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Ok. Reaction in California to the congressional vote of May 29th was in the words of the Sacramento Bee mixed Charles Woods of the Imperial Valley Farm Bureau said there are not enough domestic workers who are willing to do farm work at any price. Tom Pitts, head

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of the California Labor Federation said there is an ample supply of domestic labor available. Governor Brown said I regret this action very much. Charles Paul State Director of Agriculture said it was kind of a jolt to me. Ed Hayes, former State Director of Employment and now

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head of the Imperial County Brasso Users Association said it'll serve some of these church and union people, right? If they have to grow their own vegetables in their backyards for a while. Assemblyman Alan Patty from Monterey County said it's the worst thing that ever happened to

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agriculture in California. What is really going to happen? Now, let's first dispose of some of the things which are not going to happen for years. The Bracero users of California have been crying that if we taxpayers take away their subsidy of Mexican contract labor, they will

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go out of business and this is the poem. OK. OK. The reaction in California to the House of Representatives vote of May 29th was in the words of the Sacramento Bee mixed. For example, the head of the Imperial Valley Farm Bureau said there are not enough

00:02:04.230 - 00:02:24.320

domestic workers who are willing to do farm work at any price. And Tom Pitts head of the California Labor Federation said there is an ample supply of domestic labor available. Governor Brown said I regret this action very much. Charles Paul State Director of Agriculture said it

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was kind of a jolt to me, Ed Hayes, former state Director of Employment and now head of the Imperial County Brass Sero Users Association said it'll serve some of these church and union people, right? If they have to grow their own vegetables in their backyards for

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a while. And an assemblyman from Monterey County, Alan Patty said this is the worst thing that ever happened to agriculture in California. What is the truth of the situation? What is likely to happen? Now, let's first dispose of some of the things which are not going

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to happen for years. The Bracero users of California have been crying that if we taxpayers take away their subsidy of Mexican contract labor, they'll have to go out of business. And this is supposed to fill us with such fear that we will continue their subsidy forever.

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But in fact, this threat is errant nonsense. It's not really different in kind from the threat which Southern legislatures threw down to the abolitionists prior to the civil war. For example, one such legislature said a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. The

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hostility to this institution has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture. And here's another resolution adopted by the legislature of Mississippi in 1850 abolish slavery. And you convert the fair and blooming fields of the south into barren heaths. They are high sold and

00:04:07.910 - 00:04:33.959

chivalrous proprietors into abject dependence, unquote. Well, perhaps plantation owners wrote a little differently a little better a century ago than they do today. But the attitudes are fundamentally the same, namely that large scale agriculture must have captive labor. Slavery was abolished because it came down to

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a choice between the nation, destroying captive labor or captive labor, destroying the nation. The fair and blooming fields of Mississippi did not become barren heaths. And one might add that their proprietors are just as high sold and chivalrous as ever. So let's have done with the

00:04:53.899 - 00:05:14.959

nonsense at the outset. California's fields are not going to be given back to their natural grasses and flowers. Agri America has to be fed. Let me take that over America has to be fed. And from 1/4 to 1 3rd of the produce for America's tables comes

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from California, speaking by and large. There is no place else this produce can come from California growers whine about competition from low wage states. But the fact is that these other states have a difficult time competing with California because of our advantages of climate, soil irrigation

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and so forth. A variant on the Brasserie user's thread is that they will move their operations out of the country entirely. Most commonly, they threaten to move to Mexico. In other words, they are saying, if you won't bring cheap labor to us, we'll go to where

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the cheap labor is. This is supposed to strike terror into our hearts because as the Council of California Growers billboards proclaim one out of every three jobs in California depends on agriculture. Now, if growers only recognized it, an extension of this very same argument completely undercuts

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their threat to move to Mexico or to any other underdeveloped country. California agriculture is productive, marvelously productive precisely because it is surrounded by a great complex of supportive industries. California agriculture presupposes a highly developed system of finance and banking. It presupposes a highly developed system of

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railroad and highway transportation. A highly developed system of communication, a highly developed food handling and processing system, highly developed seed fertilizer and insecticide industries. It presupposes highly advanced agricultural machinery and it presupposes the finest system of dams and irrigation canals in the world. Mexico has none

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of these things. It's very interesting to conjecture about what would happen if California growers were really serious about moving to Mexico or to some other underdeveloped nation. We might witness a good deal more rapid change than Mexico's benevolent dictatorship has ever conferred. We might witness the

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interesting spectacle of the California growers who remained at home trying to erect tariff barriers against their former comrades at arms who ran away for better or for worse. However, none of these things is going to happen on any appreciable scale. Braceros take that over California's brasserie

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users may be quite well to do, but they aren't about to spend the billions of dollars that would take to develop even a part of rural Mexico. And in any case, you just can't grow artichokes and Brussels sprouts and many other California crops in Mexico no

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matter how much you spend and you can't ship ripe tomatoes and many other crops 2000 miles without ruining them no matter how much you spend. Still. Another variant on the prevailing nonsense purveyed by Bracero users is that California agriculture will stop growing fruits and vegetables which

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require a great deal of seasonal hand labor and start growing hay and grain, which require relatively little hand labor. The truth is in the first place that no one is going to tear out vineyards and orchards to grow field crops. This would be as unheard of

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as tearing down freeways to build houses. It just isn't done. Vineyards and orchards are a permanent investment, a permanent land improvement, a permanent part of the scene, open fields may be a little different matter. There may be some conversion from labor intensive row crops such as

00:09:11.809 - 00:09:31.950

tomatoes to field crops such as alfalfa. But this will be largely limited to cases in which returns to growers of such row crops are insufficient to support an American labor force. Which is another way of saying that these growers went into, into production in the first

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place, not because there was a demand for their product, but because the government offered them cheap contract labor, they should not have been growing tomatoes or these other row crops in the first place, there may be a handful of growers with a legitimate product for a

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legitimate market who nevertheless nevertheless convert to barley or hay. Simply because the Bracero users, lobbyists have been crying that this is what is going to happen. These will be the true believers. The ideologists who take seriously the propaganda of the public relations men who presume to

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speak for California growers. One feels a certain respect and pity for these ideologists, not because they are believers, but because they believe in something which is untrue. There is a final variant on the threats of the brass users and their allies. One of the agricultural economists

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of the state's agricultural extension service, whom taxpayers of the state pay to tell growers what they want to hear recently said. And I quote, there is only one solution. Let's start again on that. There is only one real solution to California's seasonal harvest labor problem to

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mechanize and eliminate it. This gentleman went on to say in the meantime, though the Mexican Bracero program under public law 78 will hold, I'm sorry, let's start that again too. In the meantime, though the Mexican Bracero program under public law 78 will hold the line with

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the least cost to society from both the financial and humanitarian view. Now, this scholar may have been speaking from the best of motives, but his sentiments are used by Bracero users whose motives are not by any means. Scholarly. The prospect of overnight mechanization is supposed to

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throw us into a panic over the rise in unemployment. Friends of farm labor are supposed to retreat amid confessions and concessions that jobs even at Bracero standards are better than no jobs at all. But let's look at this a little more closely too. One is under

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no obligation to share the opinions, the opinions of the economists for the agricultural extension service. There are a great many tasks in agriculture which would have been mechanized long ago if it hadn't been for the seductions of an apparently limitless cheap labor supply, growers of a

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particular commodity naturally wonder why they should spend millions of dollars developing a machine when they can get Braceros for 50 cents an hour, remove the cheap labor and things like sugar beet thinning will be done mechanically or chemically or perhaps the need will be eliminated altogether

00:13:03.159 - 00:13:22.020

through the use of coated seeds and other intelligent planting practices. This should have been done a generation or two ago and what will become of the workers? Well, even if it were true that they would all go on relief, it would be an improvement for them.

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Welfare payments are higher than farm wages. But upon closer examination, the Bugaboo that a couple of 100,000 seasonal farm laborers are going to be thrown out of work. Suddenly by mechanization proves to be just another example of the kind of nonsense that seemed to pre empt

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this field. Even if all the labor intensive crops which could be mechanized, on the basis of present knowledge were mechanized as quickly as possible. The process would take at least 10 years during all this time, new areas of California are going to be brought into intensive

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production, for example, through the state water plan. So that according to the best study yet made of this subject by the Giannini Foundation, at least as many seasonal farm workers will be required in California at the end of the decade as are required now. And this

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study assumed that the Brass program would come to an end and that there would be the greatest possible incentive to rapid mechanization. We should remember that agricultural machinery does not after all operate itself, we should remember too that much of what is called agricultural mechanization will

00:14:43.080 - 00:15:06.809

be in fact semi mechanization in which workers will pick onto conveyor belts and for the foreseeable future, the judgment of the human eye and hand will be required to assess color and firmness in growing things. And there are some harvests which may never be automated. Because

00:15:06.820 - 00:15:28.630

in addition to these difficulties, the products grow hidden by leaves or thorns. And when ripe, they are so soft that the human hand is the only mechanism ever invented which can pick them without crushing them. Strawberries and bush berries are cases in point. Finally, it's nonsense

00:15:28.640 - 00:15:47.820

to talk about instant mechanization because Brasero users just aren't going to adjust to anything that fast. This moves us from our discussion of what is not going to happen into the realm of what is probably going to happen. As best one can read the future at

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this moment. The most important single fact to be borne in mind as we go along is that the tradition of captive labor in Southwester agriculture is deeply entrenched. It is entrenched by a whole century of attitudes, habits and arrangements which have proliferated and entwined and interlocked

00:16:12.320 - 00:16:33.830

and sent down very deep roots. California agriculture, as we know it has never been without disadvantaged and desperate labor of one sort or another labor, so desperate and so disadvantaged that it may fairly be described as captive labor. It began on a modest scale with the

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California Indians, it gained a fatal degree of momentum with Chinese coolies, the Chinese coolies were supplanted in turn by Japanese contract workers, Hindus Arabs, refugees from the Mexican revolution, Filipino contract workers, dust bowl, refugees, Italian and German, prisoners of war, Jamaican contract workers, prison labor servicemen,

00:17:05.089 - 00:17:29.130

Japanese Americans paroled from our own concentration camps after the war, ***. And finally, Braceros, sometimes California agriculture has been almost entirely dominated by captive workers. Sometimes the captives have only supplemented the free labor force as the phraseology of the Bracero system has it. But in any

00:17:29.140 - 00:17:59.000

event, free labor which competes with slave labor must accept the conditions of slave labor. So as we go along, it is very crucial to bear in mind that California agriculturists assume they have a right somehow to foreign workers. California agriculture in its present form, in fact

00:17:59.010 - 00:18:28.869

came into existence only because of the prior existence of foreign labor. And this industrialized agriculture has become a massive institution which extends deeply into other institutions, political economic, judicial, educational, all of our social institutions and social institutions, particularly those so massive as this do not change

00:18:28.880 - 00:18:50.770

easily. The captive labor tradition of the Old South was not really abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation. As we know on this 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Just so the captive labor tradition of the Southwest was not fundamentally altered by the congressional action of May 29th

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Congress might have struck a very telling blow at the captive labor tradition by saying in effect, you do not have a right to captive labor of any type. Congress could have done this by extending to farm workers the same basic umbrella of social and labor legislation,

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which has proved a magna carta for workers in every other industry, the fair labor Standards Act, the Social Security Act, and most importantly, the National Labor Relations Act. But Congress did not do this. All congress did was say no to an extension of the Bracero system

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until December 31st, 1965. By leaving completely untouched, the roots of the captive labor tradition. Congress left the way open for Bracero users to seek some other arrangement, equally congenial to that tradition and equally incompatible with the labor of free men to seek some such substitute arrangement

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will be the first response of the Bracero users to the vote of May 29th. In fact, it already is at this very moment, Brasero users are attempting to exploit the customary liberal weakness by asking for a compromise. They are saying if you won't let us have

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a two year extension of our system, you must in all fairness, let us have a one year extension. They may get it at this session of Congress which still has several months to go. All sorts of strange things may be slipped through the legislative process, particularly

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during the frantic final few days at the end of a session. And it will be very shrewd for Bracero users to make this move within the next month or two. Opponents of the system are still hung over from the intoxication of their recent unexpected victory. Their

00:20:48.750 - 00:21:09.410

guard is down. It will be very difficult for them to arouse the church groups and other faithful to do battle again. In August say after having proclaimed two months earlier that the battle was all over the Bracero users and their friends may in the meantime pull

00:21:09.420 - 00:21:28.680

long faces and announce that they are reconciled that the issue is dead for this session. But I think they are fully prepared to breathe life into this corpse at any moment and they are not without allies. On June 9th, the California Republican Assembly voted for revival

00:21:28.689 - 00:21:55.670

of the Bracero program. On the grounds. There was quote, a complete lack of evidence. There were enough domestic workers. Interestingly enough. At the same meeting, the California Republican Assembly urged quote stepped up GOP activity to promote job opportunities for Negroes unquote. But suppose the Bracero users

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and their friends do not get the program restored this year. What then will happen? Public law 78 goes off the books at midnight. December 31st, 1963. Does this mean that a tradition of free labor for California agriculture will be ushered in with the new year? I

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fear it will not the great majority of California brass. So users will then be in the winter slack season and will have no worries about their seasonal labor for another nine months or so. The Imperial Valley lettuce harvest however, will be in full swing and so

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will the Southern California Citrus harvest over the years, domestics have been driven out of both these activities. Both crops are heavily dominated by braceros. What will lettuce and citrus growers do both? These industries are in a virtually monopolistic position. All the winter lettuce in the nation

00:23:01.410 - 00:23:18.579

is grown in the Imperial Yuma region. All the commercial lemons in the nation are grown in southern California. Producers of anything who are in so enviable a position as this should easily be able to command a price which would enable them to pay $3 an hour

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to their workers. $4 an hour, $5 an hour, whatever was required will the lettuce and citrus growers do so? I will be astonished if they do. These winter operations do not exist in isolation from what is going on in the rest of agriculture. Most of the

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citrus growers are connected with the Sun kissed Empire which has far flung year around interests. Most of the lettuce growers also have holdings in the Salinas Valley and other parts of the state. Both citrus and lettuce growers are members of groups in which they make common

00:23:55.949 - 00:24:16.829

cause with the growers of other commodities, including some growers who are die hard ideologists and some growers who are not in a monopoly position and are genuinely troubled. These united fronts such as the associated Farmers Council of California Growers and Farm Bureau have for years fought

00:24:16.839 - 00:24:37.939

against organized labor, solicited the good opinion of the public lobbied in Sacramento and Washington. In the name of all California growers, they have talked loudly about independence. But those growers who have shown any real independence of thought or action have been hounded out of business. Ask

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Fred Van Dyke, a former San Joaquin County grower about this. If you want some terrifying details, industrialized agriculture is aided and abetted by peripheral industries such as canning companies which are well pleased with cheap labor in the fields because they can then buy their raw materials

00:24:57.020 - 00:25:20.199

cheaply. This huge combine of economic interest with a handful of professional publicists really making the decisions in the name of 90,000 growers is not playing for fun. It is playing for keeps and it is playing for huge stakes. Agriculture in California represents an investment of more

00:25:20.209 - 00:25:40.439

than $12 billion. It has annual sales of more than $3 billion in recent years. It has spent a little less than half a billion dollars for labor. If wages were comparable to other industries, they would increase to about $1.5 billion a year. So this is what

00:25:40.449 - 00:25:59.520

we are talking about. Roughly a difference of a billion dollars a year. It isn't peanuts but it's a lot of lettuce playing for these kinds of stakes. The strategists who are calling the shots for California growers are going to play their game with a long view.

00:26:02.020 - 00:26:23.170

I will be surprised if lettuce and citrus growers next year. Do anything but sit back continuing to offer the same wages and working conditions. They do now making no serious efforts to recruit a labor force of American citizens. Their public relations men will scream of crops

00:26:23.180 - 00:26:42.510

rotting in the fields. Although in the interests of technical accuracy, I would like to report at this advanced date that lettuce does not rot if left to its own devices, it just goes to seed. The headlines are going to be big and black and bold American

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consumers who take green salads in the dead of winter for granted and who are accustomed to a lemon base for their gin drinks will complain and all these events will be taking place at just the time. The Congress is again beginning its business. Imperial Valley lettuce

00:27:02.599 - 00:27:27.750

is a 20 to $25 million crop citrus during this critical period may represent another $25 million. So we are talking about a total of perhaps $50 million balanced against a billion dollars in these terms. It doesn't seem like so very much. What am I suggesting that

00:27:27.760 - 00:27:47.400

growers will deliberately write off a couple of crops in order to panic Congress into reinstituting the Bracero system. I think this is all together within the realm of possibility and you won't need to feel too sorry for the lettuce and citrus growers who whose crops will

00:27:47.410 - 00:28:07.849

be sacrificed upon this particular altar, the crops, sorry, the costs will be spread. They will be shared by the entire industry just as the war chest of several million dollars, which was raised to fight the agricultural workers organizing committee was shared. No single grower is going

00:28:07.859 - 00:28:30.109

to suffer very much. I would not bet a single lettuce leaf against take that over. Personally, I would not bet a single lettuce leave that Congress will stand up against such pressure as this. But let's assume the best. Let's assume that Congress becomes aware that the

00:28:30.119 - 00:28:48.829

Bracero system is not just another labor management arrangement in our pluralistic society, but rather it's a captive labor system which is fatal to a pluralistic society or more plausibly, let us assume that unemployment has grown so severe by next year that even the specter of crops

00:28:48.839 - 00:29:05.439

spoiling in the fields will not convince the majority of the Congress that there is any such thing as a labor shortage. What will industrial agriculture do then will it go about the business of remedying its so called labor shortage? I might bet one lettuce leaf on

00:29:05.449 - 00:29:23.319

it if you gave me sufficiently good odds. But I wouldn't bet two. The dream of foreign contract labor is in Kerry mcwilliams phrase, a dream of heaven for any employer, for agricultural employers to whom it has been not just a dream but a day to day

00:29:23.329 - 00:29:44.339

reality for four generations, it will die hard if it ever dies at all. If Congress somehow finds the backbone to stand firm against the crises, which Bracero users will manufacture. Next winter and spring, the Bracero users have a second line of defense. I do not have

00:29:44.349 - 00:30:06.099

time to discuss adequately the Green card system in this commentary, but you will do well to remember that phrase Green Guards. You will be hearing more about it in the months ahead. If public law 78 is not revived, there will still be away. Agricultural employers can

00:30:06.109 - 00:30:27.890

get their foreign captive workers into the country that will be under public law. 414, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1950 more commonly known as the mccarran Walter Act, a portion of that act dealing with excludable aliens says almost exactly the same thing as public law

00:30:27.900 - 00:30:47.410

78. It says that workers shall not be admitted from abroad if their presence will adversely affect the wages and working conditions of Americans similarly employed. The Department of Labor is supposed to make this determination just as it supposedly made the same determination regarding Braceros over the

00:30:47.420 - 00:31:09.800

past many years for all practical purposes. The intent of this section of the mccarran Walter Act has been nullified by a wholly arbitrary unilateral administrative ruling by the Department of Labor that it will make no adverse effect investigation if a given employer imports fewer than 25

00:31:09.810 - 00:31:33.010

workers at any one time under public law 414. Now consider what this means. An employer may import batches of 24 workers at a time. One after another indefinitely without running afoul of the law so long as these imported workers meet the other immigration requirements of moral

00:31:33.020 - 00:31:53.060

character and so forth. Now you don't hear and you won't hear of me of workers being imported from Africa, for example, under this loophole because Africa, along with most of the rest of the world comes under the quota system of the mccarran Walter Act. What?