under that close cooperation we have not been able to draw from the employment service, that is those people who are receiving unemployment insurance enough workers to even make a dent on our problem because we are still concerned with these 48,000 people for whom we need a program of direction.

We must look to some agency that has accurate, timely information as to the source that we might look for labor. It might be necessary for us, as we did last fall, to go into Texas and Oklahoma and ask people to come to California, advising them of conditions of work, the wages, which we did through the Extension Service. They were a vehicle through which we could work and we have worked very well and they have executed a program which has been of benefit not only to the producer but likewise to the worker.

We find that that type of cooperative enterprise has worked well for California agriculture. It has worked well for the farmer and it has worked well for the worker; that is the type of thing which we would like to see carried out.

Now, one more thing with reference to the Employment Service, and a very unfortunate thing which happened before the war, and I do not mean to infer that it will happen again, but there was a period in California when we had an effort on the part of a questionable segment of our union organization people, I do not even recall the names, although I do not believe they were affiliated with any national organization, under the rules of the employment service, they could not refer workers to any area in which there was any dispute.

Unfortunately, these people, whom I think were interested more in provoking trouble, would go into the Employment Office and say there was a dispute in a certain place and in many places they were not even employees and had no connection with the employer, and the Employment Service was unable to make references to that area.

That was an unfortunate occurrence and I give you only one that took place under the Employment Service.

Our problem now, and we want to be constructive about this, is to do a job for the producer as well as the worker. We feel that the agency should be national in its scope because it deals with interstate movement of workers between States. We also feel that the certification for foreign workers should be based on thorough and careful analysis of the need at hand and that the Secretary of Agriculture is the proper person to do that because of the information he has been able to gather through this organization as to whether or not there is a need for foreign workers in the field.

We are likewise concerned with the education and demonstration methods to improve the work techniques for farmers and workers. We feel that that is an important field and of value to both of them.

I would like to point out that in our experience we find that agricultural labor is largely divided into two broad categories, one of them being the professional migrant worker and the other one being the u professional worker. The professional worker has always been an important part of our farming operations because he knows where his area of employment is, he generally has his contacts made well in advance.

However, the unprofessional worker is the type of person who finds no other source of employment and so, as a last resort, he goes to

the farm to work. We feel that those people need a great deal of help through education. We have had the experience particularly at this time in California of people who have come West who were brought out by war industry and were released from war industry because they no longer were needed. They used up their unemployment insurance and they now are the problem of agriculture and have matriculated into our agricultural communities.

The people in this second group we found could do some jobs quite well, but, for the most part, when it came to skilled work, such as ladder work, girdling vines, or work in the alfalfa fields, that they were very miserable failures, for the most part, as far as the employer was concerned and they were dissatisfied and unhappy because they could not earn sufficient money to take care of themselves and their families.

We were able through the Extension Service who were already aware of the problem. They put people out there to help to train these workers, to refer them to work in which they could make more money on the basis of their own physical ability to do so.

I trust you are familiar with the details of all such operations, for example, as harvesting asparagus. You have to be built a certain way to harvest asparagus and make money out of it. It is a profitable business if you are built that way. These people, for the most part, were not built for harvesting asparagus and they were told how to climb ladders, and so forth, and as a result they are happier and the employer is happier.

One of the things we feel is a responsibility of this agency—and it is a big responsibility in California-is that we do not want the trouble of the Thirties when we had the farmers from the Dust Bowl of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, when we were overrun with too many people and not enough jobs. We do not want that to happen again.

We feel that the Extension Service, through its understanding of the agricultural conditions in California and other States can refer them away from California when conditions require. We feel that it is just as important to remove the oversupply of workers as it is to supply them.

I think there are other factors which we have to consider, one of them being the population shifts brought about by the war, the moving of people from industrial areas to agricultural areas, and vice versa. Also, it will be some time before the migration pattern existing before the war is reestablished because people are moving during this immediate period following the war.

Another factor is the loss of the 20- to 24-year-old workers; that is a serious thing because that work force is going away from the farm and it used to be the principal source.

The CHAIRMAN. Why is that?

Mr. BUNJE. Most of those people are going into other types of work than agriculture. They do not like the hot, hard work connected with field work and according to statistics and surveys that have been made during the past several years, there has been a large movement away from the farm of that age bracket, which you well know has for years constituted the principal work force in agricultural labor and those people are finding employment in other fields. They do not like to do that type of work.

the necessary workers for these seasonal jobs and likewise with the employment offices located in every State?

In other words, you are supplementing these two?

Mr. BUNJE. That is right.

Senator THYE. And you were speaking more or less as an agent for the members in your association?

Mr. BUNJE. That is right.

Senator THYE. Of course, prior to the establishment of the employment services and prior to the war emergency employment offices. it was customary to make application to an employment office, a private employment office, where they charged the individual for finding the job and they charged the employer for finding and supplying a man. I thought that was your procedure?

Mr. BUNJE. No sir, we have never charged a worker for the service of referring him to work. The reason for that is that in California there are many abuses of that system and as much as anything else, we were formed to overcome some of those abuses.

Our interests have been to straighten out the housing. We did a great deal of work to see that schools were properly placed in areas where the migratory workers were.

I might say further that among our members there are many chambers of commerce.

Senator THYE. You support the bill?

Mr. BUNJE. We are very much in support of the bill. Our reason for that is that we have worked with both agencies and we find that the work of the Extension Service is satisfactory and has been well done and has been much superior to that as done by the Employment Service.

Senator THYE. Could the personnel now employed in the Extension Department with the work in the field, and that Service be transferred from the Extension Service to the Employment Office and carry on in the same manner that they have carried on under the Extension Service?

Mr. BUNJE. Yes; they could but we do not feel they could do as good a job for the producer or the workers as the Extension Service has done.

There is another consideration involved here and that is from the standpoint of the workers. We have to recognize and we do recognize, that he is an integral part of the farming operations. The producer is interested because he needs workers when his crops mature. The county agent is well equipped and knows when the crops are ripe and about what the needs would be for farm labor.

Senator THYE. I am wondering if the county agent could pass his requirement over to the employment office just as easily as he could pass the requirements over to the Extension Service. You see, both have headquarters in a given city and I could see that the employment office would be located just the same as your extension office are located, adjacent to your universities.

You have a central State office and any other subdivision that you may establish and your employment office has a single office in a State and whatever subdivisions they need out over the State in order to render the type of service necessary.

Mr. BUNJE. That could be done, but our experience prior to the war and the experience even during the war with the Employment Service leads us to believe that they could under no condition do the job for the workers or the producers as the Extension Service has done.

I would like to point out something, that the worker in agriculture is not a person who normally goes into an office to find work; that is a job which requires field workers.

I would like to point out an example. In Kern County we have a requirement for 8,000 workers at one time in the harvest of potatoes. Those workers conclude their work rather suddenly. There is a perioá of 3 or 4 weeks in which that work is concluded. Those workers do not, all 8,000 of them unless we spend a lot of time educating them, go down to an employment office and say: "Where is there a job?" Rather, that is field work. It means that we have fieldmen, the Extension Service, who go down there and advise those people where work is in the West and direct them into those other areas of employment. Senator THYE. I am wondering if that same fieldman could not be a fieldman under the Employment Office or out of the Employment Office?

Mr. BUNJE. He could be.

Senator THYE. You see, I am very familiar with the type of set-up because I had something to do with its establishment when the emergency struck us and we knew that we would not have sufficient help. You knew it out there in California because they had moved all the Japanese out of that area that we had to have this emergency up to take care of the crops in season.

When you set it up you took men that either showed some aptitude or interest because they were all not all young men inasmuch as the war had taken them into the armed services and the war industries. You set these offices up from scratch in the Extension Department.

I could go out and say just who the people were that were set up in one State and how they proceeded to organize themselves to meet the demand that was constantly coming in for extra help. It was done and the Extension Service did it. They had the qualified men. The emergency is over and now you are looking for something to settle yourselves for a long time service in the field of employment.

Here is an office that has the employment agency. It deals with the shop workers, with the plumber, and with every conceivable field excepting agriculture which may be the citrus or the grain field. Now then, if they have helped in all of these fields, is it reasonable to believe, if we take this farm labor phase from the Extension Service insofar as the emergency is concerned and put it in the Employment Service; that Mr. Jones who was working for the Extension Service for the last 5 or 6 years would go to work under Mr. Smith who is the Director of the Employment Office? He would render the same service under the Employment Office that he had rendered under the Extension Service.

I am asking that as a question for my own information.

Mr. BUNJE. I think perhaps I can give you this reaction to that question. In the case of California we have had very close relations between the Employment Service and the agricultural Extension Service. They have not been mad at each other or isolated. Even

Of course, the decreasing birth rate among rural families is some thing with which you are familiar. What mechanization will do we do not know but we do know that there is an increased mechani zation in farming and it will perhaps solve some of the farmers problems.

I would like also to bring up the point that this proposal from California is supported by all the agricultural interests there and it also has the support of the National Cotton Council. A gentle man will submit a statement for them later supporting this proposal

I would like to reiterate that as far as we have seen from actual experience and being in the field that the best way to do a real job for both the producer and the worker is to have this program han dled by the agriculture Extension Service. Our experience has been all in that direction.

I appreciate the opportunity to come and tell you our views on this very important matter.

The CHAIRMAN. You made a very interesting statement.

Mr. BUNJE. I did leave out one matter that I would like to speak briefly on and that deals with the housing in California, which my Congressman also mentioned.

Thank you.

We should like to see the present farm labor supply centers liquidated in an orderly manner. First, that that liquidation will provide for the continued use of those camps for agricultural labor, and we are not concerned with the fact of who operates them, just so long as they will be continued to be used for agricultural labor. We favor the earliest possible liquidation on that basis by the Federal Government, a liquidation either on the basis of sale, lease, grant, to State, county, or local nonprofit agencies or to individual farmers. The important thing as far as we are concerned is that we do not, during this period of critical shortage, remove these houses from use by agricultural workers.

I think there is a responsibility not only to the farmer, but to the workers as well. In California those camps are now housing about 16,000 workers with an 18,000 capacity. I should say people, not workers. The number of workers involved runs up to about 6,000.

I would like to submit this chart as to the number of workers housed in those camps. We feel there is a responsibility to liquidate this thing in an orderly manner in such a way as to not deny workers the homes nor to deny the producers the housing that is necessary to them. Most of our housing is furnished to the workers without charge, furnishing them light, fuel, which would be wood or coal, whatever is necessary in the particular area.

Thank you.

(The chart referred to is inserted facing this page.)

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. John J. Riggle, of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives is next.