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The Iron Curtain presents editors forum, a program devoted to exploring the interesting and significant topics of our times. The subject today is problems of the farm laborer in California. Now here is the moderator of editor's forum. Channel two's news director Al Helms. Good afternoon. We're living

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in the richest and most productive agricultural state in the nation. The value of California crops annually exceeds $3.5 billion. Yet there exists in the fertile interior of this state, a sprawling rural ghetto which some have called the longest slum in the world. From the fruit or

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of the north to the irrigated deserts of the south. You can find side by side the prosperity of multimillion dollar farm complexes and the shameful poverty of many of those who work in California's golden fields. This controversy that smolders over the more than one quarter million

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farm laborers who crowd into California during the peak harvesting season is as old as the first government price support as old as the great dust bowl of the thirties, perhaps as old as large scale agriculture itself. And the issues of this controversy are as complicated as

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they are contested in a vocabulary that is often alien to the farm workers themselves. Leaders of every interested faction argue endlessly over things like adverse effect labor, saturation, collective bargaining, fair and reasonable wages, aid to families with dependent Children cost price squeeze. You talk about unemployment

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compensation, bargaining effects adequate investment return, mechanization, foreign labor contracts and so on and on. But one term of this complex and often obscure vocabulary remains uncontested. Poverty is of universal definition. In code statistics, an impoverished family is one which earns less than $3000 in a calendar

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year. That's the official definition. Here's what it looks like. Most California farm workers live in the rural fringe areas on the edges of cities like Fresno, Visalia, Bakersfield, Salinas, El Centro and many others. They often try to buy 4 to $5000 homes. Many of them replete

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with without houses. Some of their Children never really get a fair start in life. And on the road, families may live in housing which ranchers give them or rent cabins for 50 to $60 a month. They return home after the summer season of harvest hoping to

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arrive before school starts. It's a little of what a life of poverty can look like. Those who live. It should be able to tell us more. We have with us today. Three farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley. I'd like to have you meet them now,

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Harry Rasmussen from Lemon Cove, Mayor Moreno from Visalia and clementine Duluth who lives in Bakersfield. Suppose we start by finding out a little bit about these people. How long have you been in California? Harry Nebraska in 37. How long have you been a farm worker? Uh,

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all my life, uh, with the exception of, uh, five or six years that I was packing fruit one step removed from agriculture. Are you working right now? Yeah. You, you have a steady job now? No. Uh, I never had a steady job. Is that what it's

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like in the farm labor work? It's never very steady. Well, um, a study after a fashion, I have developed a circuit that I follow every year, more or less the same circuit, uh, from one job to the next. But, uh, I never had a steady job

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the year round. Where? Yeah. How long have you been in California since 1940? And you've been doing farm work all the time, work all the time. You've been working in all kind of a food center field. You're working right now? Yes, I'm working. I was just

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working in orange. He's speaking orange. But now tomorrow I'm gonna start chopping cuts. So you're from one job. From one just about just changing today. Clementine. Where are you working now? How long have you been in the state? 24 years in the, in Kern County? But,

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uh I do farm Raven. We went from place to place. We follow the har from state to state, uh, from county to county. Although we do live there, we own our home there. So, like Harry mentioned about the only steady thing you do is to pretty

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much follow the same route in the season each year, the same route and work for the same contractor. What can we do? Nothing else we could do Maria when you're not working. Uh, what did you do? Well, we're not working well, just wait until the job

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start or maybe go to welfare or? Yeah, you're, you're between jobs now, but you can't, you apply for unemployment insurance? Oh, no, no, no, we don't have no unemployment or insurance. Well, now my son got hurt, uh, with a letter, he filed letters, you know what?

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And, uh, hurt his ankle and been out of the job for eight days and still got no compensation yet. And he, well, he's saying that he probably go to work tomorrow shopping cars, but I don't guess he will do it because it's very, very bad. So,

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so when you're between jobs between jobs, we all like, uh, oranges, we were picking oranges. Now, orange is gonna be 22 more weeks or three and it's gonna be over. My husband is gonna stay picking oranges so we don't lose the place, you know, for next

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year. So I'm gonna go start another job chopping up to save the job for him and me and the rest of the time. What? Do you mean? So you won't lose it next year? Of course, if, if, uh, if you start working, then you go and

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leave the job next, next year you come and you won't get it. I see that you have to stay on the job. Yeah. Finishing at the end of the season, finish of the season. Carry when you work in, uh, do you work under a contract? No,

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I have been told there are contracts in the industry. I hear there's one in Salinas. I have also heard that a woc has some contracts but I have never seen that same covering farm laborers and any, any harvest season or any, uh, produce at all. All

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right. Well, if you're, if you're working and, uh, and you run into some problems, uh, where do you go? Well, uh, it, it depends on the farmer. There are reasonable farmers as well as the other kind. Uh Of course, there's always the final thing you can

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clip is that what sometimes happens? Right? You take your problems, uh, with problems, uh, you don't have any place to take them unless it would be, uh, uh, your wages or price pay in a sense. And then you would go to the farm labor department and,

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uh, and put in for, uh, go before the farm labor commissioner for your, for your wages. But for other problems, why you don't have any place to take them, there's no place to be taken because if you, if you had a problem then you want to

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defend or do something, you get fired. So you with better suffering and let the problem go and go to a place. So just, and that's all. And keep staying a job. How about wages? Is there any minimum that they pay? No, of course. Uh, there's some

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of the girls, they are paying a dollar five, for instance, yesterday, um, Friday, I went to an employment office, I'm into the farm labor placement and there is a man that will need people for a dollar five an hour shopping pack. And with the place I

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live in the farm, uh, uh, labor camp there. Uh, there's another man announced that he wants some chop, chop of cottons and, uh, they were paying a dollar 15. So I, I went to the farm place and there and the lady told me I want a

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job to say yes. So she wanted me to go to a shop for dollar five and I refused the job. So you refused to say yes, because there's another man, they were paying a dollar 15. Why did I have to go to work with the man

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who pay dollar five? Well, does that happen very often? Sometimes, uh, for instance, uh, 11 job or, or in one place and the same crop, uh, would pay different than another? Yes, they do. And then grapes we get, we never get a steady, uh, price in

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orange either. We don't get any steady price in, in the work. We do some pay one wages and the other ones, uh, even we're picking, uh, grapes, one, we go to a place that does, uh, grapes are good. They break down the weight. If you go

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to a place that you pick one here and one there, they raise up the weight. We have pick can for $8. That's a big container for it. Take how many, how many grapes would you say? How many boxes of grapes go into? Go? Oh, I don't

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know how much. But they, it takes, we work five working and it takes up, well, when the grapes are good, you, you, you don't take very long to fill up that thing. But see, the w, is $5 sometimes you get four, sometimes you get, uh, 4.5.

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When do you find, when you go to work in the morning? Do they tell you how much, uh, they're, they're paying for the day or they say they don't know until you start working? They say well, so, and so is, is the price? He says, what

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do you, what? You don't like it? You don't like it? Well, you step out of the field there. How many people are waiting for the job? Uh, you, you're changing jobs. What did, what did you make, Maria the last day? How much wage did you get?

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The last day you worked the last week, the last day I worked in orange is I was working on last weekend we do. We were picking four and uh, two of my married sons and my husband and I, and the other son, five, of course, four.

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And we earned 100 and $14 and we have to divide that 100 and 14. And as you said, in four, because one of my boys, you know, didn't have, uh, uh, to divide it because my husband and I are there, there were four of you. You

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made $114 for the day. For the four of you. No, for a week. For a week. Yes. No. If I had 100 and $14 a day, I'll be a, I don't have to worry about that before. I would only be about 20 $25 a piece for

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it, but we don't get that much. Never. How much do you, do you think you make in a year's time? Well, we make it at the last we made but a month is $300 a month in a month. And how many hours? Uh, Harry, how many

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hours are you working in a day or that, uh, varies all the way from, uh, two hours to, uh, eight or nine, uh, depending on the weather and what you are doing. Uh, I would like to, to say a couple of things about the minimum wage,

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there is a minimum wage in agriculture. The Sugar Act calls for a dollar 15 cents minimum. Uh, there is also, uh, a minimum wage in the, uh, industrial Welfare Commission code. Uh, a minimum wage for women and minors. Well, in this case, I am discriminated against,

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there is no minimum to me. Uh, but the Sugar Act provides for about 15 minimum. However, there, the question of enforcement, uh, they, many of them paid by the row or by the acre. Uh Well, agricultural work has traditionally been piecework in many cases, hasn't it?

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With uh many crops like uh fruits and uh I don't know, vegetables so much. You don't get paid piecework and carrots or l or something like that. A large boxes or that kind of thing. Well, there are those that, there are those that like uh piece

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work because uh as one fellow uh who applied for a job, he said I would like to get on by the acre because uh my wife is kind of puny and she can't do much. And so he was afraid she couldn't hold down the job if

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she had to be paid by the hour. Uh Well, this is what happens in the, in the sugar beets they pay by the acre and uh many workers work for as low as 2.5 and $3 a day. And uh they, they, while the minimum is there,

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uh nobody enforces it because, uh, they are afraid they would be laid off and then they would be, uh, practically unemployable under the minimum. But you would, you say that there are more jobs you do by the box or by the by piece work than there

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are by the hour. Many more, some time. If you put in, uh, that it doesn't make any difference. You put in 1012, 14 hours, you, you, you don't get any overtime, do you? No, you don't get in overtime. Not in foreign labor. The only place that

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you would get overtime is at the Georgios and I don't think they would call that. I don't know what, what, how, how you would say. But, uh, you do get overtime for two hours at the Georgios if you work in the packing, she, but in the

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field you don't get overtime for that. But I, I feel you, uh, men or women don't put in no more than just nine hours, uh, a piece and then they get paid according to how much they've done in that time. Well, uh, you work on a,

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you can work on a commission. I didn't, I work for $9 for $9.60 for nine hours. But the men, they do work on a commission, they get the $9.60 for nine hours and then so much per bucket or so much per L or box or whatever

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it might be. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't work on the commission. You, you pick, uh, and plum picking, you pick 27 buckets for $9.60 and all over that, you get 3 $3.03 per bucket. So, now you pick 100 buckets over and you don't get for $3.

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That's you working for DiGiorgio, not working for your well, clementine. Um, sometimes, uh, when you go to work in the morning, there are too many people show up, not there but on, uh, like the other places like for the contractors, cotton shopping. Uh, uh, well, I

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will say cotton chopping. I don't know anything about beets or anything like that because I haven't did it. But cotton chopping and potato picking. Yeah. Well, what happens is if a big crew shows up or they just pick on what, what they need and, and the

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rest of them, uh, work that day or what? Well, if you've been with the man, oh, you come first, like potato picking a contractor, do have his own crew. Well, if you come out and take a chance and somebody might be, may be laid off. Why?

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And they're not, you just out of a job, you have to go someplace else but in and, uh, cotton chopping, uh, if you come out why it would be the same. But now if the man bring you out and you're a lady, well, you can draw

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that $4 if they have uh ladies waiting uh for a child, would you say that in most cases that uh if you work for, for a contractor for a long time and then he has worked, he would, he would give you preference. Well, before somebody else,

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some of them and some of them don't. There's no, uh, there's no rule that says they have no, there's no rule that they have to. I like them when I first come on the first day. So there's really no guarantee that if you work today you'll

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work tomorrow. No guarantee. Eric, what do you think? You, you say you mentioned you worked uh some in a packing house. Uh What, what would you think the differences are between working in the field and say, for instance, working in a factory? Well, uh but I

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would uh as, as far as the actual work is concerned, I would prefer to work out in the field because I've always worked in the field. So you do what you're used to. Uh However, I think the basic difference between working in the field and in

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the factory is that uh factory workers are covered by certain laws that give them security such as the legal right to organize uh unemployment insurance, full coverage under social security and various other things from which we are excluded currently. No social security for, for family renew.

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No, there's social security, but you have to have made 100 and $50 in one in one year. Whereas in a factory, $50 in any calendar quarter applies. I know, I know a fellow that picked the olives last fall and made $800 in olives and only 100

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and $60 applied on social security because he made less than $150 for several of those growers. So it didn't apply and so forth. But, uh, social security, uh, in farm labor, they take out social security, a lot of the contractors, they'll take that social security out

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but you never get no returns and no hereafter. That's what, why. And, uh, Kern County, those, those, uh, contractors has got so, so many of their, uh, license taken away from them because they take out all that social security and they never turn it in. You

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can just see them just, uh, 15 or 20 of them. Do you have a social security card? I have a social security card. But in doing farm labor and doing it for the contract is what good is it? You pay? You pay the, don't they take

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your number, your social security number and fill out the form and, and that kind of thing, a form. You sure they don't, they take the money and then sometimes they don't turn it in. No, if they would turn in, you'd get a return on it. So

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it's no, I mean, it's not turning in right to the Social Security Commission and they'll tell you whether the contributions have been made or not. But, uh, I know there have been some licenses taken away down there. It's been quite a few of them taken away

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down there. A lot of them are the only, the only place that I have worked is the Georgios and, and got a return on my social Security. But the other places I work, they take out the same amount. You, you make $10 for nine hours and

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your home pay is six, is $9.60. Now, where did the 40 cents go? You don't get no, no returns on what kind of a return you mean of that? Uh, a car or? Because I just have to get in, I mean, in, in Tulare County, I

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have worked for a man that's the only one that I have returned, uh, flip. Well, that winter is the only one that I have returned from, uh, social Security and knowing how much I had made or is the only one D Georgia was the only one

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that I got mine. And we have been working all the time. But what we talked about so far it doesn't sound as though it's particularly encouraging. Uh, do, do a lot of people that you work with, uh, try to change jobs, try to get out of

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farm labor. Well, I, I think so. Sure. Uh, and, uh, apparently some of them make it. I want myself to get out of this field work. But, uh, for instance, I go, uh, I stay out of the field work. I go to cans and packing sheds

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and I don't say if you got any experience there, no, well, can do someone, they want experienced people and someone, they are asking for some, uh, workers that they want to have experience or that I'm tired and sick that all the time lifting those heavy packs

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that chopping cut all day long. Especially with that short hole. My heavens. That's terrible. I tried, I tried to get out of it myself. I learned to, uh, wrap fruit, which, uh, seems like it should be a relatively simple operation. But, uh, it took me a

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couple of years to learn to wrap oranges so that all the pri would read in all the cracks in the wooden boxes and now they no longer wrap them, they put them in the cardboard cottons and anybody who can count to four can pack them. And

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if they can't count to four, count to two at the battle, you have to know no scale. Well, some of the conditions that, that you have mentioned, uh, we've talked about briefly, uh, w would you feel that, uh, I, if conditions were improved, you'd like to,

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to stay in this kind of work? Oh, yeah, Maria, for you. Well, I'm 44. But if I get a better job I'd better stay out of fuel. I like farm labor, but I would like to get a better price for it. I just love to be

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out with people and I love to do that kind of work. But for the price that they're paying, uh, I think to my idea, if they're not gonna pay any better price, because now the price is that they're paying now is the price of 1942 and

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it's not gonna pay any, any better price. With the, with the, the production being as high as it is, it's better for them to train the farm labor to do something else. And anymore, uh automation is taking over farm labor. So they're gonna have to train.

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We always, uh I think many people think of the great dust bowl in the, in the thirties and, and uh what happened in California agriculture and think that now conditions are, must be a lot improved. You don't agree with that. I don't agree with you. Uh,

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because uh today they pay a dollar an hour in 1942. I got a dollar an hour for the same kinds of work with the cotton chopping and uh cotton picking. It's now 250. It was last year, I don't know about this year because it haven't started.

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But last year it was 250. In 1942 it was the same price. But in 1942 you could buy a dozen eggs for 29 cents. Now, they're 59 the same egg and makes a difference. Mario, you leave, uh, all of you do, uh, travel when you, uh,

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when you leave, how do you know exactly where to go? How do you know how to make this circuit that you make every year? Well, because we follow the crops, we follow the crops. We know when the, uh, food starts and we follow them. How much

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traveling would you say you do in a year of time? Well, sometimes like uh almost all the states. I said, I don't know how many miles all the way up here in the Sacramento, all those places here. Sometimes we are planning now to go to Idaho

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picking potatoes any place we find. Now I'm living in a labor camp which is, I don't like it very well, of course. And during the winter you see the house dripping like you in the outside, it's damp. The, those blankets are damp and now you go

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inside and you almost uh roast yourself because it's very hot. What happens to your, to your home when you're away from it? Why would you leave it there? We don't, we don't have anything. We care about the things we are. Uh we are living now. We

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don't, I don't have no furniture right now. Well, we can't get in a car. That's it. But uh living when you go, when you go off on the harvest, that's what you mean when you go from a, you, you stay, just any place you can and

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like here, um, like Santa Maria, I say that's where we went. Uh, uh, most places when, uh, the, the laborers come in, they do farm labor, the people that, that are there, they, they lay for those people because they figure they make good money. They have

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everything that they can get, they don't want to take anything back. We paid, uh, we, in Santa Maria we paid 100 and $20 a month for, uh, uh, uh, you wouldn't call it an apartment. You just call it two rooms. You sleep in one and cooking

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the other one such as it was. But you didn't have any place, it didn't have a bath, it didn't have any place to bath. It had the tub and had the como and everything in it, but nothing was connected up. So the way we did, we

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take the hose and put in the tub and fill it, fill it up with water and that each person bath from, from time to time. And then when everybody was back, uh, the night, the way we did for the, for the brush to come home, we

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would take and fill the bathtub with water and that was 100 and $20 a month for that kind of facility. And they don't even feel the shame. They don't, they don't feel nothing behind it. They just after your money, some house we were renting. The cheapest

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I have rent is $45 and, uh, they don't got no facilities inside. Sometimes someone just have cold water. Well, you mentioned your youngsters working with you. Do you take them along with you when you travel? What happens to the ones I have to go to school?

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Well, sometimes I have to take them out of school and put them on the other school and they stay behind with everything. But I, who takes care of them when you're out working or anything. Well, one of my girls, because I got eight girls. I got

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two married and I still got six in home and I got two boys. But one of the girls that one of my girls do all the cooking and taking care of the Children. You have, I have 1414 and I have five at home. But with Maria,

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it's different in her. She can put hers in school. But I've been in communities so I can't even put mine in school and would, would be there for two months. You know, we're running completely out of time. Uh, in just a minute we have left if

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you had a kind of a quick way to, to try and sum up if you had one wish, what it would be. All right. Uh, well, I'm tired of being a second class citizen and I would, uh, uh, I would wish that, uh, unemployment insurance would

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uh extend to agricultural workers. Well, as long as I'm wishing I may as well wish being and wish that everybody would be eligible for unemployment insurance. And that both legislature leaders who uh bought me a second class citizen would have an opportunity to draw it. The

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same thing with me. The same thing, this controversy over farm labor in California will go on. Those you have met this afternoon. Must go on. If they're fortunate, they'll return to those backbreaking low paying jobs in the field. If not back to more, waiting until work

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is available, how they'll load what they'll eat where they'll sleep may depend, depend on factors over which they have little or no control. The dilemma and perhaps the dilemma of their grandchildren is our problem too. Let's hope that the hands and the hearts which labor in

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the field and in the orchard will not be stained by the fruits of our indifference. Ok. You've just heard on editors forum, a discussion on the topic. Problems of the farm laborer in California. Your moderator Al Helm, they White plan.