COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR EDITH GREEN, Oregon CARL D. PERKINS, Kentucky, Chairman FRANK THOMPSON, JR., New Jersey ALBERT H. QUIE, Minnesota EARL B. RUTH, North Carolina PETER A. PEYSER, New York SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL LABOR JAMES G. O'HARA, Michigan, Chairman SHIRLEY CHISHOLM, New York ELLA T. GRASSO, Connecticut HERMAN BADILLO, New York FRANK THOMPSON, JR., New Jersey EDWIN D. ESHLEMAN, Pennsylvania (II) O'Hara, Hon. James G., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, "Beyond the Hearing" a memorandum to members of (Cross-referenced to the seminar proceedings) Text of H.R. 5010_. U.S. Department of Agriculture, table on number of migratory Page above Gomez v. Florida State Employment Service, text of decision___. ATTACHMENTS TO ABOVE ESEA Title I Regulations, excerpt from 45 CFR 116.1__ Wage rates in beet sugar, bulletin of California Beet Growers Excerpts from Federal Register on sugar beet wage rates--- SEMINAR ON FARM LABOR PROBLEMS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1971 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2261, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James G. O'Hara (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives O'Hara, Chisholm, Badillo, Grasso, and Vevsey. Staff members present: Jim Harrison, subcommittee staff director; Elnora Teets, subcommittee clerk; Michael Bernstein, minority counsel for labor; and John Miller, minority associate counsel for labor. Also present: Prof. Gary S. Goodpaster, associate professor of law, University of Iowa College of Law, author of "The Public Regulation of Working Conditions in Agriculture." Mr. O'HARA. The Subcommittee on Agricultural Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor will come to order. This is our first meeting. The subcommittee was created by the Committee on Education and Labor in the course of the adoption of the rules of the parent committee earlier this year. The following members were appointed to the committee: Mrs. Chisholm, Mrs. Grasso, Mr. Badillo, Mr. Thompson of New Jersey, Mr. Eshelman, Mr. Ashbrook, and Mr. Veysey. The rules of the committee prescribe our jurisdiction, as covering "all legislation primarily relating to farmworkers and their dependents." As I have advised my colleagues on the subcommittee by memorandum, I am anxious to utilize the new subcommittee to make some changes in the nature of the hearing process itself. I hope that we can discover, together, some new ways of developing information and insights on our subject matter which will enable us to make the time hitherto allotted to formal hearings somewhat more productive for all concerned-most especially the members and those whose profession it is to speak to us for organizations and interest groups. I ask unanimous consent that relevant portions of my memorandum on new hearing techniques be made a part of the record. (The document referred to follows:) "BEYOND THE HEARING" For a long time now, I have felt that the hearing process in the format to which we have become accustomed, is not performing the function it ought to perform, or even the function we sometimes think it is performing. With some notable exceptions, I believe that legislative hearings neither bring new concepts to bear on the questions before the members, nor provide a useful, manageable, organized body of data about the questions under consideration. I further believe that the creation of this new Subcommittee gives us an ideal opportunity to experiment with other methods of information gathering, presentation and organization, through which more helpful, better organized and truly more broadly representative techniques can be developed. I don't pretend to know what "the" best technique is, if, indeed, there is one best technique. And I hope that all Members of the Subcommittee and other interested persons will feel free to suggest and help develop new ideas in this area. I believe it would be in the long-range interest of labor, management, government and the consumer to see this Subcommittee spend less time picking over the old familiar bones, and more time in developing insights into today's problems and shedding the maximum amount of light on today's answers. Our first experiment will begin the end of this month. The tentative format is that of the academic seminar. The topics chosen are three which will give us all some background information on the context of any legislation the Subcommittee may be considering. They will include "The Structure and Operation of the Farm Labor Market." "The Present Scope of Public Regulation of Agricultural Working Conditions," and "The History of the Farm Labor Movement in the 20th Century." The procedure will be to secure the preparation, by competent professionals, of factual papers surveying these three topics, and the distribution by the Subcommittee staff of these papers to the Members of the Subcommittee. Finally the Subcommittee will meet, in open session, to discuss the specific papers previously distributed. There will be no witnesses, no "position papers" or other formal arguments for or against specific legislative proposals, just a discussion, in as much depth as the time permits, of the factual data provided. A transcript will be made of the discussion, and it is my hope that we will find the record worth printing as part of the history of whatever legislation we eventually consider in detail. The proposal embodies some pretty high hopes for the "seminar" and for the idea that new techniques can be developed to take us beyond the hearing as we know it today. Like most high hopes, this one has only a finite chance of being realized. But I believe that all of those involved can and will cooperate in the spirit of the experiment and help make it work. Mr. O'HARA. We are beginning our examination of the background of H.R. 5010 and other pending bills by a series of seminars. The first seminar will consider a paper written by Prof. Gary S. Goodpaster. of the University of Iowa Law School, entitled, "Public Regulation of Working Conditions in Agriculture." Mr. Goodpaster briefly joined the staff of this subcommittee as an associate counsel during the preparation of this paper. He has since left that staff and appears today, to help us in our consideration of the paper, in his private capacity. In addition to his teaching career, which will take him this fall to the University of California at Davis, Calif., Professor Goodpaster was law clerk to Chief Judge John S. Hastings, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and acting director of research for Colorado Rural Legal Services. I ask that Professor Goodpaster's vita be made a part of the hearing record at this point. (The document referred to follows:) |