MIGRANT AND SEASONAL FARMWORKER POWERLESSNESS (Border Commuter Labor Problem) WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1969 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MIGRATORY LABOR OF THE Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 9:40 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 2228, New Senate Office Building, Senator Walter F. Mondale (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Mondale (presiding), Kennedy, Cranston, Murphy, and Schweiker. Committee staff members present: Robert O. Harris, staff director of full committee; Boren Chertkov, majority counsel; A. Sidney Johnson, professional staff member; and Eugene Mittelman, minority counsel. Senator MONDALE. The meeting of the Migratory Labor Subcommittee will come to order. This morning the Migratory Labor Subcommittee begins a series of hearings on migrant and seasonal farm labor problems in the United States. The theme for the hearings will be powerlessness. The subcommittee will examine the depth of powerlessness among migrants and the reasons for this powerlessness. Our hearings will explore the extent to which migrant workers are powerless to influence decisions in both their home base communities and in so-called user States. We will examine the degree to which, and the ways in which, migrant and seasonal farmworkers are deprived of political power, deprived of economic power, deprived of cultural identity and pride, deprived of rights and privileges that most Americans take for granted. We will consider the extent to which the migrant and seasonal farmworker is powerless to affect his own unemployment and underemployment, powerless to fight job displacement, and powerless in union or community organization efforts to improve his living and working conditions. In this week's hearings we begin our inquiry into powerlessness by examining the scope of the border commuter labor problem, and its broad nationwide economic impact. This problem area appears to illustrate one way in which powerlessness is imposed on migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Every morning thousands of campesinos come across the border from Mexico into Texas, Arizona, and California to work in our (1947) fields. They obtain entry into the United States by displaying either a form I-151-permanent alien registration card, commonly referred to as a green card-or a certificate showing a U.S. birthplace, or a temporary 3-day visa (white card), or a baptismal certificate. Large numbers of illegal entrants are also coming across the border to perform farm work. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, of Massachusetts, a member of this subcommittee, maintains a special interest in the commuter problem that we are considering this morning. He has again in this Congress introduced legislation (S. 1694) which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to refine the commuter labor system by requiring that every 6 months the Department of Labor certify that the presence of a commuting green card holder in the United States to seek or continue employment does not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of American workers similarly employed. Senator Kennedy's bill would also remove the present exclusion of the agricultural industry from the provisions making it a criminal offense to willfully and knowingly employ aliens who are in the country illegally. It is my understanding that the Judiciary Committee, which has legislative jurisdiction in this area, and on which Senator Kennedy serves, will be holding hearings on S. 1694. The purpose of our hearings this week is to gain an understanding of the impact that the border commuter labor problem has on migratory and seasonal farmworkers specifically. Our hearings will explore the extent to which commuter problems illustrate and explain the social and economic deprivation-and the powerlessness-faced by migrants. To do this, we need to understand the legislative and administrative background that permits these border crossings, and more importantly, the effects of the border commuter labor. We need to know the extent to which the availability of border commuters depresses the living and working conditions in the United States, the extent to which it explains the fact that border areas resemble the 1930's depression economy, and the extent to which it causes U.S. citizens to migrate north in a desperate search for work. Border commuters are allowed indiscriminately to work in the American economy and take their wages back to the low-cost Mexican economy. These hearings will seek to discover the degree to which the availability of this low-wage work force undermines the wage standards of migrant and seasonal farmworkers throughout the country, damages their job opportunities, and their organizing and collectivebargaining efforts. Following an examination of the border commuter labor problem, we look forward to hearings on a number of other subject areas that will further define and describe the problem of migrant powerlessness. Additional hearings will study and investigate Who migrant and seasonal farmworkers are, why they migrate and what their plight is, described in their own words; What the nature of the migrant subculture is, and what the effect of migrancy on the child is; What the nature and scope of the rural employment and manpower problem is; What efforts toward community and union organization have been made, and why they have succeeded or failed; What the effect of pesticides on the farmworkers is; How extensive racism, discrimination, and the denial of civil rights in rural areas is; What the limitations of current Government service programs, and social and worker benefit programs are; And finally, what the future of migrant and seasonal farmworkers is. And so today we began this series of hearings on powerlessness; and we begin with a discussion of the border commuter labor problem. We have a most distinguished panel of witnesses. We are pleased this morning to have as our lead witness the distinguished Congressman from Michigan, James O'Hara, who has shown a great interest in this particular issue, and who serves on our companion committee in the House, the House Committee on Education and Labor. He has shown not only interest, but a great deal of creative concern, about the problems of the farmworkers and migrants of our country. Congressman O'Hara. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES G. O'HARA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Let me first congratulate you for taking the initiative in these hearings, and examining the several aspects of this problem of powerlessness. Powerlessness is certainly much broader than the simple subject of inclusion of farmworkers under the National Labor Relations Act, or broader even than the particular subject of today's hearing, which is the nature and extent of the competition for jobs and impact upon the domestic labor market of commuter labor, particularly in the field of farm labor. I would like to address myself to two particular facets of the problem for the moment, particularly the latter. First, Mr. Chairman, I think I ought to report to you that following our conversations in the Imperial Valley and on the road between El Centro and Calexico, and in Calexico on Sunday Senator MONDALE. Let the record show that Congressman O'Hara is referring to the visit that he, Senator Kennedy, Senator Yarborough and I made to the Imperial Valley of California last week. How are your feet? Mr. O'HARA. My feet are in good shape. Mr. Chairman. After your departure at the airport, as I returned to Calexico, we clocked the distance, and I can report to you that we marched 5 miles, give or take a tenth or two. Senator MONDALE. I thought it was 25. Mr. O'HARA. I think if you multiply that by the factor of heat, it would turn out to be about 25. Following that, Mr. Chairman, I went, as I indicated to you I would, and following your example of several months ago to the border. That night at 2 a.m. I arose and went to what they call the Calexico "hole," the hole at the border where commuters enter and leave, the border-crossing point. I watched the commuting farmworkers come across the border having their credentials checked. I went to the border to those places where farm labor is recruited by the labor contractor, by the crew boss, or the crew leader, and transported to farms in the Imperial Valley or in the Coachella Valley. I went to the offices of the Farm Labor Division of the California Employment Service, which are located near the "hole," and are open from 3 to 4 a.m. to assist in the recruitment of day haul labor for the fields of the Imperial and Coachella Valleys. I talked to a number of labor contractors and a number of workers who had entered the United States that early morning from Mexico in an effort to find work for that day. I agree with you that the impact of the commuter laborer upon the entire situation is very, very great. It poses a very difficult problem, because, of course, the simple way to attack the problem would be to merely say, "Well, we won't let these people in any more. We will cut off this flow." But I talked to some of these workers, Mr. Chairman, who had been coming and going for 15 to 20 years, and who have been working in the fields of the Imperial and Coachella Valleys all that time, who were raising families and had six, seven, eight, nine children. One of them, Mr. Chairman, was a man who had gotten his visa for permanent residence and who had come to the United States and who had found that he couldn't support his family in the United States on the amount of money that he made as a farmworker, who then moved his family back to Mexico and became a commuter. That is, when he received his visa, he had every intention of becoming a permanent resident of the United States, but he found he couldn't do it. Senator MONDALE. So, in effect, he lived in Mexico, where the cost of living is substantially reduced, and made his living in the United States. Mr. O'HARA. That's right. Senator MONDALE. And had commuted in that fashion for years. Mr. O'HARA. Exactly, and there is much to be said for the theory that these people are as much a part of the labor market and the farm labor force, and have this longstanding attachment to it, as one who commuted the same day, perhaps, who got his visa the same day, 8, 10, 15 years ago, and who managed to create a permanent residence in the United States. But another thing, after that statement of the complication of this problem and the difficulties that would be created for many, many persons with long attachment to the farm labor force, if we were to simply cut off the opportunities that they now enjoy to work in agriculture in the United States, let me make another point, and that is that the flow of such commuters must be reduced somehow. I would very strongly suggest, Mr. Chairman, that you give consideration to approaching this problem from several standpoints. First, I think that from this date henceforward, we ought to say that an alien who applies for and obtains a visa for permanent residence in the United States, who fails to establish such permanent residence, or who fails to maintain his principal place of residence in the United States during the time of the visa, that he will, in effect, lose his visa. Senator MONDALE. Is it your understanding today that the regula Mr. O'HARA. It is my understanding that green carders who have obtained their visas since 1961, who are entering and leaving, must obtain certification at regular intervals that their entrance for the purpose of employment does not depress the conditions of labor. Senator MONDALE. That is different than the permanent residency provisions? Mr. O'HARA. Yes; those are the commuters. I am not aware, Mr. Chairman, if commuters must maintain their residence in the United States. Senator MONDALE. Your first recommendation is the permanent residency requirement. Mr. O'HARA. Yes. The second recommendation I have is that we find some way to make it an unfair labor practice for an employer involved in a labor dispute to replace employees who are involved in that labor dispute with nonresident aliens. Senator MONDALE. That is a position which I think has a great deal of merit. I can't imagine any modern industrial plant that is unionized that would have been unionized if it had been exposed to the limitless supply of desperately poor labor from Mexico willing to be used as strikebreakers. The farmworkers have often proclaimed that in their efforts to organize certain table grape growers, each time they call a strike, even though they have a majority of the members working in the field, they pull their people out of the fields and the next morning all those jobs and more are replaced by Mexican farmworkers who have been hauled up from the border to the scene of the strike. By the next morn. ing the strike is over insofar as the employees are concerned. Would you say, based upon your observations, that that could happen? Mr. O'HARA. No question about it, Mr. Chairman. I think one of the great obstacles to conducting an organizational drive and obtaining collective-bargaining agreements in agriculture in those areas in close proximity to the border of the United States especially, and to a lesser extent in areas somewhat removed from the border, is the availability of a ready supply of labor that can be used to replace those who are conducting a work stoppage in an organizational effort. Mr. Chairman, we had considered saying, "You can't employ nonresident aliens if you are engaged in a labor dispute." But I rejected that idea, because perhaps it is a nonresident alien who has been working for that grower for 5 years a regular part of the work force who should be treated no different from one who lives down the road a ways. But in terms of hiring as replacements for workers who are not in the field because of a labor dispute, I think that clearly, there, we ought to make that an unfair labor practice. I would recommend, Mr. Chairman, if we do so, that we provide the same kind of mandatory injunction and extraordinary relief provisions that are now provided under section 10(k) or is it-10(f) or 10 (1)? I don't have it before me. Senator MONDALE. I know, but I am not going to help you out. [Laughter.] Mr. O'HARA. The provisions that say when a complaint was made that there is a violation of this new subparagraph of 8(a), that an |