The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Migrant Workers

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Tonight, some food for thought about the people who helped harvest the food for your Thanksgiving, dinner the migrant and seasonal farm workers of this country.

Their story is not a new one; John Steinbeck told it in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The press has examined it in exposes and TV documentaries, Congressional committees and Presidential commissions have detailed it in public hearings and in massive volumes of testimony. This evening we take a look at the situation of today`s migrant workers. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the story is the complex one of men and women and children who follow the crops. Their annual journey starts each spring, often from home bases in the South. The landmarks in their migration northward are the things they harvest: cotton, oranges, wheat, tomatoes, grapes, lettuce, apples, cucumbers, tobacco and so on. It`s an itinerary that may cover thousands of miles and a variety of. jobs under a dozen different employers. Always the migrants are at the mercy of the weather, crop conditions and local employment situations. It`s an irregular life at best; at worst, in the view of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare; it is a life characterized by "low wages, protracted hours horrid working condition., and all the symptoms of chronic poverty. But that view is not shared by everyone. Janet Knouse is general manager of Knouse Fruitlands. Incorporated in Adams County, Pennsylvania.. Her business employs about 150 migrant farm workers each year to help harvest apples and peaches. Mrs. Knouse, what`s the situation on your place? Would you think the farm workers on your place would live up to that description of "low wages, protracted hours, horrid working conditions and all the symptoms of chronic poverty"?

JANET KNOUSE: No, we definitely do not have that attitude that this is the case on our particular farm operation. Our men ,work the same hours as the migrants, or the migrants work the same `hours as our men do:

LEHRER: How many hours is that?

KNOUSE: We work a 50-hour week during the harvest season. If we happen to have a rainy day, they are allowed to make it up if they so desire; but there is no time when they have to be in the orchards -- they come and go at their own discretion, fairly much.

LEHRER: What is the pay scale for migrant workers on your farm?

KNOUSE: We pay piece rate completely; in fact, they would not work by the hour.

LEHRER: Piece rate -- you mean,, so much a bushel of apples or peaches ?

KNOUSE: That`s correct, so much per bushel.

LEHRER: How does that average out, say, for the average migrant worker? How much does he-make a week or a month, or how do you tabulate it?

KNOUSE: This depends completely on the potential of the worker himself. He certainly has free rein to make as much as he wants to, or as little as he wants to. We have had some migrants that have earned $300 in 44.3/4 hours - - I checked this. We also have had migrants that maybe only pick on the average of $7-8, depending...

LEHRER: Depends on how fast they can pick, is that it?

KNOUSE: Right.

LEHRER: All sight, what about housing on your place? Do you provide housing, for the migrant workers?

KNOUSE: We do; we have provided housing. We have had one group coming from the South for 17 years. We`ve had the same crew leader who has comeback year after year; we have had many commendations from the. Governor in Pennsylvania on our seasonal farm housing, and we try to take care and provide for them just as we would any. other employee because I think primarily too often people forget that they are one of our greatest assets, and we look at them in this manner. It`s fine to grow a crop and work all year long from one harvest season to the next and grow the fruit, but then when harvest time comes we have on the average of about eight weeks to get this crop off of the trees, that it is in proper condition; and even some of the varieties we have an average of six weeks that it. must be harvested. So for this reason we depend on the migrant labor, which we have, to have. We can not depend on, there` s a possibility there will be some-body there to work -- we have to.-have them. `

LEHRER: All right, thank you, Mrs. Knouse. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mrs. Knouse speaks as one employer of migrant labor; let`s get another perspective now from an organization representing larger farmers. Perry Ellsworth is executive vice president of, the National Council of Agricultural Employers, representing some 600 larger growers all over the country. Mr. Ellsworth, what`s your position on. the condition of the migrant workers`? Do you agree with that Senate Committee`s statement, they`re characterized by "low wages, protracted hours and horrid working conditions" all over the` country?

PERRY ELLSWORTH: First, let me correct one thing you said. The National Council of Agricultural Employers represents employers of all size farms.

MacNEIL: Oh, does it? I see.

ELLSWORTH: So we have those that may hire four or five workers, or we may have those that hire hundreds of workers.

MacNEIL: Thank you.

ELLSWORTH: Anticipating that this question might come. up, I did a little research .today, and it`s rather interesting to note that in the State of New York workers last year earned at the average rate of $4.26 an hour picking apples at piece rate, and the top ten percent made an-average of $6.27. In the State of Washington I called one of our members to get his figures just because I knew he`d have some; he told me about five workers he had picking his crop. One spent four days working there and earned $39 a day, another one worked five days and earned $36 a day; another one, four days $4.50 a-day; another one, seven days, $41 a day, and another one, five days at $36 a day.

MacNEIL: So you`d call those good wages.

ELLSWORTH: Well, I don`t know how many people in this country make that. kind of money; there-are some that make more, there are some that make less. And least anybody accuse me of being false and thinking that`s the total everyday wage, I`d have to say that that`s during the height of picking a crop -- there`s no question about it.

MacNEIL: Are conditions -- those are. obviously good wages in those places --- are conditions uniformly good, or are there very bad areas that still might fit that description that I read to you?

ELLSWORTH: I think we can say the same thing about farmers that Jim said here when he said that farmers are at the mercy of crops, weather and workers ... he said migrants were. I say farmers are, too; and the workers, as Mrs. Knouse said, if they don`t show, can ruin the whole farmer`s year. But to get to your question, yes, there are times when some farms have poor crops and it is impossible to make high wages. On the other hand, there-are years when money can be made, and migrants, provided they travel some distance, have an opportunity to maybe make it well in one crop, maybe take a beating in another crop. I`d be the last one in the world to. say that they`re $25,000 to $30,000 a year wage earners. Although I do happen to have a report from one grower in Florida who said that two four-member families working for him earned $27,000 and $25,000; respectively, which isn`t a bad income.

MacNEIL: What do you see as the principal problems of, migrant workers now?

ELLSWORTH: I would think that migrant workers are Indeed, as Jim has said, at the mercy of crops, weather and the availability of employment; and I think it would be a myth to think that farmers can provide year-round employment on their farms for all the workers, that are needed at harvest time, so that a migrant worker is generally dependent upon that seasonal work and seasonal work does not last all year long, and when it doesn`t last all-year long it`s like a bricklayer with no bricklaying jobs.` And I don``t.know that there`s any solution to that in agriculture.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Let`s get another view now from the executive director of the Migrant Legal Action Program, based here in Washington; his name is Raphael Gomez. Mr. Gomez, do you agree with Mrs. Knouse and Mr. Ellsworth`s assessment of the migrant workers` situation in America today?

RAPHAEL GOMEZ: I think the situation for. farm workers today is much better than it has been over the last 50 years. It`s better because farm workers are now partially covered by federal legislation, but it`s far from good.. We have situations where farm workers are now covered by Fair Labor Standards Act, for instance, and yet they`re not receiving the same minimum wage that other workers in the United States are receiving.

LEHRER: Who`s the villain in the piece, At this point, for the unresolved problems that migrant workers have? The farmers? The government? Where?

GOMEZ: It`s difficult to say. As Mrs. Knouse has described the situation on her farm, there are good farmers, there are good government workers, but yet, when you look at the picture overall you see farm workers not receiving services that the government has mandated, that Congress has provided, whether it`s the Farmers` Home Administration or.... You have the situation, for instance, with pesticides where the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970; standards were finally issued in 1973, and then the Environmental Protection Agency moved in and pre-empted the field and there are no standards presently that can be enforced. There are standards, but they`re not enforceable.

LEHRER: If you had to draw up a list of the worst things about the migrant workers` situation now, in what order would they be? Where would you put wages and housing and health, and all of those things? How would you rank them?

GOMEZ:, I think for the farm worker it has to be wages. The problem is that farm workers. may make a fairly good wage when the crop, is good and during the height of the season, but they may be asked to come up on July l but the crop isn`t ready until July 15, or rain may occur. The situation for farm workers is not the same situation as is for a worker with GM; you can`t have the production ready at any set time, so I would say. wages is paramount. Housing, education, the training enabling farm workers to have the opportunity for other jobs, though not non-existent, is virtually non- existent.

LEHRER: Have the improvements that you mentioned -- you said the situation is better than it used to be -- what do you think has caused this? Has it been action by the government, more of an awareness on the part of the farmers? In other words, who`s the good guy who has even improved it?

GOMEZ: I think one thing that one has to look back at is the fact that the economy in the 1960`s improved. There was `a different attitude by government officials; Senator Mondale, for instance,, had subcommittee hearings and exposed the situation of farm. workers. The legal services office of Economic Opportunity was created in the `60`s and the first pieces of litigation enforcing acts that had gone unenforced for 30 or 40 years began happening in, `68, `69 and `70.

LEHRER: So it was basically government action.

GOMEZ: Correct.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: There`s not only disagreement over the situation of, the American migrant farm worker, there`s-also a running argument over what is or isn`t being done to assist them. One charge is official discrimination. Over the decades the ethnic character of migrant workers has changed. In the early part of the century the majority in the West were Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos. In the East they were Irish, Italian and Scandinavian.In the `30`s the largest element were Okies, people displaced from the dustbowl states. Most of them have long been settled.. Today the bulk of the migrant force is Mexican-American,- Puerto Rican, West Indian or American black. In . 1972 groups representing migrant workers sued the Secretary of Labor. They charged that the Labor Department`s employment service, agencies were discriminating against the migrants. As a result, federal judge Charles Ritchie ordered the Department to take specific actions to provide services in a non-discriminatory manner. He also set up a special review committee to study compliance and last month that committee produced its findings. Its chairman is Ronald Goldfarb, a Washington lawyer who`s also writing a book about the migrants. Mr. Goldfarb, in what way was the Department of labor discriminating against migrant workers -- because they were farm workers, because they were migrants or because a lot of them came from minority groups?

RONALD GOLDFARB:I would answer it by saying all- of the above;. and also I would point out that when you talk about the Department of Labor here you must realize that there was an inextricable inter twining between the federal government and the state employment services ,and other agencies which carried out the laws. In many ways these programs are 100 percent federally funded, but also 100 percent state-run.` Migrant farm workers, I think, have problems because of their migrancy, because of their minority status arid because they`re farm worker:. For example, a migrant cannot stay around to enforce his rights in a dispute over wages, for example, simply because of the transient nature of his work arid living. And, he also cannot take advantage of laws and programs that were designed to benefit him because of his migrancy; until recently, for example,` residence requirements precluded farm workers from getting welfare So migrancy is an aspect of it. The fact that many farm workers are from minority groups -- in particular, Mexican-Americans -- has been a problem; I think it`s a problem that`s being worked on, as the problem of racism is being worked on around the country. But it still exists.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this: Has the situation improved in the two years your committee at the judge`s instructions has been studying the situation?

GOLDFARB: Well, I`ve got to give a yes and no on that. Yes, there has been improvement. Could you still make the charge that the farm workers have many of the problems that precipitated this-lawsuit?

I would say yes. We found, for example, in the course of one of our hearings in, the State of Colorado, the head of the State Employment Agency and many of his departmental assistants a.s well as migrant`. farm worker organizations and others testified before us that this system was a racist system.. That particular individual was a very candid man, and a man, I believe, totally committed to change that situation; but that was this year, and his candor cannot be ignored.

MacNEIL: Very briefly, what is the chief problem in the way government deals with the workers? Is it simply confusion over many agencies, or is there another problem?

GOLDFARB: There are many problems. I would put them in several categories. For one thing, the legislatures of this country have in a systemic way discriminated against farm workers historically, so that all of the major social welfare legislation of the post-New Deal era -- and I mean very broad and important fundamental kinds of social welfare programs: collective bargaining, unemployment insurance, workmen`s compensation laws, minimum wage laws, for example, exclude agricultural workers. So from the start, they`re hurt. On top of that there have been the kinds of discrimination that this lawsuit and our case dealt with, and that was, where programs are designed for farm workers, where they`re included and are potential recipients of the benefits of the programs, are they being discriminated against? Well, we found that great strides had been made in the last few years. I`m sure some. officials would say it was going to happen anyway; advocates on the other side would say but for this lawsuit it wouldn`t have happened, or it would have happened sooner. But we found one of the conditions that existed two years ago was that there were separate facilities; it was a kind of separate-but-equal; not unlike the civil rights problem, where there were separate agricultural employment service offices around the country and those people had to come in the back door. They were shuffled off into special programs geared for them; they were not exposed to the kind of training, counseling, outward-bound, upward-mobile kinds of programs to get people out, of the migrant stream that others had..

MacNEIL: Okay; we`ll go further into this in a moment. Let`s get another view on it now. Jim?,

LEHRER: Another member of. that committee is Floyd Edwards is the administrator for field operations of the U.S. Department of Labor`s Employment and Training Administration. Mr. Edwards, your department has its own view of how well you`ve been doing in complying with Judge Ritchie`s order, What is it?.

FLOYD EDWARDS: Well I agree with some of what Mr. Goldfarb has said, but certainly not all. The first point I would like to make is that the impression has been given that the federal court has found the Department of Labor to be` discriminating against migrant seasonal farm workers. There has been no such finding; there has not been a trial, there`s been no verdict. The court order under which we`re operating actually is a consent decree between the defendants and the plaintiffs. When the suit was brought against the Department of Labor .we met with the individuals bringing the suit and we agreed that we could do more and that we could do better, and that we wanted to. Together we wrote an agreement which we presented to the court; that is the court order. The court did not change the agreement.

LEHRER: What about the specific thing that Mr. Goldfarb just mentioned, of your employment offices, being separate for agricultural workers, separate from the rest of society`s employment offices?

EDWARDS:. First of all, the separate facilities were corrected before the court order came about, before the special review committee was imposed.

LEHRER: That is no longer the case, is that right?

EDWARDS: It`s no longer the case, and it was changed a number of years ago. I should paint out that separate offices were originally created in order to give priority treatment to migrant and seasonal farm workers; as time goes by, and as the number of migrants decreases,, we found it necessary to exert greater efforts to get. them into the mainstream of the workplace., and that`s what we`ve been doing. There`s no-question about it, in the viewpoint of the Department of Labor, that migrants do present special problems and they have special needs: We think they`re special people. They need our help., they-need the help of all of us, and I`m not sure that all of us together can lick the problems. `The first-and foremost problem is in the spirit of legislation. Migrant and seasonal farm workers -- farm workers as a .whole -- are not covered by most legislation, that has to do with labor, and where they are covered, the standards are less than for other types of workers; that needs to be changed. The Department of Labor feels that there should be no difference between legislation covering; farm workers and legislation covering any body else, whether it`s minimum wage, or whatever. Some of them have language problems; they don`t speak English, as Mr. Goldfarb indicated, and they nave special; needs. My viewpoint of what has transpired to the two years of the special review committee and the consent order is that we`ve made-tremendous progress. As far as discrimination is concerned, I think that any impartial, reasonable judge or jury or other individual would have to` conclude that we`re not discriminating. After two years` worth of effort we referred, three times as many migrants to jobs as we do other types of applicants. We placed, twice as many of them- in jobs.

Generally, across the-board, the proportionate level of service to migrant and seasonal farm workers, at this point, is higher than for other types of applicants. As to whether or not we`re entirely satisfied with what vie have done or what others have done, we`re not satisfied. We`re not there yet. `This problem will not be licked until there are many things that are done by many different organizations.

LEHRER: Many different organizations -- that`s exactly what Robin wants to pursue now. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes. We hear and read the complaint from employers and people representing the migrant workers that one of the problems is that, not only your department but HEW and the various state agen cies involved represent so many points of contact that there`s very little coordination between. them; and I`m wondering, with an administration coming in that`s promising government reorganization, is . there something that could. be done to simplify all this to get it all under one roof that, might be more effective? Let`s go to the employers first. Mrs. Knouse, do you have a view on that?

KNOUSE: Yes. I feel that there should-be one referral agency that makes contact with these migrants, and whatever their problems are they, should be referred to the local help area regardless of what it is. We`re saying here that we want to bring the migrants into the mainstream of society, and yet at the sometime we`re setting. them-apart and making special groups for them and setting up special agencies all the time. to cover them. So that I .feel there should he, contact to find out what their problems are and then refer them to that local agency rather. than having 16, 17 different agencies going into the camp to find out what they can do to help these .people.

MaCNEIL: Do you have problems as an employer,. having to deal with so many different branches of government?

KNOUSE: We most certainly do, because if someone has a problem, as MOUSE: I said, we have about 16, 17 agencies that are going into help them, to find out what their problems are, and primarily they will contact the employer in some cases to find out whether it`s a11 right to go into the camp. But then if they are called later, they go back again. And you could have someone in that camp constantly, in and out, during the daytime and during the evening, so really, they have no privacy.

MacNEIL: I see. Mr. Gomez, do you think simplification of government procedures could help in this area?

GOMEZ: It`s not merely a problem of simplification; their situation now is really a, matter of enforcement and a lack of personnel, a lack of commitment by the agencies. I`m not so sure that just simplifying it -.- there`s a problem in attitude of whether it`s the Department of Labor or the Department of Agriculture, of whether; on the lower level or the people who are in contact with the farm workers, whether they view themselves as representatives or serving farm workers or serving the employers. And that`s a real problem for the farm worker.. And I just would like to say one point as to what Mrs. Mouse had said. I really question whether there are 16 or 17`different agencies traveling to the farm that she has to deal with. It seems-to me that farm workers have the right to visitors just` as any other individual in. the United States, and they have the right to services that are, available to all other citizens in the United States.

GOLDFARB: I would add to that the point that there`s not only a problem -- I mean, I am in favor of simplification, although all the simplification in the world is not going to make a difference unless there is an utter commitment from the top that carries down and is done in a meaningful way. Not only is-there`s problem, I think, now of coordination within agencies; there`s a coordination between, agencies.I can illustrate it with a few examples from our experiences...

LEHRER: Excuse me. Mr. Edwards was shaking his head when you started talking. Mr. Edwards?

EDWARDS: I was shaking my head because it showed my name under Mr. Goldfarb`s picture.

LEHRER: Oh, I see. (Laughing;.) Well, that`s a good`-enough reason to shake your head.How do you feel about this coordination thing that Robin posed?

EDWARDS: I think there is need for better coordination among the government agencies;don`t really disagree on that point. And we`re working at that -- we`re developing linkages and mechanisms to coordinate better with one another. But that Is-not the only problem. The majority of the-contacts to migrant and seasonal farm workers ,are not by government agencies, but by other organizations -- privately funded organizations, non-profit organizations. One of our people within the last few weeks visited a migrant labor camp at night, and the migrant workers indicated that they were a little bit tired. And-she asked them why, and the migrants pointed out that she was the tenth person who had been there that night to interview them -- the only one who was a government individual, the others were from other organizations. We all need to coordinate; this is not just a government problem; it`s a problem for all of us, and sometimes I think it`s larger than all of us put together. And I think the major thing that we need to do, beyond anything else, is to not fight one another, and to fight the problem. .

MacNEIL: Yeah.. Finally, Mr. Ellsworth, do you have a view on how the government. could improve its delivery of services?

ELLSWORTH: Well, I would say right off the bat, and real fast, that we have not the slightest doubt that the government is seriously enforcing regulations. When we have the EPA indeed imposing pesticide re-entry intervals and requiring posting of information-about sprays to protect workers and required to keep them out of the field, when we have OSHA checking our housing -- Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

MacNEIL: We.`11 have to leave it there for now, Mr. Ellsworth. Thank you. all in Washington very much; thank your Mr. Goldfarb. Jim. Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.