the land-grant colleges and universities. Questions of recruitment and placement will continue to diminish in importance. Questions of labor utilization, housing, and of adjustment of agricultural production in relation to the prospective available supply of labor, will become increasingly important. Recruitment and placement are being handled increasingly by farm groups and associations. This is a sound development and should be encouraged in any permanent program. It seems clear that the work of the agricultural extension service in the emergency farm labor program has been well done. It has been enthusiastically commended by farmers in all sections of the country.

It is inescapable that whatever agency administers the permanent farm-labor program, the county agricultural agent will (as has always been the case) be expected by farmers to assist with the solution of their farm-labor problems. The general satisfaction with his work in this connection, both during the war and prior to the war, emphasizes the well-established dependence by farmers upon the county agricultural agent for this type of assistance.

The above considerations lead to the conclusion that a permanent farm-labor program, desired by the farm people of the United States and emphasizing the educational aspects of the farm-labor problem, should be established at the national level in the Federal Department of Agriculture and in the States under the supervision of the land-grant colleges and universities to the extent that the governing authorities of the latter are willing to assume responsibility for such a program. Such a permanent program should contain the following provisions:

1. Educational, including farmers and farm workers, and covering:

(a) Research, education, and information with respect to labor utilization, including labor-saving devices, methods of work simplification, training in skills, safety methods, work supervision, and related problems.

(b) Worker-employer relationships, including employment contracts, work incentives, conditions of housing and sanitation, and other related problems. (c) Current and reliable information as to crop conditions, employment opportunities, movements of domestic migratory workers, and related prob

lems.

(d) Educational assistance to farm-labor associations in their cooperative efforts to provide adequate housing and sanitary facilities for farm workers, and in related matters.

(e) Educational, supervisory, and informational assistance both in mobilization of available farm workers required for production and having peaks, and in routine farm operations.

2. Adequate financing on a permanent basis with which competent personnel can be employed and retained for both the research and educational phases of this program. This financial provision should be in addition to that required

for established educational programs.

3. That in States, if any, in which the governing body of the land-grant college or university elects not to administer the enlarged program provided for in permanent farm labor legislation, administration of the program may be contracted by the department of agriculture to an appropriate agency.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will adjourn until 2 o'clock this afternoon and we will meet at that time.

(Thereupon, at 12:05 p. m., the committee recessed to reconvene at 2 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The committee reconvened at 2:55 p. m., upon the expiration of the recess.)

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will resume the hearing, and we will hear first this afternoon, from Mr. H. L. Mitchell, president, National Farm Labor Union, Memphis, Tenn., on Farm Labor Bill S. 1334.

STATEMENT OF H. L. MITCHELL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARM LABOR UNION, A. F. OF L., MEMPHIS, TENN.

Mr. MITCHELL, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: You are considering a bill that will affect the lives of millions of human beings: men, women, and children who plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops which feed and clothe us all.

You have an opportunity to prepare legislation that will meet some of the human needs in American agriculture. You can submit legislation that will bring some measure of decency and human dignity to a group of people who have long been America's "untouchables."

The legislation under consideration is not designed to meet the needs of a small farmer who occasionally hires a farm hand. The legislation under consideration concerns large scale industrial agriculture, the factories in the field which require hundreds of thousands of seasonal laborers each year to plant, cultivate, and harvest the bulk of the Nation's crops.

There are approximately 3,000,000 farm laborers in the United States. The majority of these follow the crops, traveling from State to State with the seasons. These workers who perform one of the most necessary functions in society, are now excluded from the protection of laws providing fair labor standards, social security, protection for the young, the unemployed, and the aged. Likewise, they are generally denied health, medical, and educational services normally accorded other American working people.

Just before the war, the entire country became concerned about the plight of millions of dispossessed farm people roaming the highways searching for work. There have been no fundamental changes in the conditions affecting farm labor since John Steinbeck wrote about the Oakies in the "Grapes of Wrath." In my opinion, the bill in its present form, would merely perpetuate the deplorable conditions of farm laborers.

Last fall a series of secret meetings were held under the sponsorship of organizations and individuals seeking to preserve the wartime profits of large-scale industrialized agriculture. As a result of these meetings, a committee was set up to sponsor a program for a permanent farm-labor program. The proposals made by the committee of the big-farm interests are practically identical with the bill you are now considering.

One of the main proposals of the committee representing industrialized agriculture was to have the Government continue the wartime emergency program of importing foreign nations for exploitation on the big farms. We note that section 9 of the bill reads as follows:

Whenever the Secretary of Agriculture determines that the supply of domestic workers willing and able to perform agricultural work is inadequate, he shall so certify to the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization and such Commissioner shall with the approval of the Attorney General, prescribe regulations permitting the admission of foreign workers into the United States.

When 2,000,000 American citizens are unemployed and hundreds of thousands of experienced farm workers are not employed full time, there can be no justified reason for importing foreign labor into the United States.

However, from the point of view of the large-scale industralized farm operator, there are numbers of good reasons why the Federal Government should continue to import foreign workers for employment in agriculture. The chief reason is that the recruitment and transportation of foreign workers are performed by the Department of Agriculture at little cost to the farm operator and he assumes no responsibility for the worker before or after the job is ended. Section 9 of this bill sets up a means of subsidizing from the United States Treasury, wealthy individuals and corporations engaged in farming. Section 5 of the bill provides that no funds shall be expended to fix, regulate, impose, or enforce wage rates or hours of work of farm laborers. It thus prohibits any State or Federal Government agency from taking any step which will establish fair rates of pay, or from aiding farm laborers to secure full-time employment. This section also outlaws collective bargaining or union agreements between farm workers, recruited and placed by a Government agency, and their employers. To all intents and purposes, a voluntary agreement between an employer and a group of workers would also be prohibited by this section. The Hartley-Taft bill which has denounced as slavery for the industrial worker does not go as far as this legislation. This section of the bill being considered perpetuates conditions worse than chattel slavery, in that it practically prohibits farm laborers from seeking to improve their lot by self-organization and bargaining with their employer.

Section 1 of this bill empowers the Secretary of Agriculture to enter-into agreements with the land-grant colleges in each State to perform the recruitment and placement of farm laborers. What business has an educational institution in the field of recruitment and placement of labor? Would Congress consider directing the Secretary of Labor to enter into agreements with a State university to handle recruitment and placement of industrial workers?

This section is designed to increase the power of the county agricultural agent and the 48 State extension services. It is widely known that in most States, the entire agricultural extension service is closely allied, if not completely subservient to a private organization representing large-scale industrialized farm operators.

It is my belief that if this section of the bill is adopted, it will be self-defeating in as far as domestic farm labor is concerned. Each State extension service director will see to it that if his State has an abundant supply of labor, such labor will be maintained in the State, regardless of the need for farm workers in a distant State where perishable crops are ready for harvest. The same situation may well apply to the 3,000 agricultural counties in the United States. The provisions for agencies to handle recruitment and placement may well mean the Balkanization of the farm labor supply, leaving the Secretary of Agriculture no other alternative than to import foreign

nationals.

Section 7 of the bill provides that all Government-owned housing must be sold to farm operators or associations of farm owners and that no funds shall be spent directly or indirectly to fix, regulate, or impose housing standards. In addition, this section prohibiting the establishment of housing standards for farm laborers, would also prohibit an individual farm worker or a group of farm workers from

bidding on or purchasing homes of their own. In my opinion, this section is class legislation for a special class of wealthy farm operators who may purchase Government housing and further extend the evils of company-owned communities for workers.

The bill prohibits the recruitment and placement agency from setting housing standards, wages, or making agreements for continuing employment of farm laborers, but requires the Government to collect in advance for health, medical, and burial services they will need as a result of bad housing and low wages. The bill will eliminate the health and medical care program now operated by the Federal Government and available to foreign nationals as well as some domestic farm laborers.

The bill does not provide for a minimum age for the recruitment and placement of farm labor. We assume that the employer would be permitted to exploit the labor of little children unless there was a State law prohibiting their employment. Likewise, there are no provisions made for the care of small children while their parents are at work in the fields.

There is no provision in the bill for the transportation of farm laborers across State lines.

There are no provisions in the bill to regulate and license labor contractors. This bill, if enacted, will encourage unscrupulous labor contractors to participate in the recruitment of farm labor since standards of wages, housing, et cetera, are forbidden. These racketeers will be permitted to continue the buying and selling of human beings at so much per head.

I

urge your committee to re-write this legislation. Give consideration to human beings engaged in farm work, equal to that accorded the property of large farm operators.

The National Farm Labor Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and representing the only organized farm workers in the United States, submits the following suggestions for a farm labor program to be incorporated into legislation:

1. Authorize the United States Employment Service to reestablish its farm placement bureau, and to set up standards to be followed in recruiting and placing farm laborers in each State.

2. Encourage transportation of farm laborers by public carrier, and provide for regulation and safety inspections of privately-owned facilities used in transportation.

3. Provide for the continued use and expansion of low-cost housing for farm labor. Authorize the USES farm placement service to set standards of decency for privately owned housing used by farm labor recruited under this program.

4. Provide for the continuation, expansion, and extension to American citizens, of the health, medical, and burial services now being operated by the Government for foreign nationals engaged in agricultural work.

5. Authorize the recruitment and placement agency to hold public hearings and determine the prevailing wages and hours of work offered farm laborers in each crop or area where labor is placed from outside the state.

6. Grant the same opportunity afforded other American citizens for self-improvement through organization and bargaining with their employers.

7. Require licensing and strict regulation of labor contractors engaged in the business of buying and selling the labor of human beings engaged in agriculture.

8. Provide that the recruiting agency may require employers of farm labor to carry insurance, granting compensation in case of injury 'or accident to farm laborers while at work.

9. Set a minimum age of not less than 14 recruitment and placement of a farm laborer. school hours, no person under 16 years of age wages in agriculture.

years of age for the Require that during may be employed for

10. Provide for the establishment of public and private nurseries in labor centers and communities for the care of children whose are employed in the fields.

parents 11. Prohibit the importation of foreign workers during peacetime for exploitation on the Nation's farms.

That completes my statement, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a very interesting criticism of the bill. Some of those objections I am in sympathy with. They will have serious consideration.

I wish Senator Aiken had been here. He helped to draft this bill. I would like to have his viewpoint on some of the questions you raise. Mr. MITCHELL, Well, I talked to him privately some time ago. He said he would give consideration to what I have to say.

The CHAIRMAN. Your statement will have consideration.

We will see if there is anything we can do about it along the lines you have indicated.

Senator THYE. Mr. Mitchell, I did not quite understand what you meant in this one section where you referred to the fact the extension departments were subservient to the organized or the large industrial farm operators. I wonder if you would clarify that?

Mr. MITCHELL. What I meant was there was a private organization in the country which has had quite a bit to do with the extension service, particularly in its beginning.

Senator THYE. To which organization do you have reference?

Mr. MITCHELL. I have reference to the Farm Bureau Federation. Senator THYE. And you think the Extension Service of the United States is subservient to that farm group?

Mr. MITCHELL. I think it is very closely allied if not subservient. I believe that is the way I put it, sir.

Senator THYE. I have no further questions at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We will now hear from Mr. Elmer J. Hewitt, vice president, Meat Cannery & Farm Workers Union, Local 56, Bridgeton, N. J.

STATEMENT OF ELMER J. HEWITT, VICE PRESIDENT, MEAT CANNERY AND FARM WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 56, BRIDGETON, N. J.

Mr. HEWITT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee; I am Elmer J. Hewitt, vice president of the Meat Cannery and Farm Workers Union, Local No. 56 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, affiliated with the AFL. My office is located in the Stanley Building, Bridgeton, N. J.