Public Law 78--How It Works

“Public Law 78 is a major factor in creating the extremely low income and the great underemployment of American farm workers. It not only helps to prevent wages and working conditions from improving but in many areas it actually makes them worse. . . . The Mexican farm labor importation pxogram quite simply exploits the poverty among Mexicans to increase poverty among farm workers in the United States. . . . It provides corporation farms with a means of com¬ peting unfairly with the family farm.” (House Agricul¬ ture Committee Minority Report on P.L. 78 in 1960.) Extension of P.L. 78 without reforms “would sub¬ ject American family-farm operators and their wives and children to subsidized unfair competition from industrialized factory-type agricultural enterprises employing and exploiting workers with grossly inade¬ quate wage rates, working and living conditions.” (James G. Patton, President, National Farmers Union, June, 1960.) “The importation program has injurious effects on the family and community life both of the Mexican nationals who are imported and of the domestic workers, who because of the presence of Mexican nationals, are deprived of employment or find it neces¬ sary to migrate in search of employment.” (General Board, National Council of Churches, Feb. I960; Womans Division of Christian Service, Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, March, 1960.) “Congress could legislate on behalf of farm workers from now until doomsday and accomplish very little unless and until it either repeals or radically amends Public Law 78, which authorizes the wholesale im¬ portation of Mexican farm workers in the United States on a contract basis.” (Msgr. George G. Higgins, Director of Social Action Dept., National Catholic Welfare Conference, May, 1961.) “Enactment of the proposed extension — without reform — of Public Law 78 would be a national mis¬ fortune. The AFL-CIO believes that the Mexican Farm Labor program should be ended as quickly as possible, so that greater employment opportunities may become available for domestic farm workers.” (Andrew J. Biemiller, Director, Dept, of Legislation, AFL- CIO, May, 1961.) “We are opposed to any extension of the Mexican Contract Labor Program unless the reforms recom¬ mended by the Secretary of Labor are included, re¬ forms designed to protect our own citizens who are farm workers from abuses arising from this program.” (Jacob C layman, Administrative Director, Industrial Union Dept., AFL-CIO, May, 1961.) “The time has come for the Federal Government to stop fostering the use of cheap foreign labor to the detriment of American workers. . . . These govern¬ ment-authorized invasions, over 300,000 strong last vear, have an adverse effect on the wages, working conditions and employment opportunities of domestic farm workers.” (New York Times, May 3, 1961.) “Those of us who oppose the bracero program certainly have no desire to deprive Mexicans of funds they so urgently need. But the dollars earned through the bracero program are no solution to that country’s economic problems. If we are sincerely concerned about helping to alleviate the poverty in Mexico . . . then we should be talking in terms of a genuine foreign aid program.” (Norman Thomas, National Share¬ croppers Fund, March, 1961.) “P.L. 78 takes dishonorable advantage of the des¬ perate poverty of working men of other nations and creates labor pools of foreign field workers who are denied the opportunity of normal immigration as per¬ manent residents. Out of their own necessity, they compete unfairly with our own workers and undercut the value of the farm family’s labor. Succinctly, our position is: no renewal of Public Law 78 without substantial reform.” (Bishops’ Committee for Migrant Workers, Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish Speaking, and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, May, 1961.) We call for the “Annual reduction of the number of Mexican nationals imported for agricultural labor under Public Law 78, looking toward the early elimi¬ nation of this program which has had adverse effects in some regions upon domestic wages and working conditions as well as upon the family and community life of the imported worker, without providing funda¬ mental aid to the Mexican economy.” (Council for Christian Social Action, United Church of Christ, January, 1961.) “Supporters of P.L. 78 have conjured up the bogeyman that the prices of food and fiber will increase if the Mexican farm labor program is re¬ formed. The fact is, however, that higher farm labor wages would bring negligible increased costs to the consumer. For example, a 10-cent wage increase for farm workers would increase the cost to a family for all its cotton goods by less than 50 cents a year and the cost of its sugar would increase less than 1/10 of a cent a pound. Even if this were not so, consumers do not want bargains based on the exploitation of the poorest of the poor. We believe reform of P.L. 78 is necessary for basic humanitarian reasons.” (National Consumers League, May, 1961.) IN MAY 1961, the House of Representatives voted to extend Public Law 78 — with no reforms — through 1963. When the measure comes before the Senate, important reforms will be introduced in a substitute bill incorporating the Department of Labor’s proposals to protect the wages and job opportunities of domestic workers. To ensure that employers seeking braceros have made genuine efforts to attract domestic workers, these recom¬ mendations provide that: 1) to be eligible for braceros, employers must pay wages that keep pace with general increases in farm wages and offer domestic workers conditions comparable to those guaranteed braceros; 2) the Secretary of Labor be able to limit the number of braceros who could be hired by any one employer to the extent necessary to assure competition for domestic workers; and 3) braceros be restricted to tempo¬ rary field jobs not involving the operation of machinery. The Senate reform bill is S.1945 National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor 112 East 19 Street, New York 3, New York Frank P. Graham John A. Mackay A. Philip Randolph Treasurer Co-Chairmen Fay Bennett Executive Secretary The National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor is a fact-finding, reporting agency. It makes avail¬ able information regarding the problems of farm workers to aid concerned persons in taking appro¬ priate action. PUBLIC LAW 78 — HOW IT WORKS EACH YEAR several hundred thousand Mexican farm workers are brought into the U. S. under contract to meet an ostensible shortage of domes¬ tic farm labor. About the same number of Ameri¬ can farm workers leave their homes annually in search of work, many of them coming from the very areas where the majority of Mexican workers, or braceros, are employed. THE MEXICAN importation program (Public Law 78) takes advantage of extreme poverty and un¬ employment in Mexico to supply low-cost labor for a comparatively few American farms. In doing so, it increases poverty and unemployment among domestic farm workers for it creates a surplus of farm labor which depresses farm wages. Those farm employers who hire braceros do not have to offer attractive wages and conditions to find workers and they can silence any complaints from imported workers by sending them back to Mexico. DOMESTIC FARM workers in these areas have the choice of staying home and accepting wages geared to the braceros’ poverty or of joining the migrant stream to seek work in areas where im¬ ported workers are not employed and where farm wages are significantly higher.