Section 5 of the bill provides that no funds shall be expended to fix, regulate, impose, or enforce wage rates or hours of work on 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 been 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 Governmnet housing and further extend the evlis 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, etc., are forbidden. These racketeers will be permitted to continue the buying and selling of human beings at so much per head.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness will be Rev. William J. Gibbons, representing the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.

STATEMENT OF REV. WILLIAM J. GIBBONS, S. J., BOARD OF DIRECTORS, NATIONAL CATHOLIC RURAL LIFE CONFERENCE

Reverend GIBBONS, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference appreciates this opportunity of expressing its views on the subject of migrant agricultural labor, about which H. R. 3367, now before the committee, is concerned. In matters affecting the land, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference expresses the interests of some 80 dioceses, now participating actively in its program. Practically all of these dioceses are predominantly rural in character. Many of them embrace territory served by seasonal agricultural labor, about whose social and moral welfare the conference is naturally concerned.

The conference is in favor of a constructive, long-range program calculated to reduce to a minimum the economic, social, and moral dangers closely associated with the transit and employment of large numbers of migratory workers. We favor the constructive approach taken by the Federal Interagency Committee on Migrant Labor, whose reports and recommendations were recently submitted after a year's careful study of the problem.

If at this time press of business does not permit revision of laws along the lines suggested by the Interagency Committee, then the National Catholic Rural Life Conference believes that present arrangements should be extended rather than an inadequate program be substituted. The agricultural labor plan envisioned in H. R. 3367 lacks certain safeguards and constructive measures which should be incorporated into a permanent program.

We believe that a satisfactory migrant labor program will give due consideration to the following point:

1. Recruitment and placement.-Since agriculture bears a close relationship to the rest of the economy and since a considerable number of seasonal workers in agriculture spend part of the year in other industries, it seems desirable that recruitment should desirably be in the hands of the same public employment agencies which recruit and place workers for the rest of the industrial community. When a definitely labor function is placed directly in the hands of a department or agency distinct from other labor services, proper coordination is less likely to occur. Those agencies habitually dealing with problems of employment and placement are in a better position to use all labor resources of the community to the best advantage. Were the recruitment and placement of agricultural labor exclusicely in the hands of the Department of Agriculture Extension Service it is hard to see how desirable transfers of migrant labor from agricultural to railroad and other industries, or vice versa, can be effected.

2. Transportation of workers. While transportation facilities accorded migrant workers by growers and recruiting agents are sometimes satisfactory, it must be recognized that all too often the migrants travel in overcrowded, uncomfortable, and, from a safety viewpoint, poorly equipped vehicles. Very few travel by public conveyance. Through one or other form of evasion the vehicles provided by growers, recruiting agents or the migrants themselves do not come under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission, even though they

are used for interstate transport and not infrequently for direct or

indirect payment.

No agricultural labor program can be called adequate unless it takes into consideration the urgent need for governmental supervision and inspection of vehicles carrying numbers of workers in interstate commerce. The law would have to be so worded as to distinguish these migrant worker conveyances from those which are genuinely "private," such as the family automobile used by family members and a few friends.

3. Housing and living conditions.-Now that we have proved our ability to provide at least decent and healthy living quarters for large numbers of troops under most difficult conditions and even in the veterans emergency housing program have preserved certain minimum standards, there is no justification for allowing the "shack towns" one sees around agricultural centers to continue. Nor should old or abandoned farm houses, outhouses, etc., be used to house workers even though it only may be for a few weeks. Migrants are confronted with a series of such living conditions so that a good percentage of their year would be spent in what are worse than rural slums. Barns are often better.

Primarily the responsibility for providing decent labor camps in districts using large numbers of seasonal workers seems to fall upon the community. The farmers making use of the workers should bear the major cost of such projects, but they certainly should not be allowed to run camps which are not subject to minimum public supervision and inspection.

The federally sponsored labor camps have done much by way of setting standards and providing demonstration projects. In certain areas there is no guaranty that camps will be taken over and run on the level maintained by the Farm Security Administration and other Government agencies. When, and if, adequate inspection and supervision are provided by law in the States using migrant labor there may no longer be need for such camps.

But there is no immediate prospect of such a development, as the interagency report indicates. Meanwhile, continued maintenance and perhaps extension of the federally operated camps is called for. Migrant agricultural labor is, moreover, an interstate proposition. If the Federal Government is to provide funds for facilitating recruitment of such labor, then the law authorizing the appropriation should also provide for observance of minimum standards.

If Federal projects are to be "liquidated," then State and local agencies and communities should be given an opportunity to take over the ownership and operation of migrant labor camps. To restrict their disposal solely to farmers' associations is to overlook the need of community cooperation and supervision.

4. Health and welfare services.-Unless we are to foster an undesirable paternalism in handling the medical and health needs of migrants, some sort of stable and continuous health program is necessary. Enforcement of minimum sanitary and healthy standards cannot be left to the discretion of private individuals. Rather, public health agencies should see that such standards are enforced. In the absence of adequate legislation by the States, it is the duty of the Federal department or agency concerned to see that conditions affecting public health are regulated.

Migrants and migrant families have special need of medical care, and yet they are apt to receive it least because of the shifting nature of their work and the insecurity of their income. Were there compulsory health insurance, then the migrants should certain be included under it. In its absence, voluntary plans, whereby prepayment or other deductions would be made from unorganized workers' incomes by growers without governmental supervision, will undoubtedy lead to abuses of a serious nature.

Were agricultural workers properly organized so that stable welfare and health funds could be set up jointly by growers and migrants, then such a "voluntary" arrangement might be satisfactory. It must be borne in mind, however, that migrants as a group are scarcely in a position to vindicate their rights in the matter of health-plan agreements. Without suitable collective bargaining, the growers would be in a position to practically dictate the terms of health care.

5. Collective bargaining.-Fair play and a sense of justice demand that the advantage of organization and collective bargaining be extended to workers engaged in the agricultural industry. While it is not the function of Government to do the actual organizing, certainly it is within its competence to see that agreements made are lived up to. An agricultural labor program, supported in whole or in part by Federal funds, should have within its scope the supervision of such agreements, at least to the extent that they are not supervised by State agencies. Again the peculiar character of migrant agricultural labor, with its interstate mobility and economic insecurity, must be taken into

account.

6. Education and child care.-Needless to say, no one piece of legislation can cover every conceivable aspect of a problem. It does seem desirable, in view of known abuses, that some attention be given the subject of child care and education in any permanent agricultural labor program. Our national educational standards will continue to drop if more attention is not given to the proper schooling of children. Standards are not getting better but worse, a condition scarcely favorable to the continuance of an intelligent democracy.

Local communities as often as not lack adequate facilities for accommodating and instructing children of migrants. In the absence of State or Federal grants-in-aid, these local communities and school districts cannot be expected to show enthusiasm in caring for transients not considered a part of the community. The same goes for child care, which becomes a particular problem in view of the fact that parents may be away long hours at work and the local community agencies are not particularly interested in many cases.

Progressively communities can be educated to see their responsibility toward the children of migrants who help them perform their community work, but for the present a realistic outlook must be apparent in Federal legislation concerned with migrant labor. Someone must see to the proper education and care of our future citizens. 7. Labor recruitment.-In view of abuses which exist and the fact that agricultural labor contractors are actually engaged in the employment agency business, it seems desirable to provide for the licensing of such contractors. At least, they should be supervised by those administering the agricultural labor program, in the event that State laws do not provide for proper regulation and licensing.

8. Child labor.-Minimum-age requirements need stricter supervision. In the absence of adequate State laws, then the Federal agency dealing with employment should see that children under 14 are not employed except on their parents' farms and that those who need work certificates have them and do not work during school hours. The hours worked by children is also a matter for serious concern, for it affects not only their health but proper character formation and education as well.

9. Importation of workers. In the event of an emergency, such as occurred during the war, there is no objection to importing foreign workers provided they are properly covered by governmental contracts. Normally speaking, in view of employment at home, there should be no need of bringing in such workers from abroad on a temporary basis solely to do agricultural work.

Were working conditions and wages better, then domestic labor would more readily undertake such work. Besides, at the present time there are many rural people who are displaced persons in Europe who would be glad of an opportunity to settle in our country and to continue in the agricultural occupations.

10. Wages and employment.-Agricultural workers generally are in an underprivileged condition in regard to wages-and-hours laws. minimum rates, unemployment compensation, social security, and so forth. It is to be expected that legislation on an agricultural labor policy will do everything possible to rectify this unfortunate situation. At least, States should be positively encouraged to extend their legislation, where necessary, to give agricultural workers as fair treatment as those accorded workers in other industries.

SUMMARY

The National Catholic Rural Life Conference wants to see the above points given full consideration in the drafting of legislation for a permanent program. It does not consider the present bill, H. R. 3367, as adequate in this regard. Specifically the conference notes:

1. The Extension Service and the land-grant college, as originally conceived, are primarily educational institutions. To combine them with a labor program seems inconsistent, even though consolidation and increased efficiency in governmental agencies is desired. The ordinary public labor recruitment agencies would be better able to handle the recruitment and placement phases of the program.

2. While there is no objection to the Secretary of Agriculture, or other departments, entering into agreement with private groups in lieu of a State or public agency, still such agreements should be made only with provision of proper safeguards, particularly when there is question of expending public funds. In H. R. 3367 the duty of establishing certain safeguards is overlooked.

3. The Federal agency entrusted with the duty of facilitating the movement of agricultural workers should have more authority than to merely "cooperate" with private farmers or farmers' associations. The labor recruitment and employment practices of such groups need supervision and control. Since many of their employment activities are interstate in nature, Congress should see to their regulation, particularly as to transport conditions, wages and hours, and so forth.