided by Reverend Clement Kern of Michigan, in a speech before a recent meeting of the Catholic Council for the Spanish Speaking: "Cherries are picked by piecework rates and generally, if you break down an average wage in cherries, you come out with $1.20 an hour...

...We do know "Hagen: It has to be set...

...The Department of Agriculture's Farm Labor Report shows that the average-wage rates for cotton picking in Arkansas reached $3.25 per hundred pounds in 1948, when no Mexicans were employed in the state...

...But that increased cost hasn't provided a better living for this country's seasonal farm workers...

...Even then, only 100,000 to 200,000 Mexicans and British West Indians were granted six-month entry permits...

...The NAWU further warns that contractlabor harvesting of strawberries in California is driving small strawberry farmers in Louisiana out of business...

...In 1957, a total of 466,713 foreign nationals (mostly Mexicans) were imported for farm work and subjected in many instances to much worse conditions...

...The eight hours they spent traveling and waiting around simply was not counted...

...Hayes: It isn't set...

...Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell brushed aside the charge by unveiling a new policy of insuring the payment of the contract piece-work minimum of 50 cents an hour to at least 90 per cent of those who work with "normal competency" and "apply themselves diligently...

...The Government insists that this prevents the displacement of domestic workers by contract workers...

...Farm Workers By Fay Bennett THIS YEAR Senator Harry F. Byrd of Viiginia, owner of the country's largest apple orchards, imported close to 400 Bahaman farm workers...

...The contract-labor standard, set by international agreement, calls for payment of the prevailing wage, or not less than $2 per day (50 cents an hour...

...So there is an exercise of control there in that respect...