Seasonal Farm Labor in the United States: With Special Reference to Hired Workers in Fruit and Vegetable and Sugar-Beet Production 9780231890298

Table of contents :
Editors’ Foreword
Preface
Contents
I. Seasonal Farm Laborers
2. Fruit and Vegetable Workers
3. The Economics of Fruit and Vegetable Labor
4. Workers in Sugar Beets
5. Seasonal Farm Labor in the Postwar Era
Appendix A
Appendix B
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

SEASONAL FARM LABOR in the United

States

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN T H E HISTORY AMERICAN

STUDIES OF

AGRICULTURE

NUMBER 11

SEASONAL FARM LABOR in the United States WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIRED W O R K E R S IN F R U I T A N D V E G E T A B L E AND SUGAR-BEET PRODUCTION

by Harry

NEW

YORK

Schwartz

- MORNINGSIDE

HEIGHTS

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1945

COPYRIGHT

1945

C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS, N E W YORK

Foreign a g e n t : OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, H u m p h r e y M i l f o r d , Amen House, London, E.C. 4, England, AND B.I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India

MANUFACTURED

IN THE

UNITED

STATES OF

AMERICA

To My Mother and Father

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE EDITED

HARRY J. CARMAN

BY

. and

DEAN, COLUMBIA COLLEGE

REXFORD G. TUGWELL GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO

ADVISORY BOARD

EVARTS B. GREENE, Chairman DE WITT CLINTON PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

AVERY O. CRAVEN

HAROLD A. INNIS

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN T H E

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

T H E UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

EVERETT E. EDWARDS UNITED

STATES DEPARTMENT

OF

AGRICULTURE, MANAGING EDITOR

OF Agricultural

History

LEWIS C. GRAY

LOUIS B. SCHMIDT IOWA STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANICAL ARTS

ECONOMIST, DIVISION OF LAND ECO-

WALTER P. WEBB

NOMICS, UNITED STATES DEPART-

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN T H E

MENT OF AGRICULTURE

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

EDITORS'

H

FOREWORD

ISTORIANS and others concerned with recording the outstanding changes which have featured American Economic life since 1865 and more particularly since the beginning of the twen-

tieth century have tended to stress industry rather than agriculture. Especially has this been true of those who endeavor to earn their livelihood from the soil. Indeed, until recently the farm laborer has been the forgotten man. Through the years our knowledge of the real status of the farm worker has been incomplete and inaccurate. T h e common view prevailed that a farm laborer was merely a person on the way to becoming a tenant or one temporarily engaged in agricultural employment before taking a job with a non-agricultural concern. Even today too few Americans have any real appreciation of the changing status of the farm worker in a world of rapid change. In the pages which follow, Dr. Schwartz, on the basis of meticulous research and analysis, contributes a wealth of information about labor engaged in the production of certain agricultural commodities. Those who read these pages will understand why he has placed students of American agriculture and others greatly in his debt. H. J.

C.

R. G. T . Columbia

University

August 8, 1945

PREFACE • THE SUBTITLE indicates, this book is concerned primarily with two of the chief groups of seasonal farm laborers. The author's original intention had been to treat the seasonal labor force of each agricultural industry in detail, but his entrance into the armed forces prevented the achievement of this goal. The two groups of workers singled out for particular attention here were chosen because of the belief that their study would best delineate the most important characteristics of casual agricultural wage laborers and the problems they face. The author's indebtedness to the many who aided in the preparation of this volume is great. His major obligation is to the Columbia University Council for Research in the Social Sciences, which provided the funds that made possible the research tour of the United States in the summer of 1941 during which the basic materials for this volume were gathered. Of equal magnitude is the writer's debt to Dean Harry J. Carman and Dr. Carl T . Schmidt, both of Columbia University, who called his attention to the matters treated here and who would have prepared this volume had not the war and other obstacles intervened. Professor Leo Wolman sponsored the preparation of this work and made many helpful suggestions during its progress. Professor Edmund deS. Brunner, Paul Brissenden, and 0. S. Morgan, Dr. Murray Ross, and Mr. Louis J. Ducoff also read the manuscript and contributed significantly to its improvement. Dr. N. Gregory Silvermaster and his staff in the Farm Security Administration did much fundamental research that has been drawn upon in this report. Professor M .

R.

Benedict of the University of California, Professor M. N. Work of Tuskegee Institute, Professor E. D . Tetreau of the University of Arizona, Dr. W . T . Ham, formerly of the Department of Agriculture, and Mr. James Sidel of the National Child Labor Committee aided

xii

PREFACE

greatly by placing the rich resources of their organizations at the author's disposal. Ruth B. Schwartz has shared in the burden of work at every stage of research and writing during the past three years and has contributed immeasurably to the completion of this task. The opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Army of the United States. HARRY SCHWARTZ

Washington, D. C. April, 1945

CONTENTS 1.

SEASONAL F A R M LABORERS

I

2.

F R U I T AND VEGETABLE W O R K E R S

28

3.

T H E ECONOMICS OF F R U I T AND VEGETABLE LABOR

67

4.

W O R K E R S IN SUGAR B E E T S

102

5.

SEASONAL F A R M LABOR IN T H E POSTWAR E R A

140

APPENDIX A

154

APPENDIX B

155

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I 58

INDEX

163

I SEASONAL

F

ROM THE EARLIEST

FARM

LABORERS

days of this nation much of the labor force

which tilled the soil and harvested the crops has worked for others who owned the land and its produce. Recruiting this hired

labor force was a difficult problem in the colonial period since the abundance of good land waiting for cultivators made free men reluctant to work the soil for others. This hindered the growth of large farms, except in the South where a plantation economy was built on the foundation of slave and indentured labor. In colonial Massachusetts farmers sometimes had to use legal compulsion to get hired workers. Labor at government-fixed wages was compulsory

during

planting and harvesting seasons, and artificers and mechanics could be drafted by constables for work in their neighbors' fields unless they had their own field work to do. 1 Free farm laborers, working for wages and owning none of the tools of production, became more numerous after 1800. The increasing distance of unoccupied land from the centers of population and the need for capital to begin operations posed ever more serious obstacles to independent farm ownership. Yet, as long as land remained cheap, many a hired farm worker could regard himself as an apprentice accumulating the knowledge and capital he would need to start out on his own. Later the closing of the frontier and the disappearance of cheap unexploited land further widened the gulf between those who owned land and those who did not, making still more difficult the ascent from hired laborer to independent farmer. 2 In the South the abolition of slavery in the 1860's necessitated the evolution of new 1N. E . Bicknell, " T h e Economic Status of Hired Labor 011 Massachusetts M a r k e t Garden F a r m s " (Unpublished M S thesis, Dept. of Economics, Massachusetts State College, 1936), p. 9. 2

Farm

Paul S. T a y l o r , " T h e Place of Agricultural Laborers in Society," Economics Association Proceedings, X I I (1939), 80-90.

Western

SEASONAL

2

FARM

LABORERS

relationships between those who tilled the soil and those who owned it. T h e sharecropper and tenant pattern which emerged gave the former slaves—and their poor-white fellows—a status intermediate between free farmer and wage worker, more nearly the latter than the former. T h e sharecropper, in particular, found himself a subordinate of the plantation owner, who told him what to plant, and when and how to do every farm operation. B y accepting a share of the crop as his pay, the sharecropper assumed some of the entrepreneurial risks inherent in the

fluctuations

of cotton prices, without, however, getting

the freedom of choice in planning farm operations required to make him truly independent. 3 B y the beginning of the twentieth century the contemporary land tenure pattern had been largely established. Practically all the land formerly available for homesteading had been taken up so that a man who wished to farm for himself had to buy or rent land from another. The existence of a large group of hired workers was accepted as a permanent feature of the rural landscape, and by 1909 the average number of such employees hired during the year approximated three million or about a quarter of the total farm work force. 4 Some of these hired laborers worked on small farms which employed only one or two men to help the operator and his family. Others worked in large gangs on commercial farms employing hundreds and sometimes thousands of men at the peak of their operations. 5 The workers themselves were a variegated lot: Orientals and Mexicans on the Pacific Coast, Negroes and poor whites in the South, native American farm boys and hobos in the Middle West, European immigrants and Canadians in the Middle Atlantic and New England states. 0 Amidst this heterogeneous mass, sores festered—sores arising from low incomes, low wages, and diminished opportunities for climbing the agricultural ladder. 3 Karl Brandt, "Fallacious Census Terminology Agriculture," Social Research (Feb., 1938).

and

Its

Consequences

in

• B u r e a u of Agricultural Economics, Farm Wage Rates, Farm Employment, and Related Data (Washington, 1943), p. 155. 6L. F . Cox, "Agricultural Labor in the United States, 1865-1900, with Special Reference to the South" (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Economics, University of California, 1942), chapter 1. 6

C f . V. S. Industrial Commission

Reports

(Washington, 1901), Vols. X and X I .

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

3

Much happened in the four decades between 1900 and 1940, but the reader who compares the Industrial Commission's reports of a generation ago with the contemporary accounts of the La Follette and Tolan Committees finds remarkable similarities—for despite the significant changes in technology, prices, incomes, and production between the two eras, the fundamental forces governing employer-employee relationships remained largely the same. The nature of these forces against the background of an ever-changing agriculture will be examined in detail below. The importance of hired farm workers in contemporary United States agriculture may be examined with the help of data given in the 1940 Census. In the last week of March, 1940, a total of 9.7 million workers fourteen years of age and older were reported as having worked two or more days on farms. Of this number, 18 percent, or 1.8 million, were hired workers, and the remainder, 7.9 million, consisted of farm operators and their families. During the last week of September, 1939—a time of peak farm activity over most of the country—11.3 million workers were reported as employed on farms. Of these, almost 28 percent, 3.1 million workers, were hired, while the remainder, 8.2 million, consisted of farm operators and members of their families.7 These data, which indicate that even at the time of peak farm employment hired farm labor is little more than 25 percent of the total agricultural work force, minimize the importance of this group of workers. This is because the figures cited above lump all workers together, regardless of their productivity. In 1939, approximately 11 percent of this country's farms were responsible for over half of all agricultural production measured on a value basis.8 On these 650,000 commercial farms—the backbone of our market

agriculture—hired

farm workers were almost 50 percent of the labor force during the last week of March, 1940, and about 60 percent of the labor force during the last week of September 1939.9 7 Bureau of the Census, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and Farm Security Administration, Analysis of Specified Farm Characteristics for Farms Classified by Total Value of Products (Washington, 1943), pp. 102-3. 8 9

Ibid., p. 30. Ibid., pp. 102-3.

SEASONAL

4

FARM

LABORERS

Two major groups of hired farm laborers may be distinguished in this country. The first consists of stable, skilled workers usually hired by the month for a crop season, a year, or longer. These "hired hands," so-called, are sometimes specialists who do one job day in and day out, as, for instance, milkers on dairy farms. Others do many tasks: they drive tractors or teams of horses, repair fences and barns, fix machinery, tend livestock, and perform other jobs requiring skill and experience. Frequently they have a large degree of discretion and work under only general supervision. Often, the hired hand has regarded himself as an apprentice, gaining knowledge and capital needed to climb the agricultural ladder. These skilled workers are to be found on all types of farms, being employed where the acreage worked is too large to be served adequately by the farmer and his family alone over all or most of the year. They are particularly important on dairy, poultry, corn-hog, cattle, and sheep farms, where livestock care is a year-round problem. In 1939, a Congressman gave this idyllic picture of labor relations in the countryside: The habits and customs of agriculture of necessity have been different than those of industry. The farmers and workers are thrown in close daily contact with one another. They, in many cases, eat at a common table. Their children attend the same school. Their families bow together in religious worship. They discuss together the common problems of our economic and political life. The farmer, his family, and the laborers work together as one unit. In the times of stress, in the handling of livestock or perishable agricultural commodities, of impending epidemics and at many other times the farmer and laborer must stand shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy. This develops a unity of interest which is not found in industry. This unity is more effective to remove labor disturbances than any law can be. 10 If this description were true of any group of farm laborers, hired hands would be those who most nearly fit it. But even they have probably rarely lived in such perfect comity and equality with their employers. Yet much of the thinking on employer-employee relations in agriculture has started with the above stereotype as an implicit premise. 10

Congressional

Record

(Washington, Feb. 23, 1939).

SEASONAL

FARM LABORERS

5

Quite a different group are the hired seasonal agricultural workers. They are employed only when a particular operation or group of operations must be completed within a limited period of time, and the work required exceeds that which can be done by the year-round or crop-season labor force. Indicative of their intermittent, short-term employment is the fact that seasonal farm workers are most often paid not by the month but by the day, the hour, or the piece. Their work is usually done by hand alone or with the aid of some simple implement. A characteristic of much—but not all—seasonal farm labor is the fact that almost anyone can do it with some proficiency, so that little or no previous training and experience are needed for such work. A seasonal farm worker may be employed on one farm for several weeks or for only a day, depending upon the size of the farm and upon the planning of its crop operations. This instability of job tenure means that he must shift from job to job in order to obtain adequate income. Frequently, therefore, he may work in many different crops during the year. Or he may combine farm with industrial labor, taking advantage of the different seasonal patterns in various fields of production in an effort to maximize his employment and income. While a "hired hand" is allowed some discretion and may work alone, relatively unsupervised, the seasonal farm worker usually works under careful supervision at some rigidly defined operation, often laboring with others in a gang doing the same task. The variety of jobs done by seasonal farm workers can only be suggested. Before the crop has been planted, they help with the unskilled work around a farm, forking manure, cleaning irrigation ditches, preparing seeds, or clearing land. While the crop is growing, they help with its cultivation, chopping cotton, weeding onions, blocking and thinning sugar beets, and doing other "stoop" labor. Harvest time is the period when most seasonal labor is used, for in the case of many crops the work involved in gathering them far exceeds that required to plant and cultivate. It is then that hordes of seasonal workers descend on the fields to gather cotton, fruits, vegetables, nuts, hops, sugar beets, tobacco, sugar cane, and other crops. The strategic importance of seasonal harvest workers in the farm production picture cannot be overemphasized. Under the best of condi-

6

SEASONAL FARM

LABORERS

tions, many crops are highly perishable and must be gathered within a short period; if an adequate number of seasonal laborers is not available at the right moment, much of the previous investment and labor may be lost. Even in the case of less perishable crops, such as cotton, there is an optimum harvest period, and such crops may suffer serious deterioration from rain or wind if not gathered quickly. Aside from these physical and agronomic factors, economic considerations accentuate the importance of adequate harvest labor in particular crops. In marketing many fresh fruits and vegetables, there is sharp competition to reach markets while prices are still high, and growers seek to harvest quickly, aware that the difference of a day or two in reaching market may mean the difference between high profits and small or no profits for their season's effort. It is no wonder, therefore, that farmers consider an adequate supply of harvest workers one of their greatest production necessities. Conversely, it is at harvest time that seasonal workers would have farmers at their mercy if they could organize themselves so as to control effectively the supply of labor. While a sharp distinction has been drawn above between the concepts of long-term (crop-season or year-round) and seasonal farm labor, it should be noted that in real life these distinctions are rarely so sharp, and that the dividing line between the two types of workers frequently shifts in response to many factors, particularly technological change. Thus, the substitution of tractors for horses has greatly multiplied the amount of work one man can do, often permitting an individual farmer to reduce the number of his hired hands or to dispense with them altogether. Frequently, the former hired hand has had to resort to seasonal farm labor as one means of securing income. In addition, at harvest time long-term workers ordinarily paid by the month will often join the crop gatherers working in the fields because during this period they can make more money when paid by the piece for this harvest work. Finally, there are small groups of seasonal farm workers who are skilled specialists at particular jobs and cannot be considered in the same category as the bulk of relatively unskilled workers. Sheep shearers in the mountain states, combine operators in the wheat belt, and Filipino asparagus cutters in California provide examples of skilled specialists who are nonetheless

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

7

seasonal farm workers. Bearing in mind the qualifications suggested in this paragraph, however, the rough dichotomy drawn above between "hired hands" and seasonal farm workers becomes a useful device for understanding the composition of the hired farm labor force. Data on the division of the hired farm labor group as between "hired hands" and seasonal workers are available, on even a rough basis, only for the last week of September, 1939, a period of peak farm harvest activity in many parts of the country, and for the last week of March, 1940, a period of relative quiet before the general beginning of planting. These data are presented in Table 1. TABLE I " H I R E D H A N D S " AND SEASONAL FARM WORKERS IN THE UNITED S T A T E S SEPT. 2 4 - 3 0 , 1 9 3 9 , AND MARCH 2 4 - 3 O , 1 9 4 0 *

SEPT. 2 4 - 3 0 . 1 9 3 9 CROVP

Number (Millions)

" Hired hands"

•7

Total

Percent of All Hired Farm Labor

2.4

23 77

3-1

100

MARCH 2 4 - 3 0 . 1 9 4 0

Number (Millions)

Percent of All Hired Farm Labor

•7

39

I.I

61

1.8

100

» " Hired hands" are taken to be those hired by the month. Seasonal workers are those hired by the week, day, or other basis, including piece workers and contract laborers. Source: Analysis

of Specified

Farm Characteristics for Farms Classified

by Total

Value of Products. Washington: Co-operative Study by the Bureau of the Census, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and Farm Security Administration, 1943, p p .

108-9.

T w o facts stand out in the above table. The first is that even at a relatively slack period of the United States agricultural y e a r — t h e end of March—seasonal workers far outnumbered more permanent employees, while at harvest time the ratio was more than three to one. Second, it is noteworthy that the number of "hired hands" remained constant between September and March, while the number of seasonal workers was more than twice as large in September. In short, not only do seasonal farm workers compose the bulk of the hired laborers over

s

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

most or all of the year, but their number

fluctuates

sharply from

season to season, reaching its peak at time of harvest. T o understand clearly the employment pattern of seasonal laborers, it would be desirable to have statistics broken down by particular crop and livestock industries, but such data are unavailable.

The

nearest approximation to such a breakdown may be obtained by considering the distribution of seasonal laborer employment by major regions of this country. These data are presented in Table 2. TABLE 2 GEOGRAPHICAL

DISTRIBUTION

OF

HIRED

SEASONAL

FARM

S E P T . 2 4 - 3 0 , 1 9 3 9 , A N D MARCH 2 4 - 3 O ,

SEPT. 24-30. 1039 REGION

U.S. total New England Middle Atlantic East North C e n t r a l . . . . West North Central.... South Atlantic East South C e n t r a l . . . . West South Central Mountain Pacific

PERCENT OF AUL FARMS

EMPLOYMENT'

MARCH 24--30, 1940

I'm ent of Total

.V umber of Workers (000)

Percent of Total

2.379 75

100

1,014

IOO

16

228

3 7

10

3 7

18

232

10

16

441

18

30 57 95 87

271

269

11

587

25 5

133

IOO 2 6

17 17 4 4

X umber of Workers (000)

LABOR I94O

164

124

259

11

210

38 93

IO

IO 18 II

25 5 11

' The definition of seasonal workers used here is the same as that in Table I. Source: Analysis of Specified Farm Characteristics for Farms Classified by Total Value of Products. Washington: Co-operative Study by the Bureau of the Census, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and Farm Security Administration, «943. PP- 30-35. 102-7. Several important facts are apparent from Table 2. First, reflecting the concentration of farm people in the South, both in September and in March more than half of all seasonal workers were employed in the three southern regions. In September cotton picking dominates as a source of seasonal farm labor employment; in March the southern primacy is partially traceable to the importance of southern fruit and vegetable areas producing for northern markets. Second, compared

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

9

with the percentage distribution of farms, seasonal farm labor is relatively least important in the North Central states. This is not surprising since these are primarily grain and livestock producing areas where the character of work to be done minimizes the necessity for sharp peak employment of extra workers. Third, the Pacific Coast is the most important user of seasonal farm labor, relative to the number of its farms. This results mainly from the great importance of intensive crops such as fruits, vegetables, hops, sugar beets, and cotton in these states. Finally, T a b l e 2 shows the sharp fluctuation of seasonal labor employment in particular areas. In the Mountain states, the September to March ratio is more than three to one, while in the Pacific, West South Central, West North Central, and Middle Atlantic states, the ratio is almost as high. This extreme variation points to one of the major problems encountered every year in meeting the needs of workers and employers in the seasonal farm labor markets of the country. An outstanding characteristic of seasonal farm labor employment is its concentration on a relatively small number of farms. In the last week of March, 1940, over the United States as a whole about 58,000 farms whose 1939 production was valued at $10,000 or more employed about 25 percent of all seasonal farm laborers working at that time. Y e t these farms were less than one percent of the total number of farms in the United States. In some states, the concentration was much greater. In Florida, for example, about 2 percent of the farms in the state employed almost half of all seasonal laborers working during the last week of March, 1940, 11 This concentration of employment on a relatively small number of farms should be borne in mind in considering the detailed discussion below. While attention has been centered so far on the number and distribution of seasonal farm workers at particular times during a given year, further discussion is required as to the number of workers who do some such hired labor at any time during an entire year. A count of seasonal laborers made on any one date or short period omits workers who may be unemployed at that time or temporarily engaged in nonagricultural occupations. Such a count, therefore, does not give the 11

Bureau of the Census, B u r e a u of Agricultural E c o n o m i c s , a n d F a r m Security

Administration, op. cit., p. 128.

10

SEASONAL FARM

LABORERS

total number of people who fall into this category for some period of the year. Thus, even a census covering a period of peak employment— such as the September, 1939, count already cited—understates the total number of persons who must be taken into account when considering seasonal farm labor. A government study of the 1943 farm labor force provides a basis for attempting to overcome the difficulty mentioned above. This indicates that 14.5 million persons did some farm work during 1943. 1 2 What proportion of these were seasonal workers? Census data cited earlier in this chapter show that 2.4 million workers out of a total of 1 1 . 3 million employed on farms were hired seasonal laborers during the last week of September, 1939. This is approximately 21 percent. If we assume that the same percentage of the 1943 farm labor force consisted of seasonal workers, then it appears that 3.1 million workers did some seasonal farm wage labor in 1943. The number may have been even higher. Who are these hired seasonal workers? A major group consists of non-farm people who live most of the year in urban or rural non-farm communities, being employed in factories, mines, forests, and so forth. These workers take farm jobs for short periods each year to supplement their non-farm incomes. The Census study of the 1943 farm labor force cited above found that about 2.7 million civilians fourteen years of age and older were non-farm dwellers but did some agricultural labor in 1943. 13 The great majority of these were probably short-period agricultural wage laborers. This study also obtained information on the non-agricultural jobs held in January, 1944, by people who did some agricultural work in 1943. These data are given in Table 3. The data in Table 3 may not be representative of peace years. The importance of professional, government, and trade personnel in the tabulation is probably due in large part to their response to emergency appeals for harvest aid during 1943. The other categories indicated above, particularly manufacturing, are undoubtedly major off12 L. J . Ducoff and M. J . Hagood, The Farm Working Force of 1943 ington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944). 13 Ibid.

(Wash-

SEASONAL

FARM TABLE

PERCENTAGE

DISTRIBUTION

BY

SEX

AND

11

LABORERS 3 MAJOR

INDUSTRY

OF

PERSONS

WHO

W O R K E D ON F A R M S A T S O M E T I M E D U R I N G I 9 4 3 W H O W E R E E M P L O Y E D A T N O N A G R I C U L T U R A L J O B S IN J A N U A R Y ,

Industry

Construction Manufacturing Transportation, Communication and Utilities Retail and Wholesale Trade Domestic Service Professional Service and Government All Other

1944"

Total {Pot.)

7.8

37-2 7-3 17.1

8-5 11.i II.O

Male (Pet.)

9-5 41.6 8.6 17.7

i-3 9-5

11.8

Female (.Pet.)

17-4 i-7 13-8 40.9 17.7

8-5

a D a t a relate to persons 14 years of age and older in the civilian population living in private households in January, 1944.

Source: L . J. Ducoff and M . J. Hagood, The Farm Working Force of 1943. Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944, p. 13.

season occupations of seasonal farm laborers, during peace as well as war. A second major group consists of farm operators and members of their families who work for wages on farms owned by others during some part of the year. In 1939 over 500,000 farmers put in 30.4 million man days working for other farmers. About 80 percent of these man days were contributed by operators whose individual farms produced an aggregate value of less than $1,000 in 1939. 14 No data are available on the number of farmers' wives and children in the hired seasonal farm labor force, but it is probably quite large. A third major group of seasonal workers consists of professional migrants who follow over long distances one or several crops as they mature. Frequently these migrants combine industrial work during the slack farm seasons with agricultural labor the rest of the year. One of the largest groups of these migrants before Pearl Harbor consisted of tens of thousands of Mexican cotton pickers who annually followed the ripening Texas cotton bolls north from the Rio Grande to the 1 4 Bureau of the Census, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and Farm Security Administration, op. cit., p. 18.

SEASONAL

12

FARM

LABORERS

Oklahoma border, from early July to N e w Year's D a y and after. 1 5 Even before 1900 thousands of migrants each year worked their way up the heart of the continent from northern Texas to the D a k o t a s and Canada, gathering wheat as it ripened successively in each state from south to north. 1 6 N o accurate count of these migrants has ever been taken. Their numbers have

fluctuated

greatly from year to year, de-

pending upon the opportunities for more stable employment near their homes, either in agriculture or off the farm. In most years since 1900 these itinerant workers have probably been numbered in the hundred thousands. Having considered the composition of the hired seasonal farm labor force in the United States, attention may be directed now to the farm labor market itself. W e shall examine first the forces determining the supply of workers, the volume of demand for them, and the intensity of competition among both workers and employers. T h i s chapter will conclude with a general discussion of the organization of the seasonal farm labor market in this country during both peace and war. T h e basic fact that must be borne in mind in any consideration of how agricultural employers obtain a labor force year after year is the substantial pecuniary disadvantage usually attached to farm work. Farm workers, both year-round and seasonal, usually receive wages and incomes which are appreciably inferior to those received by workers in most other occupations. Although comparisons between farm and urban wages are made difficult by the paucity of data on piece rates and workers' earnings therefrom, and are somewhat complicated by the role of perquisites (board, lodging, laundry, etc.) received by some agricultural workers, the relative earnings position of farm and nonfarm workers over the past several decades is indicated with general accuracy by the accompanying chart, which compares hourly earnings of hired farm workers and of factory workers from 1910 to

1943.

Whether measured in terms of money return or adjusted to allow for changes in living costs, farm workers' earnings all during this period were appreciably and increasingly lower than factory earnings. 1 8 Carey McWilliams, III Fares 1942), chapter 12.

19

Ibid., chapter 5.

the Land

(Boston, Little, Brown and Co.,

HOURLY EARNINGS OF HIRED FARM WORKERS' A N D OF FACTORY WORKERS," U N I T E D STATES.

1910-43

(Index Numbers 1910-14: 100)

* Based on average f a r m wage rate per day w i t h o u t board. " B u r e a u of L a b o r Statistics and Bureau of Agricultural E c o n o m i c s ; 1943 d a t a are preliminary. c A d j u s t e d f o r changes in living costs by index of prices farmers pay for g o o d s used in family living (1910-14 dollars). * A d j u s t e d f o r changes in living costs by Bureau of L a b o r Statistics index of cost of living ( 1 9 1 3 dollars). Source: Louis J . Ducoff and others, Wages of Agricultural Labor in the States (Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944), p. 113-

United

14

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

To some extent, the accompanying chart minimizes the discrepancy between the two groups of workers, since in 1910 when the index numbers shown are apparently equal, farm earnings, expressed in absolute monetary terms, were only 70 percent of factory workers' returns. B y 1934—after an almost unbroken decline for two decades— farm workers' pay was only about 23 percent of that received by factory employees. Even in 1943, a year of war prosperity, the ratio of the two was only about 30 percent. (See Appendix A.) Agricultural labor's disadvantage from the workers' point of view is even greater than is indicated by the data on hourly earnings alone, since farm work is also marked by high seasonality and irregularity, factors that further reduce farm employees' incomes as compared with those of non-farm workers. Only such atypical groups of non-farm workers as longshoremen or Hollywood extras are accustomed to the type of day to day and hour to hour employment tenure which is characteristic of most seasonal farm work during peace time. B y contrast the seasonality of employment in the automobile industry before Pearl Harbor was a stable worker-job relationship. Even taking account of the cyclical fluctuations to which these urban workers were exposed, their job tenure was more nearly akin to that of the "hired hand" in agriculture than to that of the cotton chopper or the potato picker. In view of the factors indicated above, the problem arises as to how agriculture during the present century has been able to secure an adequate seasonal labor force without outside help, except for the war years. Clearly most workers having any choice between farm and nonfarm work would prefer the latter because of its greater and more regular earnings. The key to this problem lies in the fact that during almost all peace years—as well as in the early months of both the First and the Second World Wars—large groups had no significant freedom of choice. They had to accept farm work in preference to complete unemployment and want. This lack of choice existed before Pearl Harbor because of certain factors which excluded large numbers of workers from any consideration for most desirable non-farm jobs. One reason was that large numbers of rural people lacked industrial skills and had no access to the vocational training necessary for nonfarm work. In many fields, unions restricted the numbers of workers

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

IS

eligible for employment, especially where closed shop agreements were held by unions pursuing exclusionist entrance policies. More important still, many non-farm industries have had employment policies based on color and nationality prejudices, excluding Negroes, Mexicans, Filipinos, and others from all but the most menial positions, and restricting most hiring to white workers—sometimes only to subgroups within the white population. 17 In the peace years when such factors were strong there were always large numbers of people who had no choice but to look to farm work for a major portion of their income. This is the key to understanding how farmers obtained seasonal workers despite the differential between farm and non-farm wages and incomes during the present century's first four decades. T h e normal pressure on agricultural wage and income levels resulting from the industrial exclusion of the groups considered above has been reinforced in every period of cyclical or seasonal unemployment of non-farm workers. Since large-scale government programs of unemployment relief were unknown in the United States before the early 1930's, the unemployed worker without savings or other resources to support himself during his idleness frequently had little alternative but to enter the seasonal farm labor market, and accept the poor wage and employment conditions there. B y so doing, he helped further to depress hired farm workers' conditions, and removed some of the pressure for lowering non-agricultural wage and income levels. Such an influx into casual farm labor has been possible because of the simple nature of many of the required tasks. Great skill or experience have not been necessary prerequisites for "stoop" labor or most other seasonal field work. T h e absence of unions of agricultural workers has further facilitated this type of shift from urban or rural non-farm occupations. It is an ironic commentary on the desperation produced by cyclical unemployment that the history of seasonal farm labor is replete with instances of the use by native white workers of violence and other harsh tactics to force Negroes, Orientals, and other "inferior" groups from hard, unpleasant farm jobs which the whites spurned in prosperous periods. 1 7 Carey McWilliams, Brothers Co., J 942), passim.

under the Skin.

(Boston, Little, Brown and

16

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

The relatively high fertility of the agricultural population also influences the seasonal labor supply significantly. Each year a greater number of farm people come of age than are required to replace farm operators who die or retire, so there is an annual increment in the number of farm people looking for work off their home farms. In prosperous years, migration to cities removes many of these surplus youths from the agricultural labor market. In times of great urban unemployment, however, the volume of this farm to city migration is sharply reduced, while the number of those going from cities back to farms increases. The result is not only that the number of unpaid family workers in agriculture increases, but also that the number of farm residents looking for seasonal farm wage jobs rises, thus further increasing the competition for the reduced number of jobs. New Deal intervention into the seasonal farm labor market affected the farm labor supply with the institution of such large-scale government relief programs as were administered by the P W A , C W A , W P A and other agencies. These programs created a potential threat to farmers' seasonal labor supplies. B y enabling workers to subsist without employment, they tended to insulate the farm labor market from the effects of non-farm unemployment, weakening the force of economic need as an incentive. Sometimes this threat was aggravated by .the fact that relief payments were larger than farm earnings. In July, 1940, for example, it was calculated that, on the average, a farm laborer would have had to work twice as many hours a month as a W P A worker to gain a given monthly wage. 18 As will be indicated below, this insulation was most effective in some areas where officials refused to remove workers from relief, although the latter refused farm jobs offering low earnings. M u c h more frequent, however, was co-operation between farmers and authorities to force workers to accept seasonal farm jobs. W P A projects, for example, were normally shut down at times of peak labor need in "the mid-western states, the potato raising regions of Maine, and cotton growing areas of the South," as well as in many other areas. 19 18

National Resources Planning

(Washington, 1942). P- 349" Ibid.

Board. Security,

Work,

and Relief

Policies

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

17

T h i s discussion may be summarized by saying that the seasonal farm labor force before Pearl Harbor was in many respects a residual group, residual in the sense that a large fraction of its members would have preferred non-farm employment, and took agricultural jobs only because of the absence of alternative work. Turning now to the forces which determine farmers' demand for the workers considered here, it seems wise to reiterate that seasonal workers are hired mainly for crops whose man-hour requirements per acre vary sharply at different stages of the production cycle. It is the variation of man-hour needs rather than their absolute volume which results in the need for hiring extra help. A crop which required the same amount of great care at all stages of its growth and harvest would not depend on seasonal workers, since a permanent labor force would have to be maintained to tend it all season long. Extra help is hired for crops whose labor requirements vary so sharply that it is uneconomic for farmers to retain at all times a staff of employees capable of doing the entire labor required at the period of peak need. Before Pearl Harbor, the man-hour requirements patterns of most fruits and vegetables, cotton, sugar cane, sugar beets, hops, and tobacco exhibited sharp fluctuation. These crops, therefore, accounted for most employment of seasonal farm workers. The specific influences which most strongly affect the volume of seasonal employment are briefly discussed below. The whole complex of forces which determines the acreages planted to different crops is fundamental to the determination of the over-all demand for hired seasonal farm help. Over the years, these acreages reflect the impact of secular changes in peoples' tastes and habits, as well as in technology; they also mirror the effects of more abrupt alterations in relative prices of different crops and of changes in the relative competitive position of this country with respect to various farm products. The upward movement of citrus fruit area in this country during the past two decades contrasted sharply with the equally sharp downward trend in cotton acreage during the same period. These contrasting movements were felt sharply by fruit and cotton workers whose respective opportunities for seasonal employment changed in the same directions as the acreages.

18

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

Technology influences seasonal labor employment by modifying the labor requirements pattern imposed by the biological characteristics of a crop. Sometimes technological changes reduce the maximum amplitude of labor requirements variation at different growth stages, thus cutting the need for extra workers; at other times, these changes have increased the maximum amplitude of the requirements pattern, thus increasing the need for extra labor at particular stages of production. The recent history of wheat cultivation illustrates the first effect. The large-scale adoption of the combine-harvester-thresher did much to smooth out this crop's labor pattern by reducing man-hour requirements per acre at harvest time, the period of peak labor need. On the other hand, the introduction of tractor-driven machines for sowing and cultivating many crops has tended during the past few decades to make a number of crops more dependent than ever upon seasonal laborers. The greater speed of operation resulting from tractor sowing and cultivation permits a reduction in the crop-season or year-round labor force needed for a constant acreage, while leaving unchanged this acreage's man-hour requirements at other stages of production, particularly at harvest. Much of the seasonal labor difficulty faced by American agriculture in the two decades before Pearl Harbor resulted from the much more rapid development of machines and techniques for handling the preparation of the soil, the sowing of crops, and cultivation than of machines and techniques for taking in the harvest. The role of the tenure system in the determination of farmers' needs for hired seasonal workers arises chiefly from the connection between different forms of land tenure and the size of the resident labor supply. An agricultural community consisting of a large number of small family farms is likely to have more resident labor available for peak periods of crop work than is an agricultural community of equal area and similar crop interests consisting of large manager-operated enterprises. As has often been pointed out, one of the major reasons for the importance of tenancy in cotton production since the Civil War has been the fact that this mode of land tenure assures plantation owners of a great pool of resident labor—consisting mainly of tenants' and sharecroppers' wives and children—who though idle most of the crop year are available at the key periods of cotton chopping and cotton picking.

SEASONAL

FARM LABORERS

19

On large corporation-owned fruit or vegetable farms, on the other hand, there is no idle labor available to reduce the need for seasonal employees. Crop price and farm labor wage movements vitally affect the number of seasonal farm workers hired because they determine, in the last analysis, the profitability of these laborers' hire. No farmer will employ workers unless the increment in income he anticipates receiving as the result of their work is greater than the extra expense he incurs by this employment. Where this condition is not met, farmers will leave their crops untended and unharvested rather than incur further loss. Such cases have not been rare in American agriculture, since sharp drops in prices have time and again forced growers of particular crops to abandon further tillage of their fields. More frequently, each year many farmers leave their poorer quality produce unharvested because the lower price they receive for it does not make harvest expenditures worthwhile. This has been particularly the practice in the past decade among groups of specialized fruit and vegetable growers who, operating under federally sponsored "marketing agreements," harvest and market only a fraction of their crop each year in order to secure what they consider a satisfactory price for their product. On the other hand, a rise in crop prices relative to farm wages will increase the volume of work farmers stand ready to pay for, mainly because a higher percentage of the crop is likely to be harvested and the fields are likely to be more intensively cultivated under these conditions. At any given time the most important immediate influence on the volume of seasonal labor employment is likely to be the weather. A cold snap that kills fruit blossoms prematurely means less work available for fruit harvesters later in the year. Contrariwise, favorable weather brings high yields and therefore greater man-hour requirements per acre, if prices remain sufficiently high to justify the additional expenditure. The uncertainty and rapidity of weather fluctuations are among the most important reasons for the chaos and unpredictability prevailing in seasonal farm labor markets. Competition for labor among growers has two aspects, the atomistic competition of growers in general and the competition among groups of growers who produce different crops. At first thought, agriculture—

SEASONAL

20

FARM

LABORERS

with its multitude of small producers and employers—would seem to approximate rather closely the traditional concept of

free compe-

tition, but such a view is incorrect. In the first place, as was pointed out above, the employment of seasonal agricultural laborers in many areas is highly concentrated among relatively few employers. Around Bridgeton, New Jersey, for example, the hiring policies and needs of Seabrook Farms, with its hundreds of workers, have much more effect upon the local labor market than the policies and needs of many small farmers who hire only a few workers each. Such a situation tends to produce a "follow the leader" psychology among smaller farmers who wait to see what terms are offered workers by the larger growers before they formulate their own wage offers. Secondly, as will be documented in the chapters below, growers in many areas often combine to recruit workers and set wage levels. A s the result of both these forces, many agricultural regions frequently witness cooperation rather than competition among growers in the labor market. T h e nature and intensity of grower demand for seasonal workers in any given district is also profoundly influenced by the degree of competition or complementarity of demand for labor that exists among growers of different crops in that area. T w o contrasting examples will illustrate this. In the Aroostook County, Maine, potato region, most seasonal workers have only one crop to which they can look for employment. There are no other crops requiring significant numbers of seasonal workers either at the same time of the year as potatoes or at other times of the year. In San Joaquin County, California, on the other hand, different situations prevail at various times of the year. In M a y farmers need seasonal workers to tend or harvest alfalfa, asparagus, cherries, sugar beets, and peas, all at the same time. In other months work is available on cotton, grapes and other crops.*0 San Joaquin County, therefore, has crops which are both competitive and complementary to other crops with respect to the timing of their labor needs. Frequently, the weather determines whether an area will have sev2 0 W. H. Metzler, Analysis o] the Operation of the Wage Ceiling in the Asparagus Industry, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 1943 (Berkeley, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1943), p. 28.

SEASONAL FARM

LABORERS

21

eral crops using seasonal laborers at a particular time, or will have different crop labor peaks at different times. Farmers may plant crops in such a time order that their peak labor requirements will not ordinarily coincide, but the elements, by speeding or retarding the growth of some plants, may require that several crop operations be done simultaneously, greatly increasing labor needs. The converse, of course, may happen in areas where several crops customarily require labor at the same time. Obviously, the number of crops requiring extra workers at the same time will be an important element determining the intensity of employer competition for labor, as well as the number of work alternatives for workers in a particular area. Mitigating the effectiveness of simultaneous multicrop labor requirements as a factor making for grower competition is the differentiation among workers and jobs. In most peace years, for example, native American laborers who would pick oranges or hops showed no interest in gathering sugar beets or cutting asparagus, regarding them as "stoop" jobs to be done by "inferior" groups, such as Mexicans or Filipinos. Such attitudes among groups of workers create what are in effect several labor markets coexisting in time and space, each group of laborers being relatively insulated from the wage and income competition of the others by the different attitudes toward particular jobs. When adequate numbers of workers are on hand for all crops, the distinction between monocrop and multicrop areas and labor markets becomes of little importance, since no great grower competition is necessary. In periods of urban prosperity, or war, the supply of workers is apt to be greatly reduced, necessitating active competition and bidding among individual growers and among growers of different crops. Inequalities in income opportunities from work on different crops may then become important factors determining which crop will get adequate labor and which will not. In a period of labor stringency, too, an area having only a single crop which uses seasonal workers is likely to be less successful in drawing nonresident workers than one having several crops offering such employment. Seasonal farm labor markets may be classified as either organized or unorganized. We may regard a farm labor market as organized if it has a central mechanism for bringing workers and employers together

22

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

at the proper time in an orderly fashion. At different times, this may necessitate recruiting workers from afar or discouraging them from coming. In such a market there are facilities for giving workers correct information on job and living conditions and on wage and income possibilities, as well as means of informing employers regarding the prospective supply of workers. Properly operated, such a mechanism tends to equate supply with demand, at a wage acceptable to both employers and workers. Except for the years of the First and Second World Wars, the seasonal farm labor markets of most crops and areas have been notable for their lack of organization. Workers have come long distances in hope of jobs and income, frequently having little knowledge of the amount of work available or of the wages being offered. Except for labor contractors who kept in touch with farmers, there have been few sources from which nonresident workers could get accurate information about where they were needed and when. Often rumors and grower advertising have been the only guides for worker movement over long distances. Growers, on the other hand, not knowing how many workers would be available when they needed them, have often had to take positive action to insure an adequate labor supply at the time of crucial operations, particularly at harvest. Individually and collectively, therefore, they have sought to attract workers by distributing handbills, posting signs on the main highways, sponsoring newspaper and radio advertisements, and the like. This indiscriminate advertising for workers, combined with the existence in most years of sizable numbers of urban and rural people needing jobs, often resulted in drawing surpluses of workers to the farm regions to do seasonal work. The fact that much of this seasonal work required little previous experience and that farmers were often glad to hire all who came along for the brief period they needed extra workers meant that almost anyone who sought such farm work could get some employment and earn some wages. But correspondingly, the presence of large numbers of workers competing for jobs helped to keep wages low. In both the First and Second World Wars, the usual peacetime situation was sharply altered. The armed forces drained large numbers of workers out of the labor market; the steady high production of urban

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

23

industry during war eliminated most seasonal and cyclical unemployment, reducing the supply of urban harvesters. Further, the expanding need for war workers caused industry to lower somewhat its barriers of experience, race, and color and to raid agriculture for new recruits, using as its chief bait its higher wages and superior working conditions. T h e s e forces affected particularly the supply of seasonal farm workers. A s we have seen above, the availability of this group was predicated in peace upon the existence of low income and unemployed rural and urban workers, many of whom normally could have little hope of profitable industrial employment. Their rapid mobilization when needed by farmers was made possible by their great need for income and their lack of alternative employment. The improved levels of employment and income brought about by war production and inductions into the armed forces—plus the impact of mass training programs carried on throughout the nation—struck at the heart of this customary situation. A s a consequence, growers found sharply reduced numbers of seasonal workers applying for jobs. Faced by rapidly rising labor costs and fearing losses of crops because of insufficient help, growers turned to the government for aid during both world wars. T h e necessity for high agricultural production during war, plus the political power of farmers' votes, resulted in extensive government action during both conflicts. T h e general framework of aid in each war was similar, although there were important differences in detail. In both conflicts a serious effort was made to improve farm labor market organization and to recruit workers not ordinarily engaged in this seasonal work. In the First World War, a system of employment exchanges was improvised in the various states shortly after the United States became involved. The offices that were set up sought to estimate needs in advance and to bring farmers and the needed numbers of workers together at the right times. In 1918, these state organizations were integrated into a Federal system which expanded the work of the year before, bringing more workers and greater funds to bear on the task. 2 1 A t the time of Pearl Harbor, on the other hand, this country 21

Farm

Harry Schwartz, "Agricultural Labor in the First World War," Journal Economics, X X I V , No. 1 (Feb., 1942), 181-84.

of

SEASONAL

24

FARM

LABORERS

had already in operation a comprehensive system of employment exchanges, some of which—particularly in such states as Oregon, California, Texas, and Tennessee—had already had extensive experience with farm labor placement. The unification of these into the United States Employment Service was accompanied by intensified activity in the farm labor market during 1942, placements rising 50 percent over 1941. 2 2 Congress, however, in the Farm Labor Act of 1943, placed responsibility for farm labor recruitment and placement in the various state extension services of the Department of Agriculture. Although some of these used the facilities and personnel of the U S E S , most states set up new farm labor organizations, centering about the county agent in each farm county. These sought to coordinate local needs and to secure full use of local labor, calling for outside aid where it was required. 28 Great emphasis was placed, both in 1 9 1 7 - 1 8 and after Pearl Harbor, upon mobilizing thousands of people who had never before engaged in farm labor: housewives, boy and girl scouts, high school and college students, tradespeople, government employees, and so forth. Whole communities sometimes shut up shop for a few days to help near-by farmers pick a vital crop which might have been largely lost if this emergency local aid had not been available. Women's Land Armies and the Boys Working Reserve were organized to help in the First World War; in the Second World War similar groups formed the United States Crop Corps. 24 A special problem which arose during the Second World War centered about the abrupt decline in the number of migratory workers. This drop reflected not only the general tightening of the farm labor supply from the causes sketched above, but was also the result of transportation difficulties arising from shortages of gasoline and tires. In some communities ration boards sought to retain labor by refusing special allotments of gasoline to workers wishing to leave by car. 25 22

23

D a t a from the United States Employment

Farm Labor Program, 1944.

Committee

on

Appropriations

Session (Washington, 1 9 4 3 ) ,

Hearings

House

of

Service.

before

the Subcommittee

Representatives

78th

passim.

24

Ibid.

25

Information from the United States Employment Service.

of

Congress,

the First

SEASONAL FARM

LABORERS

25

Elsewhere, the difficulty of obtaining transportation discouraged other would-be migrants. During late 1942 and early 1943, the Federal government—acting through the Farm Security Administration— stepped in to increase the flow of workers by providing transportation. By redistributing labor from areas of worker surpluses to areas of shortage, this program made for fuller use of the nation's manpower. But farmers in areas from which these workers were recruited resented this activity since they feared laborers would not be available when needed in their home districts. As a result of protests from these farmers, Congress incorporated the Pace Amendment into the Farm Labor Act. This prohibited movement of farm workers out of a county without the assent of the local county agent. Since the local officials were under pressure from near-by farmers to retain all possible labor within the county, this legislation placed a serious barrier in the way of efforts to redistribute the nation's manpower so that it might be used most fully. 26 Important sources of seasonal farm labor in both wars were near-by foreign countries, from which workers were recruited with government aid. In 1 9 1 7 and 1918, this aid took the form of government removal of head tax and other immigration barriers, followed by grower importation of thousands of Mexican peons to gather Texas and Arizona cotton and California sugar beets and vegetables.27 In the present conflict, the United States government itself has imported foreign workers, bringing in almost 70,000 workers from Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahama Islands in 1943. These foreign workers contributed substantially to overcoming seasonal labor difficulties in some particularly important producing areas. Many others besides foreigners were brought to the crop fields of 1943 through government action. Among these were 45,000 prisoners of war, 12,600 Japanese-Americans furloughed from relocation centers, 4,400 inmates of penal and corrective institutions, 2,500 conscientious objectors, and over 62,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines.28 In both 2 6 Harry Schwartz, "Farm Labor Policy, 1942-1943," Journal of Farm Economics, X X V (Aug., 1943), 695. 27 Harry Schwartz, "Agricultural Labor in the First World War," Journal of Farm Economics, X X I V (Feb., 1942), i87. 2 8 Data from the Office of Labor, Department of Agriculture.

26

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

conflicts, draft deferments were given farm workers, but these were largely used for retaining family farm labor and year-round employees rather than for protection of the supply of seasonal workers. Of course, many deferred family workers also hired themselves out for short periods to other farmers. It has been remarked above that the same basic causes produced the farm labor difficulties of the First and Second World Wars, causes centering about the relatively disadvantageous position of farm workers, particularly seasonal farm workers. Y e t it is noteworthy that in the two decades between these two conflicts relatively little was done to improve the position of farm workers or to organize the farm labor market. T h e government's farm labor placement activity of the First World W a r continued in enfeebled form after 1918, but concentrated its activity

upon guiding

the wheat migration

from T e x a s to the

Dakotas during the 1920's and was even less active during the early 1930's. 29 M o s t noteworthy is the fact that during the 1930's, while urban labor was granted unemployment and old-age insurance, minimum wage and maximum hour legislation, and government encouragement of collective bargaining, farm laborers were uniformly excluded from these aids. Some effort was made to call public attention to the existence of serious social problems among agricultural laborers, and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath gained national fame as a book and a movie about one aspect of the problem. T h e investigations of the L a Follette and Tolan Committees provided extensive documentation of the problems involved, yet they were ignored just as the

findings

of the Industrial Commission in 1900, the Immigration Commission in 1909, and the Industrial

Relations Commission

in

1914

had

been

ignored before the First World War. T h e pages above have attempted to sketch the general scope of the seasonal farm labor market and to outline some of its main features. In the three chapters that follow, a detailed study is made of two of the most important groups of seasonal farm laborers, those who work in fruits and vegetables, and those who labor on sugar beets. W h o are these workers? How strategic is their position among the factors 2 9 R. C . Atkinson, L . C . Odencrantz and B. Dcming, Public Employment Service in the United States (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1938), p. 423.

SEASONAL

FARM

LABORERS

27

of production and what role do they play in the farmer's calculations? What is the economic and institutional setting of the labor market in which workers and growers meet and how does it affect their welfare and that of the community? These are some of the basic questions that must be considered if a clear understanding is to be had of the situation facing this nation's three million and more hired seasonal farm workers. In the final chapter, an attempt is made to evaluate the outlook for seasonal farm workers in the post-war world, with particular reference to the forces determining future supply of and demand for these workers.

2 FRUIT

AND

OMMERCiAL

FRUIT

VEGETABLE

WORKERS

and vegetable production is spread through-

out this country, dispersed over many well-defined areas of intensive cultivation, each distinguished by advantages of climate, soil, or nearness to city markets. Until well after 1850 most urban demand for fresh fruits and vegetables could be satisfied only during the warm months, when market gardeners outside our large cities could raise this produce. During the winter months those who were able paid the high prices demanded for hothouse tomatoes and similar out-of-season delicacies, but most urbanites before 1900 had to rely on more moderately priced canned or dried produce. This was grown under contract by farmers near canneries and processing plants in scattered areas of the country. As early as the 1850's, however, fast sailing boats brought early spring vegetables and berries to New York and other northeastern cities from Norfolk, Virginia, an area whose sheltered climate enabled it to produce weeks and months before the northern market gardeners could harvest their fields. But not until after the coming of the refrigerator car and fast railroad express in the 1880's could city families of average means feast on garden-fresh greens and ripe strawberries during the cold of winter as well as in July and August/1 The growth of commercial fruit and vegetable production since 1900 has been one of the outstanding features of recent American agricultural development, reflecting both population increase and the changing dietary habits of our people. Citrus fruit output, for example, jumped more than fivefold in the first four decades of this century, while grape tonnage increased four times. Between 1919 and 1939 production of fresh market spinach, lettuce, cauliflower, snap beans, and carrots in1

Fred Blair, "Development and Localization of T r u c k Crops in the United

States," Yearbook

of Agriculture,

1916, pp. 435-40.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

WORKERS

29

creased five times or more, while celery output tripled.2 In 1900 most fruits and vegetables were not considered sufficiently important to justify extensive collection of statistics regarding them. By 1940 they contributed more than a billion dollars to cash farm income, roughly 30 percent of the total from all crops.9 Most noteworthy of the developments in this field during recent decades has been the enormous growth of winter and spring garden areas, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the urban communities they supply. Recognizing the opportunities arising from the growth of large cities, the increased speed of transportation, and "the development of modem food preservation techniques, producers in California's Imperial Valley, Texas's Lower Rio Grande Valley, and Florida's Lake Okeechobee district have become volume suppliers of fresh produce during fall, winter, and spring months when northern market gardeners cannot compete. The slow passage of warm weather northward from January to July has resulted in the appearance of chains of successive producing areas, each link of which is dependent on its semimonopoly of the major urban markets during the two-to-fourweek period when it is the nearest—in terms of transportation costs— of the early produce districts. In recent years, for example, Chicago's appetite for strawberries has been satisfied in turn by Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and southern Illinois. Market garden operators near major cities and farmers producing crops for canning, drying, and other processing have also shared substantially in the over-all growth of fruit and vegetable production. As cities have grown larger, the belts of garden farms surrounding them have expanded to satisfy the urban demand for berries, beans, asparagus, and similar crops. These farms have performed this function from the earliest periods of large-scale urban development, their existence and growth being unhampered by the problems of food preservation and transportation costs which hinder more distant producers. The expansion of production for processing has also been steady as processors 2

Harold Barger and Hans H. Landsberg, American Agriculture, 1899-1939 (New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1942), pp. 333-45. 3 Agricultural Statistics, 1943 (Washington, 1943), pp. 408-9.

FRUIT

30

AND VEGETABLE

WORKERS

have taken advantage both of new technological developments—such as the quick-freezing method of food preservation—and of expanding public demand for particular types of processed foods—fruit juices, for example. Although fruit ar.d vegetable production is spread widely over the nation, certain areas are outstanding. California, which expresses fresh produce all over the United States the year round, is most important. In 1939 California farmers grew almost 40 percent, by value, of all our fruits and nuts. They produced over 90 percent of our grapes, over 70 percent of our plums and prunes, over 50 percent of our oranges, and over 40 percent of our peaches, as well as almost 70 percent of our cantaloupes, carrots, and lettuce. Florida and Texas are California's major rivals in both winter garden products and citrus fruit. Washington's giant apple crop, grown in the irrigated Yakima and Wenatchee Valleys, has achieved dominance since 1910, but western New York has been outstanding in this crop for at least a century. Since 1900 Aroostook County at Maine's northern tip has usually led the country in potato output, and in recent years it has grown almost 10 percent of our total production. Market garden farms fringe every major city in the land, but the outstanding areas are Long Island and northern New Jersey for New York City, Cook County for Chicago, and Los Angeles County for the city of the same name. Georgia peaches, Indiana tomatoes, Cape Cod cranberries, Colorado melons, these and other contributions to this nation's food supply further illustrate the diversity of specialized sources from which our fruits and vegetables are drawn. Commercial production in this field is usually highly expensive, requiring substantial quantities of capital and great agricultural skill. The farmer growing wheat or corn usually spends much less than $50 an acre from first ploughing to final harvest. In most fruit and vegetable production expenses per acre are measured in hundreds of dollars. An eighty-acre vegetable or berry farm outside Boston or Chicago usually represents an investment of tens of thousands of dollars in land and equipment, and of thousands of dollars annually in direct production outlay. An experienced farmer in Florida's Everglades estimated in 1942 that to start from scratch on the minimum practicable area in

FRUIT

AND

VEGETABLE

WORKERS

31

that winter garden district a man would have to invest at least $so,ooo. 4 T h e average grower of " S u n k i s t " oranges owns a ten-to-fifteen-acre grove in which he has invested approximately $25,000.5 In Aroostook County, M a i n e — w h e r e farmers use from one to two tons of fertilizer per acre of potatoes—an individual farmer once grossed $300,000 on a single year's crop. In good years, receipts of $100,000 and more per farm are not uncommon. 0 A vegetable trade paper described one type of producer in these terms: In serving the Western vegetable industry, we are dealing with big men who are doing big things in a big way . . . They are industrial farmers operating hundreds and thousands of acres, not tens and twenties, under intensive culture. They do not stop at production, but market the produce of their acres . . . Most of the large factors have headquarters in Los Angeles and thousands of acres of land in the Imperial, Salt River and Salinas Valleys hundreds of miles away are actually "farmed by phone" from the western metropolis . . . Several factors in the industry travel exclusively by plane, covering their packing sheds and fields from the Salinas Valley to Salt River Valley, Arizona, a distance of a thousand miles in a minimum of time. 7 California's production has been marked particularly by its largescale aspects. In 1929 the state had 60 percent of the nation's largescale fruit and truck farms, that is, those having production valued at $30,000 or more. T h e Digiorgio Fruit Company farmed about 15,000 acres of California land in 1942 and was the world's largest producer of citrus and deciduous fruit. From its fruit growing, processing, and distributing activities, this firm had a gross income of over $12,000,000 in 1942 and a net income of almost $1,300,000. T h e California Packing Corporation—which markets the nationally advertised " D e l

Monte"

brand—farmed about 20,000 acres in California in 1942, growing much 4 U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration. Hearings before the Selcct Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, 77th Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1942), X X X I I I , 12586. 5 N. Fogelberg and A. W. M c K a y , The Citrus Industry and the California Fruit Growers Exchange System (Washington, 1940), p. 44. 6 C . M . Wilson, Aroostook: Our Last Frontier (Brattleboro, Stephen Daye Press, 1937), p. 38. 7 U. S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Committee on Education and Labor. Senate Report No. 1150, 77th Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1942), IV, 440.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

32

WORKERS

of the asparagus and peaches which it canned in its own plants.8 While these are not typical producers, they do indicate the scale and industrialization of an important segment of California's farm economy. The Seabrook Farm in New Jersey and the King Farm in Pennsylvania are other examples of large-scale fruit and vegetable producing units. Intensive use of much hired labor is a primary characteristic of most modern fruit and vegetable production. Usually this derives from the nature of the crop itself, but it is frequently reinforced by the large size of acreages on individual farms. To grow and harvest an acre of wheat during the 1930's required on the average only about 13 man hours of labor, but an acre of lettuce required 125 man hours, and an acre of strawberries almost 500 man hours.9 These are national averages and hide variations between different areas, but they reflect accurately the different orders of magnitude of labor needs in these crops. It is no surprise, therefore, that of the fifteen counties having the largest farm wage bills in the country in 1939, thirteen were in California and specialized in fruits and vegetables. 10 The uneven labor requirements of different production stages are responsible for many of this industry's labor problems. Harvest time usually requires the greatest number of workers, far more than are needed for planting and cultivating. A farm family alone or with one or two hired men can plough, plant, and cultivate many more acres of most fruits and vegetables than it can harvest. Even a small producer may need ten or twenty men for short periods, while on large farms several hundred or several thousand men may be needed for a few days or weeks. Fairly large numbers of workers are also needed at some non-harvest operations on particular crops. Thus, fruit trees must be pruned and thinned, onions must be weeded, and seed potatoes must be cut up for planting. Harvest time requires extra workers not only because this work must often be concentrated into short periods, but also because many vegetables and fruits must be picked individually. If green beans or 8

Moody's Manual of Investments 1943 (New York: 1943), pp. 228 and 3033. M . R . Cooper, and others, Labor Requirements ¡or Crops and Livestock (Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1943), pp. 17, 76, 96. 10 Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Agriculture (Washington, 1942), passim. 9

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33

strawberries are not gathered at the right time, they quickly spoil and are a complete loss. Some products, like apples or potatoes, may be stored on trees or under the ground without spoilage for some time, but here market factors often induce a frenzied rush to harvest in order to take advantage of a short period of comparatively high prices. Upon a grower's ability to market his entire crop in the few days when other competing areas are not shipping depends his financial success or failure for the season. Naturally he will want all the workers he can get for the short harvest period, but before or after these days he will want few or none. From these agronomic and market factors results an employment cycle marked by pronounced peaks and troughs, particularly in areas concentrating on one crop. Palm Beach County, Florida, farmers—who specialize largely in winter bean production—hired over 8,000 seasonal harvest workers paid by the piece in the last week of March, 1940, but had only 278 such workers employed six months earlier. 11 In 1933, a group of Massachusetts cranberry farms reported hiring about 50 workers each month from January to April, approximately 200 between May and August, 600 in September, over 850 in October, less than 400 in November, and only 220 in December. 12 Such pronounced variation is typical of specialized fruit and vegetable production. To meet their seasonal labor needs, fruit and vegetable farmers have relied upon three main sources of such workers. From cities the unemployed and the wives and children of low-income workers have annually come to the fields. Rural communities and farming areas are a second source, contributing small farmers and their families, seasonally jobless coal miners or lumberjacks, and the like. The highways of the land are a third source; along them travel migrants who spend most or all of the year following one crop or a succession of crops over long distances, as harvest succeeds harvest in one area after another. Frequently these migrants combine industrial work in some areas with farm work in others; often they look to sugar beets, cotton, and wheat, i' Ibid., I, Pt. 3. 7S312

M. E . Bicknell, "The Economic Status of Hired Labor on Massachusetts Market Garden Farms" (Unpublished MS thesis, Dept. of Economics, Massachusetts State College, 1936), p. 63.

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34

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WORKERS

as well as to fruits and vegetables, for major portions of their income. T h e y move restlessly from place to place, coming with the onset of heavy labor needs and leaving when the harvest is done. T h e r e are relatively few "hired hands" on fruit and vegetable farms. Tractor drivers, irrigators, orchard caretakers, and other skilled workers are frequently employed by the month for an entire season or year. Socially they have a higher status than the casual workers. Because of steadier employment, their annual incomes are probably

larger

on the average. B u t the temporary workers far outnumber the permanent ones. The proportions may be judged on the basis of the giant Seabrook Farm near Bridgeton, New Jersey. This farm employs 1 5 0 year-round employees and over

1,500 others primarily

for harvest

work. 1 3 While the monthly employees are often in a social and economic situation somewhat resembling that of the traditional hired man, seasonal laborers form quite a different group. T h e y do the despised "stoop w o r k " in cutting asparagus or picking up potatoes; they crawl on their hands and knees to gather berries; they climb high into fruit trees on shaky ladders to gather oranges, apples, or peaches. Their wage is b y the day or the piece for work in gangs under close supervision. Often their employers do not even know their names. Y e t , without their labor, all the other effort and investment involved would be in vain. A third group is sometimes included in the fruit and vegetable labor force. I t s members handle the field's produce once it has been gathered, packing, canning, or drying it. We exclude these workers because their labor is largely done away from the fields. T h e y form a parallel seasonal labor force to those whom we shall discuss, but legally and economically they are distinct from them, although many individuals are members of both groups at different times during the year. How many fruit and vegetable seasonal workers were there in any particular year? How does their number fluctuate in different months of the year? H a s this group of workers been growing or declining during the last half century? These are questions which cannot be 13

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X X X I I I , 13015.

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AND VEGETABLE

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35

answered with precision because the necessary data are not available. The various censuses of agriculture and occupations have lumped all farm workers into one category, and fruit and vegetable workers cannot be separated therefrom. A further complication arises from the fact that seasonal fruit and vegetable workers may do this work for periods as little as a few days, or for most of the year, or for some period in between, relying on other activities for major portions of their income. Some hold down only one such job a year; others have several such jobs through the year. Thus, any attempt to ascertain how many people do seasonal fruit and vegetable work at some time during a year is impossible in the present state of the statistics. But even if the exact number of hired seasonal fruit and vegetable workers is not known each year, a few examples will demonstrate that it is quite large. During the week ending September n , 1943, for instance, about 75,000 people were employed in this work in California's Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, over 60,000 of them picking grapes alone. In the last week of September, 1939, over 15,000 seasonal hired workers were engaged in the potato harvest of Aroostook County, Maine, while in Washington's great Yakima and Wenatchee fruit areas, over 22,000 seasonal laborers were working.14 Obviously, the number of persons doing some seasonal fruit and vegetable work annually must have averaged several hundred thousand annually in recent years, but there are no satisfactory data which would permit a closer approximation. The seasonal distribution of fruit and vegetable employment nationally can, however, be indicated. Such employment is low from December through March, when only the extreme southern areas are harvesting winter fruits and vegetables. From then on the number hired for this work grows as more northerly areas begin production. The peak of this employment is probably reached in late summer and early fall, when most market garden areas are producing in volume, while at the same time specialized surplus producing districts such as Maine's Aroostook County (potatoes), Washington's Yakima and Wenatchee 14

W. H. Metzler, Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling on Picking Sun-Dried Raisin Crapes: California, 1943 (Berkeley, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944), p. 1 6 ; and Bureau of the Census, op. cit., passim.

36

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Valleys (apples), California's San Joaquin Valley (grapes) are at or near their peak. The number of man days of employment available to seasonal fruit and vegetable workers has probably increased substantially over the past half century. As has been indicated above, acreages and output have increased sharply, while relatively little progress has been made in developing mechanized means of performing harvest operations. The introduction of the tractor has probably tended to reduce the number of workers needed per 100 acres to prepare the soil and to plant and cultivate crops, but this has had little effect upon most of the jobs at which seasonal fruit and vegetable workers are employed, since specialized fruit or vegetable harvest machines have been few indeed. One indication of the growth of fruit and vegetable labor requirements is supplied by a recent study. In the case of fourteen important fresh market products (asparagus, snap beans, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, muskmelons, onions, peas, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and watermelons), man-hour production requirements increased over 60 percent between 1918-21 and 1932-36. 15 The very earliest extra wage workers in fruit and vegetable production probably came from cities, for it was outside cities that the earliest commercial gardening developed. When the farmer drove his horse and wagon in with produce for sale, he could take back with him a few city workers to do any extra labor he needed. They could be returned home when he came in with his next load of produce. Later, the extension of street car and bus lines into the suburbs, and the coming of the motor truck further simplified his problem of getting workers from the city. A s cities grew larger, market garden areas surrounding them increased correspondingly, and so did farmers' needs for urban seasonal help. The labor market which thus developed is typified by this description of the Chicago area in the mid-192o's: Usually the farmers in need of help go to certain corners near the outskirts of Chicago, inside or outside the city limits, where a group of men, women and children who wish a day's woyk habitually assembles . . . North of the city. . . . Almost all of the irregular help comes from one center and the 1 5 John A. Hopkins, Changing (Washington, 1941), p. 135.

Technology

and Employment

in

Agriculture

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WORKERS

process of obtaining helpers is customarily spoken of as "bidding at Jefferson Park." To this place at the end of a street car line people come by the hundreds in the early hours of the morning before it is light and stand around while the farmers bargain with them for their day's labor. The amount of pay offered is determined directly by competition; that is, by the demand the farmers make for workers on each morning and by the number of workers on hand. The applicants circulate slowly from group to group, seeking the most favorable terms, or the farmers seek them out. Wages offered by one farmer are quoted to another, spokesmen for groups of adults haggle with the farmers, and youngsters shout their own superior qualities as workers. As each farmer selects the number of workers he requires he drives off with them in his automobile or truck. The men and women are chosen first, and if there are enough of them the children are not hired.18 The farmer did not always have to go into the city for workers. M a n y of the unemployed went to the farms, offering their services at each door. Or the farmer might use an employment agency or a labor agent. In Norfolk, Virginia, for instance, it w a s customary during the 1920's for many large growers to hire "row bosses" who went to the Negro section of the city, stood on a street corner, and shouted "Strawberry hands, Strawberry hands," to attract workers. When he had gotten as many as he wished, the "row b o s s " — s o called because in the field he assigns each worker to the row of berries or vegetables he is to p i c k — w o u l d take them back to the farm on a truck or a street car hired for the purpose, supervise them in the field for the day, and return them in the evening. T h e next morning, typically, the same performance would take place, and an entirely new group of workers would be hired. Alternatively, satisfactory workers might be given carfare in the evening so they might come out b y themselves the next morning. 17 Two key facts should be noted regarding these urban day workers: First, women and children have formed an important component of this labor force, frequently dominating it except during depression periods when adult males could get no other work. In a 1921 survey of the N o r f o k , Virginia, district, government investigators found over D. Williams and M . E. Skinner, Work of Children on Illinois Children's Bureau Publ. No. 168 (Washington, 1926), pp. n , 12. 16

17 Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Bureau Publ. No. 130 (Washington, 1924), p. 5.

750

Farms.

Truck Farms. Children's

38

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children under sixteen at work, a quarter of them under ten years of age. 18 A 1926 study of the Cook County, Illinois, truck garden area found over 500 such child workers. Many were accompanied by one of their parents, usually the mother, but many worked alone. 19 Second, a large proportion of these casual laborers have been immigrants and Negroes. Near the large cities of the Middle Atlantic, New England, and Middle Western regions the newly arrived immigrant was mainly relied upon for this labor. Usually employed at unskilled city work, the first to be fired when bad times came, he often had need for seasonal farm work or was glad to send his family to it. Before 1900 Boston's market gardens were using French Canadians, Poles, and Italians, who had replaced the earlier Irish and German workers. Ohio's lake shore fruit and vegetable area has long used Bohemian and Slavic workers from adjacent steel centers. Even after large-scale European immigration was curbed in the early 1920's, those who had come a decade or two before were still available for some years. When the original immigrants became too old, their children often replaced them, prevented from rising higher in the economic scale by the cultural and educational handicaps that resulted from segregation in "Polacktowns" and "Little Italys" throughout the nation. The Negro entered this labor market after he had acquired freedom and moved to the cities. On his availability at low wages when needed was based the early growth of Norfolk and the more southerly truck garden centers. Strawberry farmers, in particular, increased their acreages many times after the free Negro became available from the cities. B y 1871 one Norfolk grower was employing about 700 pickers, and eight years later another had expanded operations to employ a thousand hands.20 In 1915 a Norfolk newspaper reported that from $100,000 to $150,000 weekly was being paid to the

15,000-25,000

colored workers employed at the height of the season in the surrounding area. Most of these laborers came from Richmond, Norfolk, and adjacent villages and towns. 21 Ibid., p. 8. Williams and Skinner, op. tit., p. 27. 20 S. W. Fletcher, The Strawberry in North America (New York, Macmillan, 1917), p. 69. 21 Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 22, 1915. 18

19

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

WORKERS

3Q

Mexicans in the Southwest and on the Pacific Coast and native whites all over the country have also sought this work, spurred on by the lack of regular and adequate income from their usual city employments. Before the widespread use of automobiles and motor trucks, many important commercial areas found that cities were too far away to permit workers to commute daily, but were near enough to offer tempting supplies of cheap and willing labor. Even where distance was not an obstacle to day work, many large truck farms near cities had such large acreages of one crop, or of several closely maturing crops, that they could provide work for several weeks at a time rather than for a single day. Hence developed the practice of transporting workers to shelters on farms where they lived and worked for weeks or months at a time before returning to the cities. These movements persisted as annual events for close to a half century or more in particular cases. Typical of them were the migrations of Italians from Philadelphia to the berry and vegetable farms of southern New Jersey and Delaware; of Polish families from Baltimore to Anne Arundel County's truck areas just south of that city; of native white families from Seattle and Tacoma to the Puyallup Valley berry area of Pierce County, Washington; and of Portuguese Negroes—usually known as Bravas—from Fall River, New Bedford, and Providence in New England to the cranberry bogs around Cape Cod. These movements tended to be family affairs, with mother and children coming year in and year out, and father coming along if cyclical or seasonal unemployment had struck, but otherwise staying at his usual job. Forty or fifty years ago when many of these migrations began, they were organized by labor contractors, or padrones. Since many of the workers were newly arrived immigrants and unable to speak English, the farmer of another ancestry needed an agent who could speak, their language. Truck growers employing large numbers of these workers were glad to get the help of men who took over the entire problem of labor recruitment and supervision for a reasonable fee. This contractor system was not peculiar to fruit and vegetable farming

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

40

WORKERS

but was used elsewhere in agriculture and in industry where the same problem was met. Many elements common to all these movements may be seen in the annual Italian migration to South Jersey. This began in the early i89o's. From the beginning farmers secured workers through Italian padrones who lived in the city but came out to the farms in the early spring to secure orders for workers. Returning to Philadelphia, the padrone would go from house to house in the Italian quarter, setting forth a beautiful vista of high wages, work for the entire family, free housing, and excellent income from berry or vegetable work in the open air. Those who had done well in previous seasons would back up his statements, and soon he had many old and new pickers pledged to go with him. Even before 1 9 1 0 entire trainloads of Italian families and their household goods were shipped from Philadelphia for this summer work.22 The scene at their unloading point was described in 1909 by the Immigration Commission: Great bales of ticks and bedding; old trunks, boxes, and barrels of clothing; bags of stale bread, macaroni, and peas; clanging bundles of cooking utensils; occasionally a stove; very often a few baby carriages, a huddle of children and confused parents, await the great hay wagons that drive up and carry them off by the wagon load—luggage, baby carriages, and all—to their fourweeks' quarters on the berry farm.23 At first, much of this contracting business was dominated by one man who shipped several thousand workers out each year from Philadelphia and employed subbosses to handle each shipment. The latter oversaw the picking gang, inspected the bushes or rows to make sure that picking had been complete and clean, and settled disputes among the workers themselves or between the workers and the employer. B y 1909 competition had entered the business, and three or four large contractors were dominant but many small padrones also operated, most of them former pickers who would bring their own families or groups of friends out to work for one farmer. As time passed the relative importance of labor contractors declined. 22

U. S. Immigration Commission Reports (Washington, 1 9 1 1 ) , X X I V , Pt. II,

5I9-3I"Ibid.,

p. 525-

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41

Many workers got their own jobs after learning English and becoming familiar with the South Jersey area. Farmers became acquainted with pickers, learned where they lived, and went to the Italian quarters of Philadelphia or other cities themselves to get workers, thus saving the padrone's fee of 50 cents or a dollar per picker. Some growers employed Italian workers all year, sending them into the city during the winter to recruit their fellow countrymen for work the following spring and summer. A National Child Labor Committee study in 1938 found that only about half the families used the services of padrones or farmers' agents to get jobs.24 These families usually had not done this work before or had been out only one or two seasons previously. Although it fluctuated yearly because of changes in crop acreage, weather, and urban employment opportunities, the number moving from city to country for residence and work over several weeks or months at a time probably tended downward in the decade preceding Pearl Harbor. For one thing, farmers using motor trucks had learned that they could profitably bring workers in daily from as far as fifty miles away. This eliminated the need for farm housing, which had to be provided when transportation was slower. Also, workers had spread out from the large cities, in which they were concentrated originally, into communities near the farming areas. Thus, Camden, Bridgeton, and Trenton became sources of Italian labor for South Jersey in later years, although Philadelphia continued to be the largest single source. Finally, as the immigrants' children and grandchildren grew up, they absorbed native American attitudes, and secured vocational training and education greater than that of their elders. They became less willing to go out to the hard work of the fields. Studies in the late 1930's indicated that while many of these workers were second and third generations of the original immigrant stock, they came with the greatest reluctance and only because they had no alternative jobs. While their fathers and grandfathers in the 1890's and 1900's had been rag pickers, railroad section hands, longshoremen, and street cleaners, they had the training to be electricians, bookkeepers, and the like. 24

U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration. Hearings before the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, 76th Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1940), I, 362,

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O n l y their inability to find j o b s during the depressed thirties forced t h e m to the berries and beans. 2 5 Little wonder that this source of labor dried up so readily after the defense program began in 1940 and wellp a y i n g j o b s opened up for skilled workers. T h e P u y a l l u p V a l l e y berry district near T a c o m a , Washington, represents a modification of the pattern cited above. Here, during the 1920's, most workers were the wives and children of native white industrial workers in T a c o m a and Seattle. T h e s e , too, moved from their homes to the f a r m s when the harvest season began, but they were obtained largely b y newspaper advertisements and grower solicitation in the cities. 2 6 W i t h no language barrier between worker and employer, the labor contractor system did not develop, just as in Erie C o u n t y , N e w Y o r k , Polish and Italian truck growers did not bother with padrones, b u t went themselves to their countrymen's quarters in B u f f a l o to recruit workers. D u r i n g the 1930's, the free flow of unemployed and low-income city workers to casual labor in the fruit and vegetable fields w a s threatened b y the institution of large-scale government relief. T h e p a y m e n t s received b y relief clients were small, but they sufficed to keep b o d y and soul together. F r o m the laborer's point of view, relief a s a source of income w a s often preferable t o agricultural work, since it usually required less sweat than picking beans or berries under a hot sun; moreover, the

financial

side of relief w a s sometimes more a t t r a c t i v e than

t h a t of fruit and vegetable w o r k , because relief wages were o f t e n — though far from a l w a y s — h i g h e r than farm labor earnings. T h e n , too, f a r m w o r k w a s irregular and usually lasted but a short time. A man w h o voluntarily left relief to take fruit or vegetable employment might find himself once again without a job in a few days, and might also discover that he could not get back on the relief rolls. O b v i o u s l y , it w a s o f t e n in workers' interests to stay on relief rolls if they could. 2 7 F a r m e r s seeking seasonal laborers viewed the matter from a different perspective. Relief, they soon found, threatened to deprive them of 25National

Defense Migration (1941), XIV, 5836. Marion Hathaway, The Migratory Worker and Family Life (Chicago, University'of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 65. 27 National Resources Planning Board, Security, Work, and Relief Policies (Washington, 1942), pp. 349-51. 26

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43

their supply of workers unless they raised wages and made their job offers more attractive. As taxpayers and hard-working citizens, farmers bitterly resented what they considered to be government support of idlers and its concomitant depletion of their labor supply. In area after area they made their anger known and used political pressure on relief and other governmental authorities to force them to remove from relief rolls any who declined farmers' job offers. Where farmer pressure was particularly strong, it became customary to shut down W P A projects or otherwise to facilitate maximum availability of labor for peak agricultural needs.28 The second major group of hired seasonal workers consists of lowincome rural workers, particularly small farmers who leave their own land for short periods when profitable employment is available elsewhere. Many such workers are used in the southern winter vegetable and fruit harvests. A Farm Security Administration study of Florida's interstate migrants in 1939 showed that many of them were small owners, tenants, or sharecroppers from Georgia, Alabama, and other Southern States. At Hammond, Louisiana, the same year, many berry pickers were found to be from small farms in Mississippi, or were hired workers on plantations in the same state. Such employment provides money income to these workers at a time when tobacco, cotton, and other southern crops require little labor, yet is finished by April in time for them to return to their own farms for spring planting. Many of these small farmers are transported to and from their homes in growers' trucks. In return they are usually expected to work for the farmer and live on his farm. Many others come by themselves, however, in "jalopies," by bus or train—particularly if they receive the fare or a free ticket from a grower—or they may hitchhike the fifty to two hundred miles of their journey. Some bring their families with them. In the late 1930's many of those coming from tobacco and cotton to winter fruits and vegetables were no longer small farmers or sharecroppers but wage workers, having been deprived of status by acreage reduction and introduction of the tractor. 20 The movement of these workers to winter bean and berry fields 2BIbid., 28

p. 349. U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration, II, 518-74.

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is sometimes opposed by large farm employers in Arkansas, South Carolina, and adjacent states, since not all those who go to Florida or Louisiana harvests come back for cotton or tobacco in the spring. Through most of the 1920's and 1930's this movement resulted in a steady drain upon the resident Negro and poor white labor force in the states north of Florida. To combat this emigration, most of these states have emigrant agent laws which make labor recruitment either illegal or expensive, limiting it to persons who have paid substantial license fees or have deposited appreciable sums to guarantee return of the workers. In years of labor stringency, recruiters for Florida growers and others have been arrested, even though they sought workers at a period when the southern rural labor force could get little alternative employment.30 For many decades subsistence farmers in the southeast Kentucky hill country have sought seasonal farm work elsewhere to supplement the meager output of their infertile acres. They have migrated annually to many areas, but we may note particularly the onion fields of Ohio and Michigan and the tomato areas of central Indiana. One investigator has found evidence indicating that this movement to onion fields in Ingham County, Michigan, began in the 1870's; 3 1 the migration to the onion farms on the Scioto Marsh in Hardin County, Ohio, began before 1910, after the area's development as a large-scale onion producer had outstripped local supplies of cheap casual labor.32 These seasonal treks seem to have been begun at the behest of growers who went to the subsistence farming areas and recruited workers, furnishing railroad transportation first and later using trucks. Onion field migrations usually began in April or May, but most families remained to do the hand work necessary in cultivation and harvest until October before returning to their own farms. The movement to the Scioto Marsh, which in 19x5 gave employment to 3,000 people—1,200 of whom were from Kentucky—reached its climax shortly thereafter. After that, onion yields and acreages fell, reducing 30

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration (1942), X X X I I I , 12624. Information from the Labor Division, Farm Security Administration. 32 E. R. Hayhurst, "Investigation of the Employment of Minors upon Truck Farms, Particularly Onion and Celery Farms in Some Localities in Ohio," Ohio Public Health Journal (September, 1915). 31

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the need for outside workers. Over the years many Kentuckians settled in the marsh area, further reducing the need for immigration, since these new residents provided an ample labor supply for the diminished onion acreage. Conditions became so bad in this area that a violent strike of these workers took place in 1934, after which onion growing virtually ended in this locality. 33 In both Ingham County, Michigan, and Hardin County, Ohio, some of the Kentuckians

sharecropped

onion acreage, thus rising somewhat above the status of their fellows who did the extra onion labor for a daily wage. During the 1930's many farmers raising canning tomatoes in central Indiana were accustomed to send their trucks to towns in southern K e n t u c k y for extra harvest labor. Typically, the grower would advertise in a town newspaper that his truck would be at the courthouse or some other central point at a specific time, ready to carry all who wished this work. It is worth noting that many of these workers were brought to areas which had thousands of unemployed in near-by urban communities. B u t working and living conditions in the tomato harvest were so bad that the Indiana unemployed—used to higher standards than the Kentuckians—refused to accept these jobs. The Indiana Public Employment Service often refused to supply laborers for this harvest on the ground that the jobs there were substandard and did not meet any reasonable set of minimum standards. One consequence of the low returns available from this work was that Kentuckians who remained in the community instead of returning to their homes created expensive relief problems since the growers who had brought them disclaimed any responsibility for their continued presence or support. 34 T h e two groups considered above are representative of much larger numbers of rural people who have seasonally helped fruit and vegetable growers. For much of the twentieth century, and often since before 1900, lumbermen and sawmill workers have left the forests of the Pacific Northwest to aid the Washington apple grower and the Oregon berry raiser; Oneida Indians have left their reservations to help pick Wisconsin's cranberries; Spanish Americans have gone from their small 83

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration (1941), X I X , 7997-

8007. 34

U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration, X X X , 977-88, 1063.

46

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villages in the Upper Rio Grande Valley to help harvest potatoes in Colorado's San Luis Valley; Negro and white farmers and farm laborers have left cotton and tobacco to pick Georgia peaches in July or Carolina potatoes in June; French -Canadian farmers have left their small holdings along the St. Johns River in New Brunswick to help harvest Aroostook County's potato crop. This list does not exhaust the roster of these groups, but is indicative of the wide variety of rural people who look to fruit and vegetable casual labor for an appreciable portion of their year's income. Migratory workers who follow fruit or vegetable harvests from area to area for all or most of the year travel long distances and regard this casual and intermittent work as their chief—and sometimes only— source of income. Traveling expenses often cut substantially into their earnings, sharply reducing what would be a low standard of living at best. Before Pearl Harbor comparatively little effort had been made to organize their travels, to furnish them with systematic information on crop conditions and employment opportunities in different areas, to assure them of reasonably full employment, and to help the farmer by sending them where they were most needed. Since the bulk of seasonal crop activity occurs in spring, summer, and fall, these migrants always faced the problem of living through the winter, a period when the few available farm jobs could not begin to employ them all. These recurring migrations go far back into American history. The Industrial Commission of 1899-1901

found migration from crop to

crop and area to area an established feature of the farm landscape, with thousands of workers participating. Many of the migrations reported by early investigators forty years or more ago have persisted beyond Pearl Harbor, though often with significant changes in numbers and types of workers, as well as in routes and means of transportation. This persistence is not surprising since it derives from the continued existence of the economic base of this type of movement, that is, adjacent producing areas needing large numbers of outside workers for short periods, one after the other. Mobile workers, therefore, have the hope of piecing these successive work periods together to secure an adequate annual income. The unavailability of steady and adequate

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employment and income in their home communities is usually the initial motive power setting them off on the migratory path. This country's three major fruit and vegetable migratory routes have followed the Atlantic Seaboard, the Mississippi Valley, and the Pacific Coast from south to north, with the workers returning south each year to begin the new season. Many other routes have existed. These usually follow the major routes for some way and then branch off to serve particular areas not on a direct line with the main stream. One source of complexity in tracing these routes—and a major problem facing the migrant seeking a living from this work—is the rapidity with which demand for workers changes from year to year. Plantings vary each season because of market prospects; weather conditions make a particular operation come early one year, late the next, and perhaps destroy the crop entirely the third year; depression of local industries sets hundreds of local workers seeking farm jobs so that the migrant adds only to the oversupply. These are but a few of the hazards faced by the long-distance migrants. The extent of this fluctuation may be illustrated by reference to the Arkansas strawberry crop. In 1934, its harvest required 20,000 workers, most of them from outside the producing area; in 1937 no outsiders at all were needed because the crop was very small.36 Negro workers have been dominant in the East Coast migration. By 1900 Negroes from Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina were moving annually into New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut. New Jersey alone was employing about 3,000 annually. Many single workers came up in railroad cars to Trenton Junction, and then scattered to the farms. Negroes leaving at the end of the harvest season often made arrangements to come back to the same farm the following year. Rhode Island farmers hired many Negroes who traveled from Norfolk, Virginia, on the steamboats bringing that area's early produce to Providence. Thus these Negroes coordinated work in the early harvests of the Carolinas. Virginia, and Maryland with similar labor for the market gardeners of the later-producing Northeastern States. One Mercer County, New Jersey, farmer told the Industrial 3 5 Paul S. Taylor, ' Migratory Farm Labor in the United States," Labor Review, March, 1937.

Monthly

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Commission that employment of Negroes in central New Jersey began about 1892 and was motivated by growers' difficulties in getting adequate supplies of native laborers and by their unwillingness to employ immigrants from the cities, since they could not understand languages spoken by the latter. 36 The Negro movement continued in much the same fashion into the decade after the First World War. In 1922, 40 percent of the farm employees in two South Jersey fruit and vegetable counties were found to be colored. Many of them came up annually from the South. Others had formerly migrated, but had settled down in the towns near the farming areas. These Negroes were reported to be the preferred workers among the farmers in this area. Italian workers from Philadelphia were seeking to displace them at that time by offering to work for lower wages.37 In the middle 1920's the bulk of this migration was a six or seven month affair, with workers starting in the Carolinas or Virginia in April or May and ending the season in one of the Northeastern States in September or October. During the winter, many of them lived in Norfolk, Charleston, and other southern communities, working at odd jobs. Many others, however, settled permanently in the North. The development of a large group who find year-round employment up and down the Atlantic Coast probably dates from the drainage of Lake Okeechobee in southeast Florida and the beginning of its intensive winter vegetable culture in the 1920's. This provided seasonal workers with jobs from late fall to early spring, thus complementing the springto-fall employment available in the North. The sharp decline in cotton production during the early 1930's forced many displaced small farmers and sharecroppers to join this migration. Once having gained experience with the crops in south Florida, they had no attachment to a piece of land to prevent their moving up the coast with the spread of fruit and vegetable harvests northward. The Agricultural Adjustment Act, 36 U. S. Industrial Commission, Reports (Washington, 1901), X, 132-34 and XI, 87; L. F. Cox, "Agricultural Labor in the United States, 1865-1900, with Special Reference to the South" (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Economics, University of California, 1942), p. 34. 37 J. C. Folsom, Truck Farm Labor in New Jersey, 1922. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 1285 (Washington, 1925), p. 15.

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with its pressure for further reductions in cotton and tobacco acreages during the middle 1930's, aided the transformation from cotton growing to fruit and vegetable harvesting for many of the migrants following Atlantic Coast trails during those years. There were many migration routes up the East Coast during the 1930's. Some workers followed fruits, beginning with the Florida citrus picking in the winter, going on to peaches in Georgia and the Carolinas, and then following the apple crop from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to the orchards on the shores of Lake Ontario in New York. Some workers specialized in one crop, like the Negro celery harvesters of Sanford and Belle Glade, Florida, who worked there from November to spring, and then were trucked directly to celery farms in New York where they completed the balance of the year. 38 Perhaps the best known migration up the coast, however, was that of the potato pickers, many of whom went from Florida to New Jersey and Long Island, and sometimes as far north as Aroostook County, Maine. M a n y Negro participants in the potato migration spent the winter harvesting Florida's vegetables, frequently picking potatoes in the Homestead district below Miami and then moving north to the harvest in the Hastings district in the northeast part of the state. Most of those who left Florida to move up the coast were unattached males, but some family groups also came along. A small proportion moved by automobile, the usual "jalopy," crowded from fender to roof with household articles and bedding. More usually, however, the Negroes were moved by labor contractors, some of whom owned only trucks, and some of whom also had expensive machinery for digging and grading potatoes. In the latter case, movement of workers was done to induce northern farmers to hire the contractors' potato machinery, since the grower doing so got both equipment and labor simultaneously. The contractor who owned only a truck usually expected to get the job of hauling potatoes in return for supplying workers. Those owning the potato equipment were sometimes Florida farmers who migrated in order to get year-round income from their heavy machinery investments. The actual moves in this migration varied widely from group to group. Some contractors stayed until the end of the Florida season 38

Information from the National Child Labor

Committee.

so

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and then moved directly to New Jersey or Long Island in late M a y or June, using the workers to pick sweet corn, cauliflower, and other vegetables until the potato season began in July. Others made several moves up the coast. T h u s 1,500-2,000 migrants used to move into Charleston County, South Carolina, near the town of Meggett and work there from mid-May to mid-June. North Carolina's season came next, with the Elizabeth City area—embracing Pasquotank, Camden, and Currituck Counties—usually attracting the largest number of workers. After six weeks of work here, the northward trek would resume— usually going over the Norfolk to Cape Charles Ferry in mid-July. M a n y of the workers would then be trucked straight to central Jersey, but some would work on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland before going to New Jersey, and still others would go to Long Island. B y August the potato harvest in Monmouth and adjacent New Jersey counties would be employing from 4,000 to 5,000 Negro migrants, most of whom would turn south again when it was over and return for Florida's bean and potato work. Much of this movement had little formal guidance. Some contractors kept in touch with farmers by mail, thus getting orders for specific numbers of workers to be delivered at definite times, as well as receiving information on crop conditions. Other contractors, however, went north trusting to luck to find farmers who would use their trucks and workers. The workers who left Florida in April or M a y and those who finally worked in New Jersey or Long Island in July and August were not all the same people. M a n y workers did make the entire trip annually, but others dropped out along the way to secure casual employment in cotton, tobacco, or peanuts. A s the harvests ended in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, local workers who had entered fruit and vegetable labor in those states joined the moving crowd. Each year the relative proportions of those who followed the potatoes all the way and those who went only part way up the coast varied. M a n y who did finally complete the whole route worked often at other crops besides potatoes along the route, picking other vegetables, berries, or fruit as the opportunity arose. 39 39 Preliminary Report on Interstate Migration of Agricultural Labor in Atlantic Seaboard Area (Washington, Farm Security Administration, 1940).

the

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51

Migration up the Mississippi Valley from Florida and Louisiana to Michigan and Illinois probably dates back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when commercial strawberry areas developed along this route to assure northern city dwellers of this delicacy most of the year. Berrien County, Michigan, and Union County in southern Illinois started large-scale output for the rich Chicago market in the 1860's. Commercial strawberry production around Judsonia, White County, Arkansas, and in Kentucky began in the 1870's. Independence, Louisiana—near New Orleans—express-shipped its first strawberries to Chicago in 1879, while Weakley County, Tennessee, sent its first carload of berries to Chicago in 1881. Large-scale production in the Ozark region of southwest Missouri and in Hillsborough

County,

Florida, began in the 1890's. The development of these successive strawberry areas, each requiring large numbers of extra workers for the short harvest period, soon was followed by the appearance of itinerant workers who followed the harvests.40 In the early part of the century these workers seem to have been primarily single migrants, who were usually referred to as "hobos" and "tramps." In 1913 the Kansas City Star noted that many of the "hobos" who helped harvest the Kaw Valley potato crop earlier picked strawberries along a route from Texas' gulf coast to southwest Missouri. These workers followed Kansas potatoes with similar work all the way to North Dakota, after which they entered the wheat harvest or went east to pick apples and peaches before going back to Texas. 41 A National Child Labor Committee investigator visited Union County, Illinois, in April, 1916, and reported: "There is a class of itinerant workers called 'hobos' by some, who are said to follow the berry picking from Louisiana north te Michigan." There were said to be practically no children among them.42 In 1928 a farmer living in Berrien County, Michigan, wrote in a farm publication that the coming of the motor truck had made an amazing change in the character of the labor force used to harvest the county's berries. A few years before growers had 10

Fletcher, op. cit., passim.

" T h e Vagrant Potato Pickers," Literary Digest, X L V I I (Oct. 4, 1913), 607. 4 2 L. W . Hine, "Child Labor and Agriculture in Southern Illinois" (Unpublished M S in files of National Child Labor Committee, New York City. Written by author after visit to area in April, 1916.) 41

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depended entirely upon an influx of hobos who followed berry ripening from Florida to Michigan. But by 1928, he said, availability of the motor truck enabled farmers to truck in women and children daily from the near-by cities and villages, thus ending the need for the migrants. 43 The predominance of the single worker along the migratory route for the first two decades of this century can probably be explained by the lack of convenient transportation facilities for family groups. The single worker could easily "hop a freight" to go from point to point and live in "jungles" set up and patronized by his fellows along the routes of migration. The coming of the inexpensive automobile in the 1920's changed this by providing cheap and easy transportation for entire families. After 1929 this family labor increased as a result of the displacement of cotton families and the exodus caused by drought in the Middle West. A National Child Labor Committee report describes the strawberry harvest procession, many of whose participants covered a travel route of 1,200 to 1,500 miles each season during the i93o's: The strawberry pickers of the Mississippi Valley comprise whites and Negroes; "solo's," gangs and family groups; men, women, and children. It is a motley crowd. N o t all of the pickers are migrants for local labor is used. Among the migrants are old timers and an increasing proportion of newcomers, consisting mostly of dispossessed cotton tenants. Thus, there is competition for work, and an element of conflict, between the locals and the migrants, and between the old timers and the newcomers to say nothing of racial rivalry. Some of the migrants who start the strawberry year in Florida cut across country to Arkansas, in order to avoid the Mississippi and Louisiana fields where Negroes predominate. Louisiana is the starting point of the Valley migration, which also draws from Texas and Oklahoma as well as from Florida. Numbers drop out in Arkansas and Missouri, Tennessee, or Kentucky, others continue. Down from the North to those states come migrants who follow the crop back into Illinois and Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. 44

Strawberries are not the only crop worked by these migrants. The Mississippi Valley has large acreages of vegetables and tree fruits which R. L. B. "Berry Picking," Rural New Yorker, L X X V I I (1928), 1049. R. G. Fuller, Children in Strawberries (New York, National Child Labor Committee, 1940), p. 8. 43

44

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S3

also require harvest labor for short periods. Many workers combine berries with other crops, thus producing cross currents and side eddies in the general movement northward. Even these subsidiary movements tend to persist through the years. Thus the migration of berry workers from southwest Missouri to the K a w Valley potato harvest—which we noted as having occurred in 1 9 1 3 — w a s noticed again in 1940 when the Missouri State Employment Service studied the movements of berry pickers out of the Ozark region. 45 It is on the Pacific Coast that we find the most intricate patterns of fruit and vegetable migration. If so minded, a worker can go from Arizona carrots to California peaches, then up to Oregon berries and Washington apples, and back again within a year. California alone offers rich variety of successive harvests. In the winter months Imperial County on the Mexican border gathers a large portion of the nation's fresh vegetables, while other southern California counties are producing large quantities of citrus fruit. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall the rest of the state joins the harvesting, the major areas being in the Coastal Valley between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the great San Joaquin Valley in the center of the state, and the Sacramento Valley in the north central part of the state. Area specialization in particular crops throughout the state, plus the keen race for market advantage, results in particularly sharp peaks and troughs of labor demand in many localities, and hence in large-scale need for outside workers. A Labor Department study summarized California migration in the late 1930's as follows: The most heavily traveled route stretches from the Imperial Valley, in the extreme southeastern part of the State, to the San Joaquin Valley, in the center, and further to the Sacramento Valley, in the north. . . . Winter work concentrates in the Imperial Valley. As the harvests of lettuce and peas begin to diminish in March, and again after the Imperial Valley melon season ends in June, the greatest numbers of migratory workers move northward across the Techachapi Mountains to thin the apricots and peaches of Tulare, Kings, and Fresno Counties of the San Joaquin Valley, and of Yolo and Sacramento County, farther to the north. Work may also be found in the asparagus and pea fields of the Sacramento Valley. The picking of the apricots and peaches lasts until August. 45

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X X I I I , 8865.

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From July to October, the grape harvest rises to a great peak, drawing into Fresno and the Central San Joaquin Valley most of the laborers who have been scattered throughout other parts of the State during the orchard fruit season. During this grape harvest, in September or October, the cotton harvest begins in the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley and moves northward along the west side of the valley with the opening of the cotton bolls. As the grape harvest wanes, some of the migratory workers return southward to work in the citrus and walnut groves of San Bernardino, Riverside, and Santa Barbara Counties. Others return after the first cotton picking to reach the November and December pea harvests of the Imperial Valley. . . . Of those who finish cotton, some wait until March or April for the opening of the pea harvest of the central coast region, while other workers first journey south to Imperial Valley for work in lettuce and late peas from December until perhaps February. This completes the annual cycle, and the migratory workers are ready to go north again, 3 so miles or more, to the work in fruits, mentioned at the beginning, or to the lettuce and pea harvest of the coastal region as it moves northward through San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Alameda, and San Mateo.46 But this describes only the major movements. Many other combinations of crops are annually observed. Some orange pickers manage to get employment all year round by working in the Tulare navel orange harvest in the San Joaquin Valley during November and December, and the Valencia and navel orange harvests in southern California the rest of the year. Other workers combine the lettuce, citrus, berry, and pea harvests of southern California with the cotton and vegetable work of Arizona's Salt River Valley.

The actual number

of routes followed by pickers and their families is uncountable, since it changes each year with alterations in plantings, weather, and wage rates in different crops. Before 1920 migration through California was largely by single men who moved by train, freight car, wagon, bicycle, or on foot. Native white men were the earliest of these wanderers, but between 1880 and 1900, Chinese workers—released by the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad—did the bulk of seasonal fruit and vegetable work. As they grew older and new recruits to their ranks were barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1 8 8 1 , the slack was taken up by Japanese workers who came over by the thousands in the late 1890's and early 1900's 46

U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration, X , 4134.

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SS

until their immigration was halted by the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. Several thousand Hindus arrived between 1905 and 1910, but employers found them much less satisfactory than the two earlier groups and their movement to this country soon ceased. Italians, Dalmatians, Armenians, Greeks, Spaniards, and other European immigrant groups were also used after 1900, but were usually important only in a few crops or areas. T h e predominance of Japanese labor in this period is proven by a 1909 investigation of 2,369 large farms owned by white men which showed the Nipponese to constitute between 40 and 85 percent of the labor supply used for berries, citrus fruits, deciduous fruits, grapes, and vegetables. Japanese who owned farms employed their countrymen almost exclusively. T h e total number of Japanese farmers and agricultural laborers in California in 1909 was put at 30,000 by the Immigration Commission. Popularity of the Japanese among California farmers was based on a number of factors: Like the Chinese, they worked in groups headed by a boss or club secretary who negotiated with the employer and provided all the workers needed whenever and wherever they were required. In many areas all the farmer had to do was to get in touch with the local Japanese contractor and his labor-supply problem was solved. Secondly, the Japanese were willing at first to work for lower wages than any other large group available, and it was this undercutting of competing groups that frequently gave them their initial entrance into this labor market. Once they had established themselves as the chief or only labor groups, however, they often became much less tractable and successfully demanded higher wages. Third, they boarded themselves thus relieving the employer of a function he usually was forced to perform for white laborers. When the employer provided housing, he knew the Japanese would accept quarters inferior to those demanded by white men. Finally, the Japanese were willing to do back-breaking stoop labor which other groups refused. 47 Japanese migration throughout the state was no hit-or-miss affair during this period, but had a good deal of organization and information to guide it. In each part of the state where Japanese worked they were organized either into a club headed by a secretary or in a gang under U. S. Industrial Commission, Reports,

Part 25, passim.

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a Japanese contractor. In either case the head of the organization got jobs for the members and received a commission from them. When the demand for labor exceeded the local supply, he sought Japanese workers from other areas, often securing them by correspondence with other leaders whose areas had relatively slack periods when his locality was at its peak. When jobs declined in his area, it was the outsiders who left first, often going to other jobs secured for them by their own boss or secretary. When members of the local group had to look elsewhere for jobs, the local boss or secretary knew what areas needed workers since he was in contact with them. In this way there was a state-wide exchange of information on employment opportunities in different localities and each had a supply of Japanese workers that fluctuated

with its labor needs. During the winter, when farm jobs

were few, the Japanese migrants returned to their home clubs and communities, doing such casual jobs as they could pick up in the residential districts. 48 With the cessation of Japanese workers' immigration after the Gentlemen's Agreement, the importance of Japanese as farm laborers began to decline. M a n y of them became farm operators, starting out as sharecroppers and working themselves up to renters and owners. When legal obstacles were placed in their way by California's Alien Land Laws, these were circumvented in one way or another, frequently by registering land in the name of American-born children. Between 1910 and 1920 the number of Japanese farm operators in California increased from 1,816 to 5,152- Of those who remained farm laborers after 1910, the great majority worked for their countrymen and hence were not part of the supply of labor for white growers. M a n y of the former Japanese farm workers also left agriculture during this decade to secure city jobs. 49 The predominant migratory worker group in California between 1910 and 1920 seems again to have been composed of single itinerant white workers, called variously "tramps," "hobos," "fruit tramps," 48 Yamato Ichihashi, Japanese in the United States (Palo Alto, Stanford University Press, 1932), pp. 173-74. 49 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations oj Free Speech and Rights of Labor. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, 76th Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1940), LIV, 19831-33.

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"blanket m e n " — f r o m their custom of carrying their own sleeping blankets with them—and "bindle stiffs." When the Industrial Relations Commission investigated California migration in 1914, growers complained of the surplus of labor facing them. T h e y no longer had to advertise for workers, so many came offering their services. Carleton H. Parker of the California Immigration and Housing

Commission

testified that between 50,000 and 60,000 seasonal agricultural laborers had hibernated in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento during the winter of 1913-14, and that about 10,000 of them were destitute because of lack of employment. He reported that the summer of 1914 had been marked particularly by unemployment of those seeking agricultural jobs, and where formerly the itinerant worker used to come to the cities with from forty to one hundred dollars saved up for the winter, he would face the next winter with little or nothing saved in most cases. 50 A f t e r 1920, the importance of these men as field workers diminished relatively, but they clearly dominated many of the skilled packing occupations and followed the harvests for work in the packing houses rather than in the fields. M a n y did both types of work during the year. While the freight car has always occupied an important role in the movement of these workers, after 1920 many of them moved by automobile, either alone or in groups. Since their numbers fluctuated directly with the rise and fall of industrial unemployment, they became very important again after 1929. During the First World War, the manpower requirements of the Army and war industry depleted this former abundant supply

of

white workers, and California's growers had to draw upon another group of seasonal laborers. Mexicans had been used for many years in southern California, where they had been drawn from towns and cities. From 1917 to 1920 growers all over the state turned to them, and thousands were imported from Mexico when the United States Government eased its head tax and other immigration requirements. After 1920 many more came in, some legally, others illegally. While many went back to Mexico each winter, others settled in California's cities, getting jobs as unskilled laborers or securing relief until spring 5 0 U. S. Congress, Senate, Final Report and Testimony, Industrial Commission. Senate Document 415. (Washington, 1916), passim.

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brought increased employment opportunities. All through the

1920's

California's large farmers battled every congressional bill to stop their free access to Mexico's workers, arguing that the state's agriculture would collapse without this labor. While thousands of single Mexicans were trucked about the state each year, Mexicans introduced a new element into California's migratory population—the migratory family. Equipped with a five or ten year old car, Mexican families and their household goods moved from place to place, seeking jobs for children as well as for adults. T h e rise in importance of Mexican workers can be judged from the fact that in 1 9 1 5 they comprised only 7 percent of all workers in migratory labor camps inspected by the California Immigration and Housing Commission, while in 1 9 2 9 they comprised over 3 1 percent of the group. In 1928 the California Department of Industrial Relations studied the non-white labor used in the state's intensive crops and found that more than half of the non-whites used in production of grapes and deciduous fruit, three-fourths of those used in citrus fruit growing, and over 60 percent of the foreign-born laborers in truck crop production were Mexicans. 5 1 Twenty years before, the Immigration Commission had found these same intensive crops dominated similarly by

Japanese

workers. Professor R . L . Adams, an outstanding expert on California agriculture, explained why the Mexican was the principal source of seasonal labr in the state: He will do tasks that white workers will not or cannot do. He will work under climatic and working conditions, such as excessive heat, dust, isolation, and temporary employment; conditions that are often too trying for white workers. He is available in numbers for the large holdings and for farms where the housing and boarding conditions cannot be ideal. He will work in gangs. He will work under direction, taking orders, and suggestions. He is not expensive labor. 52 An Imperial Valley farmer put the matter somewhat differently: Mexicans are very satisfactory. They offer no disciplinary problem, but require constant supervision and driving. Mexican laborers do not possess 51

U . S. Congress, Senate, Violations 0} Free Speech and Rights of Labor, LIV, 19842-75. 52 R. L. Adams, Common Labor Needs of California Crops (Berkeley, University of California College of Agriculture, 1930), p. 44.

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initiative, but that's no criticism of them from our point of view. They do with grace what we tell them to do, and we don't have to be too particular about the way we tell them." The crux of Mexican desirability, therefore, was their availability in abundant numbers, and their willingness to do back-breaking work at wages the growers found satisfactory. Before 1930 many of them migrated annually from Mexico to the San Joaquin Valley and other intensive producing areas of the state, returning across the border when the season was finished. Others had settled permanently in the United States and started their yearly travels from a base in southern California. Thousands wintered in the Imperial Valley, where they secured agricultural income, but lived chiefly on what they had saved from their earnings during the rest of the year. Still others lived in Los Angeles and other large cities doing whatever casual unskilled industrial or construction work they could find, or subsisting on relief. The importance of public aid for these low-income workers is indicated by data submitted in 1926 to Congress by California's governor. Los Angeles at that time had 7 percent of its population listed as Mexican. But Mexicans constituted over a quarter of the city's relief cases, and consumed over half the budget of the Bureau of Catholic Charities. In Orange County, where Mexicans formed 10 percent of the population, they constituted half the cases of the County Aid Commission and one-third its charity hospital patients. 54 Filipino males in the most productive age groups entered California by the thousands during the 1920's, and soon formed another important element in the state's fruit and vegetable migratory labor force. Many came directly from the Philippine Islands, while others emigrated via the Hawaiian Islands, where they had been employed on the large sugar cane plantations. In the main, their coming was a voluntary migration inspired by hope of economic advancement, the opportunity for higher education, and the allurements put forth by agents for steamship companies seeking passengers. California growers, apprehensive 6 3 P. S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States. Vol. 1 : Imperial Valley (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1930), p. 41. 54

U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, LIII.

19453-

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over efforts to curb their free access to Mexico's labor market, also encouraged the Filipinos' coming. Once they arrived in the United States, however, the Filipinos found their employment opportunities circumscribed by racial prejudice and their lack of industrial skills. T o secure their daily bread they had to accept menial jobs in the cities, or seasonal agricultural labor. Over a period of years they developed specialties and secured dominance over certain areas of employment. Lettuce harvesting in the Salinas district and asparagus cutting in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta— both "stoop" jobs of the most tiring sort—became almost Filipino monopolies during much of the 1930's. They worked also in most of the other fruit and vegetable harvests of the state. Many of them, to get something approaching a full year's employment, combined work in the truck gardens and orchards with trips to the Alaska salmon canneries ; others secured jobs as porters and busboys in the cities. The importance of this sort of work to the Filipinos can be seen from the fact that of 21,476 male laborers of this nationality counted by the Census in 1930, 17,644 considered their primary occupation farm labor. The great majority of them were in California, and had arrived since 1920." Like the Chinese and Japanese before them, both the Mexican and Filipino workers operated largely under the guidance of labor contractors, who often boarded, lodged, and transported the workers, and provided them with jobs. Usually the contractor received payment from both workers and employers. Most of the Mexicans or Filipinos were organized under contractors of their nationality in groups that included only their fellow countrymen, though occasionally a gang of mixed workers could be found. The harvesting of peas, lettuce, and asparagus was almost entirely dominated by contractors in the 1920's and 1930's and they were common in most other California crops using large numbers of seasonal workers. The chief exception to this was the picking of citrus fruits, where most of the work was done by crews employed by local packing houses. The crew foreman was 55 Ibid., pp. 19857-59, and B . T. Catapusan, "The Social Adjustment of Filipinos in the United States" (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Sociology, University of Southern California, 1940), passim.

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merely another employee and not the go-between for workers

61 and

employers with respect to bargaining and disputes. A major reason for this was the anxiety of the large grower cooperatives to assure themselves of a uniformly high quality product which could be marketed under the widely advertised brand name, "Sunkist." B y hiring the pickers they secured complete control over the harvest and also took the burden of this work from the shoulders of their members who owned groves. All fruit harvested by these picking crews was subjected to rigid and frequent inspections to maintain quality, something that would have been more difficult if the contractor existed to intervene between worker and employer. 56 Economic depression during the early thirties greatly increased the number of workers seeking California's seasonal farm jobs. T h e competition between native white workers and Mexicans and Filipinos increased greatly, since the white workers were now willing to accept the " s t o o p " jobs they had once disdained. A s the surplus of these workers rose, unemployment also increased while wages and incomes plummeted downward. A t times actual physical violence was inflicted upon foreign workers by their white competitors. T o ease the pressure and alleviate the economic distress of its citizens, the Mexican government inaugurated a large-scale repatriation program. In the fiscal years 1931-33 inclusive, over 70,000 Mexicans left the United States, while over the entire decade more than 100,000 went back to their native land. A large percentage of these came from California. A f t e r 1929, too, new Mexican emigration to the United States was sharply curtailed as border authorities were instructed to refuse admittance to Mexicans who might become public charges in this country, a category into which virtually all the potential fruit and vegetable workers fell. Filipinos also departed from this country in large numbers during the 1930's, particularly after 1934, when they were offered free transportation back to the Philippine Islands. In the fiscal years 1935-39 inclusive, 11,642 Filipinos left the United States. A t the same time the immigration laws were changed to end their unrestricted entrance and 50

Fogelberg and M c K a y , op. til., p. 48.

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put them on a quota basis which permitted only a small number to enter annually. 57 During the early 1930's, California fruit and vegetable industry had abundant labor to replace the departing foreigners. American-born workers were glad to get field jobs during these dark years. As industrial employment increased in 1935 and afterward, however, farmers feared they would be faced with serious labor shortages. At this point, the "Okies" and "Arkies" entered the picture. These were one-time farmers, farm workers, and small-town business men from the Southwest, who had been uprooted either by crop failure resulting from drought or by the displacement of cotton sharecroppers and tenants as tractors were used to till more southwestern cotton acres. A study of 6,655 migrant households in California in 1938 showed that 42 percent had come from Oklahoma, 16 percent from Texas,

11

percent from Arkansas, and the rest from Missouri, Kansas, and adjacent states. The overwhelming majority of them were native whites who had lived in their home states for 20 years or more before migrating. Forced out by natural or man-made catastrophe, they placed their meager possessions in and on top of their "jalopies" and started driving across Highway 66 to California, the land of opportunity and a new start. Over 200,000 of them entered the state in the two years after June, 1935. 5 8 Since most of the newcomers had farm backgrounds, California farm operators early realized that here was a new supply of mobile labor to replace the departing Mexicans and Filipinos. Hence many soon found themselves established as migratory farm laborers, going from one end of the state to the other with their families and their goods, following the trails blazed by the Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Filipinos, and native whites and the Mexican families before them. Faced by conditions of low incomes, poor housing, little educational opportunity for their children, and scant chance of rising to higher status, they were unhappy, but many had no alternative. They had 57 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights o) Labor, LIII, 19716-17. 56 A Study of 665s Migrant Households in California (San Francisco, Farm Security Administration, 1939), passim.

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

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63

few industrial skills, and California's cities usually had large numbers of unemployed during the late 1930's so that these newcomers could not be absorbed even at unskilled labor. The reaction of California's large farm employers to their coming was a mixed one. They were happy, of course, to see the increase in the number of available farm workers. On the other hand, they wondered how these Americans would react to conditions built up with peon labor. Most of all, these employers realized that the newcomers had votes and might soon satisfy the residence requirements necessary for the franchise, thus becoming politically important. One representative of the employers predicted gloomily: "The white transients are not tractable labor. Being American citizens, they are going to demand the so-called American standards of living . . . they are going to be the finest pabulum for unionization . . . They are not going to be satisfied with 160 working days." 59 But these fears turned out to be largely unfounded. Slowly at first, but more rapidly after the defense program began, jobs and training programs opened in aircraft plants and shipyards all over California. Soon the newcomers were absorbed by California industry. It was this exodus from agriculture in 1940 and 1941 that prompted the agitation which caused the importation of Mexican workers by the United States government in 1942. For the latter, of course, this represented an ironical 360-degree turn of the wheel: importation in the 1920's; repatriation or deportation in the 1930's; importation once again in the 1940's. Development of twelve-month fruit and vegetable migrations in Washington and Oregon is made impossible by the climate. Nevertheless these states have been accustomed to using many migratory workers, the great majority of them native whites. The apple crops in the Yakima and Wenatchee Valleys of central Washington use the largest number of fruit migrants at harvest in September and October. Migratory workers round out their schedules by working in Oregon's Willamette Valley spring vegetable or berry crops and picking Yakima hops just before the apple season begins. They either spend the winter G9

U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations 0} Free Speech and Rights of LIII, 19680.

Labor,

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and early spring in one of the Pacific Northwest's cities or go south. Those who go south live in a California city for the winter or try to get seasonal jobs in southern California, the Imperial Valley, or in Arizona's Salt River Valley. Forty-eight such migratory families studied in the Y a k i m a Valley during 1935-36 had traveled an average of 1,226 miles during the preceding year, two families exceeding 4,000 miles each. For many years some families have rounded out a complete year's migratory activity b y a triangular movement.

They dig clams in

Washington during the winter; pick peas and cherries in Oregon's Columbia River Valley during the spring and early fall; and pick peaches, plums, apples, and hops in the Yakima Valley from mid-July to early November. 8 0 Drought refugees and others displaced from mid-western farm areas came to the Pacific Northwest in large numbers during the late 1930's, many joining the fruit and vegetable migrants. Most of these people came from the more northern states of the drought area, particularly the Dakotas and Nebraska. Many of these workers took up parcels of land and became part-time farmers, as well as migratory laborers. For the purpose of exposition, the preceding account of the fruit and vegetable industry's labor supply has been in terms of broad types, with urban workers and their families, low-income rural people, and migrants being considered separately. Of course at any given time, the work on a particular crop in a given locality is likely to be done by members of all three groups, though the relative importance of each varies from year to year. T h e Yakima apple crop, for instance, is picked partly by people from Seattle, Portland, and Spokane who do no other farm work all year round. Small farmers and lumbermen from all parts of Washington also flock to the four or six weeks' work available here. And finally there are the long-distance migrants who regard the work in this district as merely another stop in their endless succession of moves. 81 In times of great unemployment, the number of people wanting this work is likely to increase so that members of all three groups 60 Carl F. Ruess, Professional Migratory Farm Labor Households (Pullman, Washington State College, 1938). 9 1 Richard Wakefield and Paul H. Landis, "Types of Migratory Farm Laborers and Their Movement into the Yakima Valley, Washington," Rural Sociology, III (June, 1938), 133-44-

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

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65

glut the labor market. This happened in 1 9 3 1 and 1932 all over the country. Conversely, in times of general prosperity and high employment—as in 1920 and 1942—all three sources of labor dry up to some extent. In 1942, for example, not only were the armed services drawing from all elements of the population, but city workers usually had full time jobs without seasonal unemployment and small fanners were either busy producing greater crops than ever before or were flocking to urban communities to take their pick of jobs in war industries. Migrants in that year often found the barriers of racial prejudice and lack of industrial skills no longer blocking them from more remunerative work, while even those who wished to continue as farm laborers found difficulty in securing means of transportation. It was these factors that produced the concern over the seasonal labor supply for this industry and required emergency action. It has been pointed out above that much of the seasonal labor supply for fruit and vegetable work has always consisted of women and children, as well as of unskilled male labor. While the work to be done is often hard and tiring, it can be done with greater or less efficiency by anyone of average intelligence and physical strength. This fact helps explain the key role played by emergency city workers in meeting the shortages of seasonal labor which were encountered in both the First and Second World Wars. All over the country, Boy Scout troops. Women's Land Army contingents, high school Victory Corps, and the like went to the fields to bring in the tomatoes, cherries, beans, and other crops. At times whole towns shut down their businesses and offices and streamed to the fields to meet the growers' cry for help. "Stoop labor" in crops like strawberries or asparagus—formerly looked down upon because of the large number of colored and foreign workers who customarily performed it—was reinstated socially, and city men, women, and children did this back-breaking work under broiling suns as their patriotic contributions to the war effort. The important contributions made by high school and college students were particularly conspicuous in both conflicts. During 1917-18 the Boys' Working Reserve mobilized 21,000 boys in Illinois, 10,000 in Connecticut, 12,000 in New York, and 15,000 in Indiana, all of whom worked on farms, usually as seasonal workers. Its members saved the Georgia apple crop

FRUIT

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AND VEGETABLE

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and many of Oregon's berries, as well as harvesting large acreages of cherries, plums, apricots, and grapes in California. 62 In 1942, 1943, and 1944 a similar story was repeated with thousands of these volunteers enrolling in the United States Crop Corps and marching to the fields at the times of greatest need. Without this activity, there might have been sharp drops in vital fruit and vegetable production. T o replace a large segment of the Atlantic Coast and West Coast migratory labor forces, foreign workers were imported in 1943 and 1944. Between June, 1943, and April, 1944, from 3,000 to 5,000 Bahama Negroes worked each month up and down the eastern coast, picking vegetables and fruit, first in Florida, then in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and New York, and then back to Florida again to start a new trek. Workers from Jamaica labored mainly in sugar beet production, but 3,600 of them helped New Jersey and N e w York fruit and vegetable growers during summer and fall, while several hundred got as far north as Aroostook County to pick potatoes during the record 1943 harvest there. Mexican nationals imported in 1943 and 1944 also worked primarily in sugar beet production, but thousands were employed to pick oranges, carrots, apples, and similar crops in the Western States, particularly California, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. 63 Perhaps the most significant aspect of the employment of these imported fruit and vegetable workers was the mode of their use. T h e y were used as a "Land A r m y " and shifted from place to place as they finished one area's crop and were needed elsewhere. The availability of these mobile groups which could be sent almost overnight to emergency districts was of the greatest importance in saving key crops; this mobility also made possible maximum employment

for

these

workers. But all this was in striking contrast to the pre-Pearl Harbor migrations, for the latter were unguided trips by thousands of individuals and families, many of whom had little or no information regarding job opportunities at their destination. The partial organization of farm labor migration during the Second World War has obvious implications for efforts to improve conditions of farm work—both for farmers needing seasonal labor and for those seeking such work. 6 2 U. S. Congress, House, Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, 77th Congress, 1st Session, House Report N o . 369 (Washington, 1941), pp. 172-73. 83

Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Farm Labor

(April 14, 1944), PP- 8, 9.

3 THE ECONOMICS OF FRUIT VEGETABLE LABOR

I

AND

N THE PRECEDING chapter, attention was directed primarily at seasonal fruit and vegetable workers, with particular reference to the composition of this group and its changing character over the

past few decades. In the present chapter the primary focus will be upon the economic forces which shape grower-worker relationships in the seasonal labor market. A necessary preliminary to the delineation of these forces is the consideration of the employer side of the picture. The attitudes of fruit and vegetable growers in regard to seasonallabor employment arise out of the key role of labor in fruit and vegetable production and the strategic position of labor costs in the financial complex that motivates employer decisions. Harvest labor is particularly vital in most fruit and vegetable output. Unless it is available in adequate amounts when the product is ripe, the crop soon becomes unsalable, and all the work and investment expended have been in vain. Further, in the case of fresh fruits and vegetables, the frequent sharp variations in price from day to day or week to week offer a threat and a challenge to the grower. If he can arrange to have his product gathered and shipped to market so that it is sold at a time of high prices, his profits may be enormous. If labor problems impede his harvest so that the bulk of his produce is marketed at a time of low prices, he may lose heavily. Seasonal harvest labor is clearly a key element in the production picture. The role of labor costs deserves close attention. In the first place, these costs are usually substantial elements in the production of most fruits and vegetables, although their percentage importance in the total production-cost picture varies from product to product and from year to year. The available cost-of-production data are fragmentary and frequently do not separate labor costs from other costs, but some ex-

68

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amples of the importance of labor costs may be given. A 1928 investigation of strawberry production costs in several eastern and southern areas found that labor costs were from 25 to 40 percent of all costs studied, with harvest labor costs most important. 1 From 1926 to 1943, the rate for picking California Thompson seedless grapes has been from 8.3 to 22.5 percent of the price received by the grower, usually being more than 10 percent of the grower price. 2 Asparagus illustrates the extreme importance which labor costs may reach in a particular crop. In the San Joaquin-Sacramento area of California in 1943 harvest labor costs alone on owner-operated prime beds composed more than 50 percent of production costs, while total labor costs on owner-operated prime beds were about 65 percent of all expenses. 3 These data illustrate clearly the importance of labor costs, particularly harvest labor costs, in the total financial picture facing fruit and vegetable growers. Particularly strategic is the time at which the heaviest labor costs of many fruits and vegetables are incurred, that is, at harvest. When a crop is ready to be gathered, all the previous c o s t s — f o r fertilizer, seed, orchard planting, cultivation, and so forth—have already been paid out, and the farmer can do nothing about them. T h e y are in the nature of overhead costs. T h e difference between these fixed costs per unit of output and price per unit represents the margin from which profit must come. B u t before the farmer can secure a profit, the harvest must take place, that is, some additional cost must be incurred to gather the crop. Obviously it is at this point that the psychological pressure to keep costs down is at its maximum. Where the sale price of his product is low, the farmer may face the problem of minimizing losses rather than of maximizing gains. When this is true, he will harvest his crop only if he can get a price promising some return over his harvest costs and thus covering at least some of the pre-harvest expense. 1 A. P. Brodell, Cost of Production Statistics of Strawberries in Southern and Eastern States (Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1929), passim. 2 W . H . Metzler, Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling on Picking Sun-Dried Raisin Grapes: California, 1Q43 (Berkeley, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944), p. 40. 3W. H. Metzler, Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling in the Asparagus Industry, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 1943 (Berkeley, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1943), p. 24.

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69

If the price is so low as to make return of even harvest cost unlikely, the grower will not even bother to gather his crop, leaving it on the field and taking his loss. This has happened often in different parts of the country, particularly in areas producing out-of-season crops for long-distance shipment and subject to competition from other producing areas. In the Lake Okeechobee region of Florida, for instance, as much as 50 percent of the bean crop went unharvested in some years of the middle 1930's because of low prices. 4 A third factor that has determined the role of labor costs in grower calculations is the fact that farm wage rates are usually far more subject to grower decisions than most other prices farmers pay. Taxes, interest on investment, irrigation assessments, rent, and other similar costs usually cannot be changed at all within a crop season, regardless of what happens to farm prices and grower incomes. Freight charges, farm machinery costs, prices for fertilizer, insecticide, containers, and other important materials also change very slowly and frequently remain unaltered by changes in farmers' profit prospects. T o the grower, these prices appear largely as fixed items, constants which must be accepted as they are in his calculation, since he can do nothing to change them in the short run. But wages are quite different in most years, since they can be, and frequently have been, changed by grower effort. In buying farm machinery from a few large,

financially

strong com-

panies, for instance, the individual grower has little to say about the price he will pay. When buying the labor of unorganized competing workers, however, the grower is frequently in a strategic position to manipulate wages so that they will help ease the impact of changes in his own price and income outlook, minimizing or eliminating losses he would otherwise suffer because of the inflexibility of his other costs. The discussion above has emphasized the great importance of labor costs in the calculations of fruit and vegetable growers, an importance born of the significant ratio of labor costs to all costs, of the time when the decision is made to incur major labor costs, and of the relative flexibility

of wages in most years compared to other prices growers

4 U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration. Hearings before the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, 77th Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1943), X X X I I I , 12592.

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must pay. From these factors flows the natural determination of growers to hold the upper hand in the labor market, to retain control over the size of this cost factor as a means of assuring profits (or at least of minimizing losses). In the remainder of this chapter, therefore, we shall be concerned with employer-employee relations in the fruit and vegetable field, studying the techniques employers have used in the effort to retain control, as well as the efforts that workers have made to obtain greater bargaining strength. Perhaps the most obvious means of securing control over labor costs is for employers to band together to fix wages. A few examples may be cited to illustrate how widely this is done. California's grape industry has a long history of grower cooperation to set wages. As early as 1892 it is reported that 200 raisin growers met in Fresno County, California, to set rates for the coming grape harvest. In 1923 the Valley Fruit Growers Association set wages for grape harvest work in the entire San Joaquin Valley. Since the late 1920's the function of wage setting has been assumed by a grower organization called the San Joaquin Valley Labor Bureau which has held annual meetings of grape producers to vote on rates to be paid each season.5 A recent government report has described how these rates were arrived at: Wage rates in the [grape] industry are commonly established with the assistance of the San Joaquin Valley Labor Bureau. This organization, established in 1926, has held meetings of growers at the beginning of each season. A base rate is agreed on at these meetings and considerable pressure is exerted to hold growers to it during the season. The rate is usually arrived at by estimating the price that growers are likely to receive for their crop in any one year and calculating wage rates accordingly. Consideration is also given to the probable supply of labor, wage rates in competing industries, and other factors that enter into the situation.6 But grapes are not the only California crop where grower wage setting has been prevalent. For example, producers of asparagus and other 5

"California's Farm Labor Problem," Transactions of the Commonwealth Club, X X X , No. 5 (April 7, 1933), 176; Pacific Rural Press, CVI (1923), 316; U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, 76th Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1940), LIV, 20047. 8 W. H. Metzler, Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling on Picking Sun-Dried Raisin Grapes: California, 1943, pp. 14, 15.

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71

vegetable crops in California's coastal region formed the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California in 1930. One of their first actions as an organized group was to agree on a wage cut for workers in the Salinas-Watsonville area. 7 Other states besides California have witnessed similar grower action to set wages. In Anne Arundel County, Maryland, growers in 1928 agreed among themselves to cut the strawberry picking rate from two and a half cents a quart, the 1927 rate, to two cents a quart. 8 In Washington for many years wages for the Puyallup Valley berry harvest and the Yakima and Wenatchee Valley apple harvests were set by the fruit growers associations in each district.® In the early 1920's New Jersey farmers were reported as having often tried to set wages through their county Boards of Agriculture. 10 In 1942, a Florida bean grower from the Lake Okeechobee district told the Tolan Committee that growers had met together before the bean harvest and signed an agreement to maintain a prearranged picking price. 1 1 The tendency for many groups of fruit and vegetable growers to band together annually for joint wage fixing is strengthened by the frequent grouping of farmers to attain other ends. A local Farm Bureau or Farm Grange is a convenient organization for bringing farmers together to discuss wages. Many fruit and vegetable growing areas have cooperative shipping and marketing organizations, and these, too, facilitate farmer cooperation in setting wages at "reasonable" levels. Where farmers in a particular district grow a product for a cannery or other processing plant, the processor has an interest in urging them to band together to control wages, since such control helps assure his producers' profit and their continued production. With all these mechanisms available to facilitate grower unity in wage action, and with the urgent need, from the grower's viewpoint, for such unity to protect his 7 U. S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Committee on Education and Labor. Senate Report No. 1150, 77th Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1942), IV, 444. 8 Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Statistics, Berry and Vegetable Pickers in Maryland Fields (Baltimore, 1929), p. 7. 9 Marion Hathaway, The Migratory Worker and Family Life (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1934), pp. 73-76. 10 J . C. Folsom, Truck Farm Labor in New Jersey, 1922. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 1285 (Washington, 1925), p. 28. 11 U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X X X I I I , 12671.

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profit outlook, there is little reason to wonder that grower cooperation in fixing wages was, and is, frequent. This grower desire for freedom of action in the matter of wages and wage policy was in part responsible for the bitter opposition aroused by the Farm Security Administration in 1942 and 1943 when it sought to attach certain minimum wage conditions to its program for transporting workers from other states or from other countries to areas needing seasonal harvest workers. Since the minimum wages were decided by government officials and others outside farmers' ranks, growers saw this government intervention as a threat to their control, even where the minimum wage set was not itself unsatisfactory. Grower dissatisfaction arose not only from the fact that a bottom was established below which they might not go if they so desired, but also because this seemed to threaten further government wage fixing after the war. It is interesting to note that after the passage of the Farm Labor Act of 1943 in the spring of that year, the determination of "prevailing wages" to be paid foreign and domestic workers transported under this act came largely under the control of growers in each community. In this way grower wage fixing action received government sanction and aid in making it effective. 12 Similarly, the government war program for regulating farm wages has in part become identified with farmer wage fixing. Thus, the government order setting ceiling wages for picking raisin grapes in 1943 specified exactly the same rates as those set by the growers acting through the San Joaquin Valley Labor Bureau. 13 This sort of government intervention strengthens growers' hands in fixing wage rates since it lends these rates legal sanction, and threatens severe fines or imprisonment for farmers willing to raise rates. Such one-sided government action— in which workers have had almost no representation to date—seems of questionable wisdom from a social viewpoint. But grower agreement on a level of wages alone is inadequate in 12

U. S. Congress, House, Farm Labor Program 1944. Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, 78th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, 1943), p. 60. 13 Metzler, op. cit., p. 36.

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LABOR

most cases to assure that labor costs will be satisfactory to farmers. If the level of wages set does not attract sufficient workers, there will be strong incentive for some growers, who fear the loss of their crop, to pay more than the amount agreed upon. And if some break the agreement, a wild scramble m a y ensue, with workers seeking employers paying the highest wages and farmers forced to raise their rates to hold their workers or to replace them. I n short, only the presence of sufficient workers to meet all needs a t the wage levels agreed upon can assure the effective operation of a grower wage compact. And the possibility of reducing wages exists only if there are enough laborers available to produce sharp competition for jobs. The same considerations

apply

also to the many areas

where

growers have not made any formal agreements. Here, too, the individual grower's control over the rate he pays depends upon the adequacy or superfluity of workers who seek employment

from him.

Fundamentally, the greatest assurance the grower can have of satisfactory wage rates is the presence of a greater number of workers than he actually needs so that he m a y keep the rate he pays at a level consistent with profit from changing market prices. Growers, therefore, have had every incentive to encourage

the

presence of maximum numbers of workers in their areas at harvest and other periods of peak seasonal labor need. In 1 9 2 5 an Oregon social worker put the matter in this fashion: The Oregon Department of Labor has estimated that we now have enough workers resident in the State to harvest all our crops if these workers were properly mobilized. . . . But it is a slow process to persuade some of our agricultural employers that they do not need a large surplus of floating labor in order to establish a reasonable wage scale. . . . Because our farmers still encourage applicants at the gate, word has gone out that there is plenty of work in Oregon for all who will drift in during the harvest. This has resulted in an intolerable burden on our charitable agencies which must take care of the workers who fail to find jobs. 14 Even earlier, in 1909, the Immigration Commission noted the tendency of California fruit growers " t o secure and retain as many persons as would be required under the circumstances which call for the greatest 14

L. F. Shields, "Problem of the Automobile 'Floater,'" Monthly Review, X X I , No. 4 (Oct., 1925), 13-14.

Labor

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haste in harvesting the crop," 1 5 that is, to encourage the accumulation of a surplus labor supply. A government committee which investigated an Imperial Valley strike in early 1934 made this comment on the problem: T h e thousands of m e n who enter the Imperial Valley glut the labor market in average years, and especially when business is dull. . . . T h e growers are in no w a y responsible for these business cycles, but occasionally we were told of the necessity of having available men in sufficient numbers to pick a h e a v y crop or t o m e e t various contingencies.

P u t another w a y , the word

conveyed to us at times, was that two or three men for each job was about right.

F r o m the standpoint of lettuce, peas, and cantaloupes, this m a y be

sound doctrine. V i e w e d f r o m the economic and social needs of unemployed men with their w i v e s and children, we are of the opinion that a better w a y should be devised. 1 6

Growers have had other reasons besides control of their labor costs to induce them to encourage the gathering of maximum numbers of workers seeking seasonal jobs. The perishability of their crops and the wide swings in fruit and vegetable prices also put a premium upon immediate availability of workers. A further incentive is grower belief that much of their seasonal labor force is irresponsible and likely to leave upon little or no notice, so that constant availability of replacement workers is essential. How irresponsible some growers believe their workers to be is illustrated by a group of bean growers in one Lake Okeechobee district who ascribed their successful retention of a labor supply in the 1943-44 season to the fact that a traveling circus was in the area for twelve weeks. Each night their workers spent the day's wages there; penniless, they had to come back to work the next morning. 1 7 All these factors combine to increase grower encouragement of worker arrival, so that in periods of peace and moderate or great urban unemployment many more workers are frequently available than would be needed if each worker were employed steadily. T o the extent that employers have succeeded in attracting larger numbers of seasonal workers than have been required, the effect has 15U.

S. Immigration Commission, Reports (Washington, 1911), X X V , 183. U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, L I V , 30048. 17 Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), May 2, 1944. 18

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75

usually been to reduce the amount of employment secured by each worker, to maintain wages at low levels, and to keep down the incomes of workers doing this seasonal work. In addition, growers have been able to secure adequate numbers of workers without making expensive provision for housing, water supply, sanitary facilities, and other conditions of life and work. Moreover, they have been able to plan their operations with little reference to labor problems, selecting crops and crop practices which promised the most profit, undisturbed by the necessity of modifying plantings and planting schedules to minimize uneven labor use over the year. The degree of unemployment that exists among seasonal fruit and vegetable wage workers during a year differs from group to group in this heterogeneous population. Some idea of how great this is through the course of a year may be gained from a 1939 study of six groups of harvest migrants. Table 4 shows the place of work and occupation of each group when interviews were made, and the median amount of employment (in days) received by each group in the preceding twelve months. 18 TABLE 4 MEDIAN A N N U A L EMPLOYMENT OF SIX GROUPS OF H A R V E S T MIGRANTS I 9 3 9

Croup

Vegetable harvesters Citrus workers Bean pickers Vegetable harvesters Strawberry pickers Strawberry pickers

Place

Interviewed

Sanford, Fla. Lakeland, Fla. Belle Glade, Fla. Manatee, Fla. Hammond, La. Benton Cy., Ark.

Median Days Employed in Preceding ¡2 Months

134-7 224.6 233-8 180.2 178.1 143-9

These data show clearly the great amount of unemployment these workers have had to contend with in many peace years. It is significant that even the most fortunate group listed in the table worked only about 75 percent of the year (excluding Sundays) on the average, while the two least fortunate groups worked less than half the year. 1 8 U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration. Hearings before the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, 76th Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1940), II, 569.

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D a t a for an entire year, such as those given in Table 4, do not reveal fully the effects of the forces that make for less than full employment during a particular harvest period. These effects take various forms. Sometimes the presence of a surplus labor force permits a harvest to be finished in a week when it might have given a smaller group longer employment without loss to the farm operator. Sometimes it permits the grower to gather his crops for only a few hours during a day, leaving his work force without the chance to earn money over much of the day. Sometimes the assurance of adequate laborers permits a farmer to refuse to hire any workers until the moment he deems propitious, at which time he may hire many for just a day or two, although the laborers may have waited days and weeks for the job. The impact of these factors may be seen in a 1935-36 survey of resident workers in Washington's Yakima Valley, which found that even at the peak of the season these laborers were employed during only 70 percent of the available working time, while during the rest of the year they had work only for 20 to 60 percent of the time. 19 In the New Jersey potato fields, a 1941 study found that at times of low market prices, potato pickers got as little as one and two days work in two and three weeks, while farmers waited for higher prices. 20 In the aggregate, these forces have been responsible for substantial income and employment losses to hired farm workers during most peace years. Next we shall consider farm employer wage policy and its relationship to employer techniques of labor market control. This is complicated by the diversity of methods of wage payment for seasonal fruit and vegetable workers. Some operations are paid for on a time basis, some are paid for on a piece basis, and some are paid for by one method in some localities at some times and by another method in other localities or at other times. In general, the extra help required for preparing the soil, planting, or transplanting, is usually paid for by the hour or day. Cultivating operations, such as weeding onions, thinning lettuce, or pruning trees, may be paid for by the acre, row, or tree, or on a time 1 9 Paul H . Landis and Richard Wakefield, The Annual Employment Cycle of the Farm Labor Household (Pullman, State College of Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, 1938), p. 10. 20

U. S. Congress, House, National

Defense

Migration,

X I V , 5864.

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE LABOR

77

basis. Much harvest work—perhaps most—is paid by the unit of output, the box of oranges, the hamper of beans, the quart of strawberries, or the sack of potatoes, but the wage unit for this work may also be the hour or the day. In addition to their money wage, these seasonal workers sometimes receive board, lodging, or other perquisites in partial payment, but the value of these additions to their pay is usually small. Whether piece or time wages will be paid to seasonal workers is determined by a number of considerations. When a piece rate is paid for harvesting, the grower knows the workers will seek to produce as much as possible while they work so as to maximize their earnings. The rate per quart of strawberries or sack of potatoes is then a fixed amount, easily expressible as a percentage of market price. This lends itself to calculation and adjustment as market prices and labor conditions change during a season. This is an advantage from the grower's point of view. But a worker receiving a piece rate may cause the grower loss. In his eagerness to secure maximum earnings, he may pick only the most accessible fruit or vegetables, leaving large quantities unharvested. In his hurry, he may damage the product, lowering its grade and price, or making it entirely unsalable. Careless pickers may break tree branches, damage vines, or injure asparagus beds, thus reducing future yields as well as the present worth of the grower's property. Some of these difficulties can be reduced by close supervision and inspection, with penalties for careless workers, but on the other hand, once damage has been done it is usually irreparable. When the worker is paid by the hour or day, the grower fears a "slowdown" by the worker, who may seek to prolong his employment period. But this may be overcome by putting a crew under the leadership of a pace setter who knows through experience how rapidly the average worker can harvest without becoming careless. Where quality is an important consideration, there is particularly good reason to favor a time rate of pay for harvest work as against a piece rate. The factors suggested above must be taken into account in determining a mode of payment. Since their force varies from crop to crop and from time to time, modes of payment differ. Often the basis of payment becomes customary and is continued year after year without consideration of alternatives. In the more commercialized and large-

ECONOMICS

78

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

scale branches of the fruit and vegetable industry, however, frequent thought is given to mode of payment and some experimentation is carried on to determine the most satisfactory method. In orange growing, for example, where quality of output is very important, some employers use payment systems based upon both the number of oranges picked and their quality, thus giving the picker an incentive to consider both as he works. 21 An individual worker's preference as between time and piece rates will vary according to the earnings he anticipates from each mode of payment. Experienced and skilled workers often greatly prefer piece rates, since they know the knack of handling a particular product and can make much more money on a piece basis than on a time basis. Japanese harvesters in California during the first decade of this century sometimes went on strike demanding payment by the piece rather than by the hour or day. Instances are on record of workers making $50 and more a day when receiving piece rates for particular crops, but these are very exceptional.22 Conversely, the clumsy or inexperienced worker or one physically below par (such as a woman or a child) may make very little on a piece rate basis and will often desire a time rate. Studies of individual differences of hourly output at different harvest operations are few, but the ones available indicate high variability. A study made by the author from Farm Security Administration data collected in 1942 indicated that in typical groups of workers the ratio between the highest and lowest output per hour may be as high as s to 1 , and sometimes even 10 to 1, while ratios of 3 or 4 to 1 are common. With such wide variations existing in the abilities of individual workers, it can be easily seen that the desirability of any one mode of payment will be judged differently by workers with different degrees of skill. Data on time rates paid specifically to fruit and vegetable workers have never been collected, so that this industry's time wages are obscured in the time-rate data for all farm workers collected and published by the Department of Agriculture. Because of the lack of rele21

Agricultural Yearbook, 1925 (Washington, 1926), p. 629. W. T. Ham, "Stabilization of Farm Wages," The Agricultural Situation, X X V I I I , No. 1 (Jan., 1944), 19. 22

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

79

vant data on time rates, the discussion here will be confined to a study of piece wage

fluctuations.

Tracing and analyzing the movement of piece rates is a complex problem because rates differ for each individual crop operation. Then, too, rates for the same operation in different areas are frequently noncomparable because of different and unstandardized container sizes. Finally, data on most rates are extremely fragmentary. D a t a covering a relatively long period of years are, however, available on piece rates paid for two important operations in California—picking

Thompson

TABLE 5 W A G E R A T E S FOR PICKING THOMPSON SEEDLESS GRAPES AND FOR CUTTING WHITE A S P A R A G U S IN C A L I F O R N I A , 1 9 2 6 - 4 3 , AND P E R C E N T A G E S H A R V E S T W A G E R A T E S A R E OF PRICES R E C E I V E D B Y GROWERS

CRAPES YEAR

Picking Rale Per Tray (Cents)

WHITE

Percent Picking Rale is of Grower Price

Cutting Rate Per Cwt. (Dollars)

.90

1926

2-5

13-8

1927

2-5

1 5 0

1928

2-5

22.5

.90

1929

2-5

14-7

I93O

2-5

'5-2

.90 .70

1-75

10.5

.70

I93I 1932

15

13-8

"933

1-75

II.O

«934

' -5

'935

1-5

8.4 9.6 9.0

.90

.60 .60 .70 •75

ASPARACI'S

Percent Culling Rate Is of Grower Price

24 25

22 22 '7

l8 23 25

22 21

1-5

I 1.2

1-5

9-3

.80 .80 .80 .90 i . 00

1941 1942

2.0

8-3

i . 00

4-3

13-8

1.50

27

1943

5.0

11.6

2-75

31

1936

1-75

1937

>•75

10.0

1938

1-5

12.8

1939

1940

22 19 25 26 24

20

Sources: W. H. Metzler, Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling on Picking Sun-Dried Raisin Grapes: California, 1943, p. 40, and Analysis of the Operation of the Wage Ceiling in the Asparagus Industry, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 1943, p. 23.

80

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

seedless grapes and cutting white asparagus. These are presented in Table 5. The two series exhibited in Table 5 have several characteristics which may be representative of many other piece-rate series. First, the series in the table show great stability, wages often remaining unchanged over several years. In part this reflects the influence of custom over these rates; in part, too, this stability is probably due to organized farmer wage setting in both grape and asparagus growing. But some of the stability in the two series may be more apparent than real, for in any season there are always farmers who depart from the general rate. Nevertheless the series above probably represent fairly well the movements of these two rates. A second inference which can be drawn from the two series in Table 5, is that asparagus cutters probably have far greater bargaining strength than grape pickers. This difference arises from the nature of each task and of the workers involved. Grape picking is relatively simple and most workers can become moderately proficient at it quickly. It is an occupation, therefore, to which urban workers flock quickly in times of unemployment. As a consequence, the grape-picking rate dropped 40 percent between 1930 and 1932, and remained at a low level all through the depressed 1930's, rising again only after defense and war industry employment had made serious inroads into the usual reservoir of casual labor. Asparagus cutting, on the other hand, is not only hard, stoop labor which requires an appreciable amount of skill, but it is also a task which has been largely dominated by a cohesive minority group in the past decade. Acting together, both formally and informally, the Filipino asparagus workers in California succeeded in largely restricting this type of employment to their fellows during the 1930's. This same group solidarity enabled them to win relatively favorable wage treatment from growers. The asparagus rate in Table 5 did not fall as sharply, percentagewise, during the depression as the grapepicking rate. It had recovered to the predepression level by 1939, three years before the same mark was reached by the grape picking rate. Similarly the asparagus cutters' share of the grower's price did not drop as sharply as the corresponding share received by grape pickers. The data in Table 5 describe the movement of particular wage

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

81

rates over a number of years, but do not show the fluctuations in these rates within a particular season. Sometimes, of course, there is no change ; a rate is accepted at the beginning of work and is paid all the time the operation goes on. Frequently, however, rates change often during the course of a season. Changes in the numbers of workers available during the deal, changes in market price for the product which dictate an increase or decrease in the speed of harvesting, weather fluctuations which threaten to ruin an unpicked crop, competition from an adjoining area or from another crop needing workers simultaneously, all these factors usually produce piece-rate changes during a season. Where a market is subject to many of these forces, the rate may change from day to day, and sometimes between morning and afternoon of the same day. Under such conditions a good deal of inefficient use of labor often develops. If wages are rising, workers may quit their employer and go off hunting for better rates. If wages are falling, workers may quit their employer in protest, and take their chances on getting a better rate elsewhere. An important consequence of Federal price-wage ceilings in agriculture during 1943 and 1944 was their tendency to stabilize the labor force by convincing workers that they need not waste their time shopping around to get the best rate being paid. A field that has been relatively little explored is that of the relationship between a particular piece rate and the earnings and incomes possible therefrom. Some of the factors involved may be enumerated, however. Obviously a worker's skill and industry are important elements at all times, but they do not exhaust the group of forces involved. Another factor is the number of hours of work which can be obtained. This may be low because of agronomic or market influences. In peace time, many strawberry growers harvested only in the morning in order to get best market prices. Similarly, potatoes were often dug only in the morning and late afternoon in order to prevent injury which would result from their being baked by the hot afternoon sun. In both crops —as well as in many others—workers could not work as many hours a day as they wanted to. Sometimes a rise in a piece rate may actually tend to reduce workers' earnings. This occurs if the increase attracts so many additional workers that the amount of employment available

82

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

to each one drops. T h e condition of the crop is another important factor that must be taken into account when relating piece rates with earnings. A worker picking a bean field over for the first time can often earn more at 25c a hamper than if he receives 35c a hamper for a second picking. In picking grapes, if the same flat rate per tray were paid all pickers, the workers lucky enough to pick the most heavily laden vines would naturally earn much more than those assigned to pick the lighter

bearing plants. T o combat

the resulting reluctance of

workers to pick the lighter vines, grape growers have for many years paid a graduated rate per tray of grapes, the rate rising as the number of trays picked per 500 vines falls. 23 In this way a rough equality of earnings is sought for workers of equal skill and industry who are employed to pick vines unequally laden with grapes. Since the piece rate for each operation on a crop is in large measure dependent on that crop's prospective market price, there is no necessaryrelationship of equality between the earnings available from rates on different crops. In most years this point is not of major importance— except insofar as it may force short period wage boosts at the height of a season—because the abundance of workers assures a sufficiency for every crop's harvest work despite unequal returns from a day's work. How wide these variations may be is indicated by a 1929 survey of earnings of family heads in the 1929 fruit and vegetable harvests of South Jersey. Average daily earnings were found to vary from $1.41 for picking raspberries to $6.37 for scooping cranberries. Of the twenty piece-work operations studied, two gave daily earnings averaging under $2.00, eight gave earnings averaging over $3.00, and the remainder averaged between $2.00 and $3.00.24 This variation does become of great importance, however, when there is a scarcity of labor and different crops must compete for the limited supply on the basis of the daily and hourly earnings they offer. This occurred, for example, in south Florida in early 1943, when potato growers had the greatest difficulty in securing pickers even though they offered record high piece rates. The reason was that the hourly and daily earnings possible from preMetzler, op. cit., p. 14. Report of the Commission to Investigate the Employment Children in the State of New Jersey (Trenton, 1931), p. S323 24

of

Migratory

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

83

LABOR

vailing wages for picking beans were much greater than those which could be earned in potato picking. When time wages are paid, differentials often exist on the basis of age, sex, color, and nationality. In a 1909 study of Italian fruit and vegetable laborers in Madison County, N e w Y o r k , the Immigration Commission found that men were being paid $1.50 to $2.00 for a tenhour day, while women were receiving $1.00 to $1.25, and children under sixteen years, 75 cents for the same number of hours of work. 25 T h e same sort of variation has been found in other studies, and usually reflects farmers' belief that women and children can do less in a given time than adult males. Differentials on the basis of nationality and color have been most frequent in California, a state whose seasonal labor force has always been composed of many different groups, each with differing types of skill and varying years of experience in the field. Much of the competition between these different groups has been based on willingness to accept lower wages. Chinese entered California agriculture, in part, because of their willingness to accept lower wages than white workers. Later Japanese undercut the Chinese and white workers, but when the Japanese became the dominant labor group their wages often advanced, thus paving the way for the entrance in 1909 and 1910 of Hindu workers who were willing to take much lower wages than the older groups. A California study in 1928 showed that on farms employing native white workers and other groups simultaneously, the native whites got a higher daily wage than other workers, except the Japanese. All farms hiring Japanese workers and members of other groups paid the former higher wages. Filipino and Chinese workers were usually paid more than Mexicans. T h e only laborers receiving lower wages than the Mexicans were Negroes. 26 Such group competition in wages has not been unknown in other parts of the country. We have already noted that in 1922 Italian workers from Philadelphia were undercutting Negroes in an effort to displace them at South Jersey fruit and vegetable work. In the course of a year, the seasonal fruit and vegetable worker U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X I V , 146. U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights L I V , 19873. 25

26

of

Labor,

ECONOMICS

84

OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

hopes to secure sufficient income to maintain at least what he considers a minimum standard of living for his wife and family. In many cases, we have noted, the only reason he undertakes this work at all is to supplement inadequate income from other sources—city work, income from his small farm, etc.—and thus his total annual income also reflects conditions affecting other parts of the economy than the fruit and vegetable industry. T h e number of workers who depend upon this industry for all or the greater part of their annual income may very well be much less than half the number who work in it for some time during the year. While income data are extremely sparse for these workers, the available evidence indicates quite clearly that most fruit and vegetable laborers have very low cash incomes in most years, and that the average for their group is probably much below that of the population as a whole. This follows from the low wages and irregular employment that is their lot in most years. Few workers enter this activity from choice; most of them probably feel like the Washington lumberjack who once complained bitterly that he had been "starved into berries." It seems evident that seasonal fruit and vegetable workers' incomes vary cyclically, being much greater in years like 1920 or 1942 than in 1921 and 1932, since employment and wages move in the same direction over the business cycle. Some workers or families do succeed in securing relatively satisfactory incomes year after year, and make this their main occupation through the year, but these cases usually arise either from unusual skill and strength or from the possession of a large family including many children who work in the fields with their parents. But even at best the professional fruit and vegetable worker must usually migrate over long distances to follow his trade and spend much of his annual income in traveling expenses. We may review some of the fragmentary material available on incomes in order to gain some insight into their general level, their fluctuations

over time, and the differences among the various groups

of workers. Considering California—a relatively high wage area—first, we find that a sample of Japanese immigrant workers studied by the Immigration Commission had an average income of $432.26 in the fiscal year 1909.27 Roughly twenty years later Professor Paul S. Taylor 27

U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X V , 599.

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

85

concluded that Mexican migratory workers employed in the Imperial Valley during the winter had annual incomes ranging between $600 and $8oo.28 B y 1934, however, General P. D. Glassford, investigating the same group, put their average annual income at less than $400 as a result of lower wages and less employment.29 The downward movement of agricultural workers' incomes during this period is also indicated by data compiled for a group of over 500 migratory families on relief in California in 1936. Their average family incomes fell from $381 in 1930 to $289 in 1935. 30 For the fiscal year 1937 a group of 136 migratory California families had median earnings of $574 from all sources to support the 4.5 persons in the average family of this group. 31 Investigations conducted in 1935-36 shed some light on fruit and vegetable workers' incomes in Washington's Yakima Valley. The worst showing was made by a group of 48 professional migratory farm labor families—most of whom depended on berry and apple picking for the major portions of their income—whose median cash income in the year preceding the interview had been $197 per family, over 10 percent of which went for travel expenses. The average family had traveled 1,226 miles looking for work in the previous year. A group of 59 single migrants studied in the same area had a median cash income of $288 in the preceding year. The median annual income of fruit workers' families resident in the Yakima Valley area was $274. Of these resident families, more than 13 percent had less than $100 in cash income in the twelve months before being interviewed, while only 3 percent had over $1,000 in cash income.82 The income variations of a similar eastern group can be traced over a long period. The Immigration Commission estimated in 1909 28 Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States. Vol. I: Imperial Valley (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1930), p. 38. 29 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, LIV, 20138. 30 Data from the Farm Security Administration. 31 California State Relief Administration, Agricultural Migratory Laborers in the San Joaquin Valley, July and August 1937 (Sacramento, 1937), p. 6. 32 P. H. Landis and M. S. Brooks, Farm Labor in the Yakima Valley, Washington (Pullman, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 343, 1936), p. 54; and Carl F. Reuss, Professional Migratory Farm Labor Households (Pullman, Washington State College, 1938), p. 2.

86

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

that large Italian families going out to the New Jersey farms for the summer could earn $400 to $600 in good years, thus implying that average earnings over a number of years were less than this. 33 A 1921 study showed that foreign-born fruit and vegetable workers in New Jersey earned $500 on the average for the season, while Americanborn farm workers—many of whom were students—earned less than $450 for the season. 34 For 1929, the average income per Italian family for seasonal work in this state was reported at $652, 35 but in 1938—a particularly bad year because of market and weather conditions—the family average had dropped to $265 for the season, which averaged over 100 days per family. There was an average of 3.7 workers in the families studied in 1938.3(1 Low as the earnings and incomes cited above may seem to be, they are relatively high when compared with those received in many other parts of the country. Strawberry pickers interviewed in Chadbourne. North Carolina, in 1941 reported that their average family income in 1940 was under $2 00.37 Mexican spinach workers in the Texas winter garden region in 1938 averaged $50 per worker for a season of about 15 weeks, or about $3 a week for the average worker. 38 Interstate migrants among strawberry pickers interviewed at Hammond, Louisiana, and in Benton County, Arkansas, reported median annual cash earnings and perquisites for 1938 of $225 and $200 respectively. 30 A survey of 1938 incomes of Florida fruit and vegetable migrants disclosed wide variation among different groups. Bean workers interviewed at Belle Glade near Lake Okeechobee had a median income of $347, and celery workers at Sanford reported a median income of $260. Both these groups consisted primarily of Negroes. White citrus workers interviewed at Lakeland had a median income of $519, while a similar U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X I V , Part II, 520. Folsom, op. cit., p. 25. 35 Report of the Commission to Investigate the Employment of Children in the State of New Jersey (Trenton, 1931), p. 54. 33 34

U. S. Congress, House, Interstate Migration, I, 368. D a t a from Labor Division, Farm Security Administration. 3 8 S. C . Menefee, Mexican Migratory Workers of South Texas Works Projects Administration, 1941), p. 17.

Migratory

36 37

38

U. S. Congress, House, Interstate

Migration,

II, 571.

(Washington,

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

87

group at Manatee was found to have a $534 median income.40 These differences among racial groups and crops are typical of the heterogeneity found among fruit and vegetable workers throughout the nation, but they all indicate the same conclusion: incomes of these workers are very low in most years even for the most fortunate among them. The problem of securing adequate sanitary housing facilities is one that constantly bedevils the fruit and vegetable worker who is away from his own home for substantial periods, as most of them are. Yet here one finds low levels prevalent in many—if not most—areas, with consequent danger to the health and well-being not only of the worker but of the community as a whole. The reason for this is clear. T o the farmer, the provision of housing is a cost which he is not too anxious to incur since he usually needs seasonal workers only for short periods during the year. Often farmers provide no housing whatsoever, compelling workers to find their own shelter in nearby autocamps, in the open along the banks of an adjacent irrigation canal, or in the fields. Sometimes the farmer may empty his barn and chicken houses and offer these to the migrants. If he does erect some housing, he has every temptation to build as cheaply as possible. Some growers have put up good housing as a means of attracting workers in times of labor stringency, but the years in which this pressure existed have been few since 1900; the worker seeking a job in a labor market flooded with job seekers has not usually been able to be very particular. This does not mean that all housing offered seasonal laborers is inadequate and unsanitary, but certainly much of it has been and probably still is. Perhaps the most disquieting feature of the housing situation in many fruit and vegetable areas is the manner in which bad conditions are permitted to exist year after year with little or no effort to improve them. One example of conditions unchanged over long periods may be cited from among the many which are known. In 1 9 1 3 an investigator for the National Child Labor Committee studied conditions on fruit and vegetable farms in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He found workers housed in two-story shacks with many families crowded on each floor and with no room divisions for privacy of family life or separation of sexes. Of 1 3 1 farms he examined, 90 had no toilets and *0 Ibid.

88

ECONOMICS

24 had common

OF FRUIT

toilets

AND VEGETABLE

for both sexes. 41

In

1928

LABOR the

Maryland

Commissioner of Labor and Statistics investigated the same area. His report on housing and sanitary facilities is reproduced at some length since it is not unrepresentative of much similar housing throughout the country and indicates how little progress had been made in improving conditions since the earlier study a decade and a half before: Housed generally in unpainted wooden shacks, sometimes of one floor, sometimes of two, these workers . . . are required to pass the time when they are not in the fields in almost unbelievably crowded conditions. The sleeping quarters consist without exception of bunks built flat on the floor and formed by piling straw within the confines of boarding about fifteen inches high . . . each of these bunks . . . was shared by members of the entire family group, regardless of number of individuals, age, or sex . . . frequently a number of families were found housed in a single room without partitions of any kind. Considering the number of persons to be accommodated, the provisions for lighting and ventilation were found to be exceedingly poor, and there was not a single indication of any attempt at screening the doors and windows as a protection against the flies and other insects which were usually found swarming around these camps. The toilet provisions in these camps were found to be disgustingly inadequate, and in many cases non-existent. In only a few cases were buildings, varying in their states of dilapidation and cleanliness, found. 42 In the wave of fruit and vegetable strikes that affected California during 1933-34, poor housing conditions were a significant factor in arousing discontent. A government commission reported these conditions in the Imperial Valley in 1934 after a strike had broken out there: There is legitimate complaint about the water that is taken from irrigation ditches. It is muddy in appearance, liable to contamination from the people who temporarily reside on the banks of the streams, and is not purified by chemical treatment, as in the cities. There is not only a serious health problem for those who use the water, but there is a distinct menace to all the people of Imperial Valley. Typhoid fever is not unknown. The diseases that follow the use of impure water are prevalent. Living and sanitary conditions are a serious and irritating factor in the unrest we find in the Imperial Valley. . . . We inspected the camps of 4 1 H . M. Bremer, People Who Go to Tomatoes (New York, National Child Labor Committee, 1914), p. 5. 42 Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Statistics, op. cit., p. 9.

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

89

LABOR

the pea pickers and know that they are similar to the camps that will serve as places of abode for workers in the fields where melons are gathered. This report must state that we found filth, squalor, and entire absence of sanitation, and a crowding of human beings into totally inadequate tents or crude structures built of boards, weeds, and anything that was found at hand to give a pitiful semblance of a home at its worst. Words cannot describe some of the conditions we saw.43 A number of efforts have been made to improve such conditions through state action. Perhaps the most effective efforts were made in California from about 1915 to 1930. During this period the California Commission of Immigration and Housing set minimum standards for such camps and conducted annual inspections of them. Its work began after the famous Wheatland riot of 1913, when investigation revealed bad housing and unsanitary conditions to have been major causes of the disturbances that occurred among the hop workers there. Public opinion supported the Commission so that it was able to use its legal powers to make significant improvements in farm workers' housing in the decade and a half following 1915. During much of the 1930's, however, this group's activity was crippled by lack of funds and personnel. In most other states, farm housing has either been exempt from legal regulation, or, even where covered by the law, has been relatively neglected because of lack of enforcement personnel and funds. Since 1935, the federal government has made a significant contribution toward improved housing for seasonal workers, particularly for those who do fruit and vegetable labor. Beginning in California in 1935, the Farm Security Administration established camps in many of the major fruit and vegetable areas. T h e accommodations offered varied from neat cabins in the permanent establishments to tents on wood platforms in the so-called "mobile units." The latter were moved from place to place so as to make their facilities available during several harvest deals each year. In each of these camps, workers found clean surroundings and sanitary

facilities, showers,

laundry

machines, and opportunities for recreation and social activity. In 1943 over 150 such camps were operated by the federal government, many of 4 3 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations LIV, 20047.

of Free Speech

and Rights

of

Labor,

90

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

them playing a significant role that year in housing workers brought from abroad to augment the domestic labor supply. Without these camps, the government would have had much more difficulty than it actually had in meeting its commitment to provide decent housing to the Mexicans, Jamaicans, and other workers imported from abroad. 44 In the discussion above emphasis has been put upon farmer efforts to control and minimize labor costs. T h e repercussions of these efforts have been measured in terms of farm workers' wages, employment, incomes, and living conditions. Besides these effects, farmers' efforts to control their labor supply have sometimes stimulated the organization of workers to improve their lot. Fruit and vegetable workers' reactions to farmers' efforts to cut wages or otherwise worsen their conditions have taken both formal and informal guises. M a n y a laborer has simply quit his job when dissatisfied with his position. Spontaneous strikes in the field are an old story, but our information on them is scanty since they usually end as suddenly as they begin—the workers returning to work or looking elsewhere for jobs. When picking a crop, workers sometimes avoid certain acreages if they believe them too low-yielding to produce satisfactory earnings, or they may demand an increased rate to harvest these fields. All these are informal methods of protest, but they have been the mainstays of fruit and vegetable seasonal workers over the years. T h e atmosphere in which these informal and spontaneous protests break out is summed up in this description of grower-worker relationships in the Pacific Northwest: The elements of conflict between employer and employee are usually surging beneath the surface. Conflict is extremely sporadic, however, never general and rarely in evidence. The organizing power needed to make the demands of the workers effective is lacking so that while individual mutters of discontent are plentiful, organized mutterings are almost unknown. Neither employer nor employee recognizes any responsibility for the welfare of the other. As a result, the grower has to watch his fruit carefully to guard against theft, poor work or damage to the crop, and the worker grumbles and frets over the callousness of the grower in the matter of decent housing and working facilities.45 44

D a t a f r o m the Office of L a b o r , D e p a r t m e n t of

45

H a t h a w a y , op. cit., pp. 90-91.

Agriculture.

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

91

Organization of workers into unions, a more formal type of worker reaction to employer tactics, has been relatively infrequent over the past half century. This may seem surprising at first, since of all farm laborers, seasonal fruit and vegetable workers are in some w a y s the most likely prospects for unionization. T h e y often work in large gangs and live together by the tens and hundreds, so that they know each other and all can be reached easily by union propaganda. In

this

respect they are much more analogous to factory workers in one building than to dairy workers in Wisconsin, who are scattered in ones, twos, or threes over hundreds of square miles. Further, as pointed out above, these workers have often had to bear with low wages and incomes and poor living conditions, all factors conducive to organization and protest. Also these laborers are frequently members of a homogeneous g r o u p — N e g r o , Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and so f o r t h — a n d are united by ties of nationality, language, or color. A l l these factors certainly should aid unionization of these workers. B u t the weaknesses of these workers are also impressive. M o s t of them regard seasonal work only as a temporary occupation.

Since

they frequently work on a farm for only a few weeks, they are difficult to organize into a permanent, cohesive union. M a n y of them are too poor to p a y union dues, so that without outside aid their organizations cannot afford to hire organizers and to spend money for propaganda material. Since the work is highly seasonal and many of the workers are migrants, it is difficult to build stable union groups in particular localities. Finally, the division of this seasonal labor force into many diverse and competing national and color groups facilitates an employer policy of "divide and rule." If a Filipino crew strikes, the California grower has often been able to get a gang of Chinese or Mexicans eager to act as strikebreakers. T o get united action of Negroes and whites, of Poles, Italians, and Czechs, or of Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, Porto Ricans, Filipinos, and native Americans (as a California union might have to) is far from easy. 48 One of the most potent factors which has hindered the unionization of these workers has been the bitter and unrelenting opposition of 46 Harry Schwartz, "Organizational Problems of Agricultural Labor," of Farm Economics X X I I I ( M a y , 1941), 456-66.

Journal

92

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AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

growers. T h e reason for this is apparent from the preceding discussion. Successful unionization of fruit and vegetable workers would take away from growers the control over labor costs which in peace years is one of their most important safeguards against heavy loss. A union of harvest workers able to control the labor supply would have growers at its mercy, and by threatening to strike at critical times could force growers to pay wages far above what they would offer voluntarily, leaving growers only the alternative of letting their crop rot. If a union of workers were able to secure a closed shop type of job control, growers would be completely deprived of their ability to reduce wages in times of substantial non-farm unemployment. For all these reasons, growers have persistently and vigorously fought all efforts at union organization of their seasonal laborers, although they have long since recognized the benefits of collective action among themselves and have used it in many ways to improve their position. Employer opposition has taken various forms and utilized many weapons. A t times, violence has been used to break strikes. Legislation has been secured to bar picketing and other union propaganda activities. Growers have secured the arrest and conviction of union leaders under the criminal syndicalism laws. The extent of these activities in California has been fully documented in the investigations of the Senate's L a Follette Committee. Farm workers and unions have also used violence and illegal tactics at times. Non-striking workers have been beaten in the fields; roads have been barricaded to block shipment of produce to markets. But obviously in any test of strength based on violence growers must win, since they control the community and local police. It is noteworthy that many strikes which have been marked by violence have resulted in few or no gains for the workers. California was probably the first state to have joint action by fruit and vegetable seasonal workers. Japanese workers from 1900 to 1910 often exhibited strong solidarity to gain their ends. Sometimes they would drive out other groups of workers by offering to accept lower wages or by taking jobs as strikebreakers. But once they had become the major source of labor and hence indispensable, they did not hesitate to press for better wages and improved conditions through a strike or

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

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93

slow-down. In 1903 a grower denounced the "saucy, debonair Jap who would like to do all his work in a white starched shirt with cuffs and collar accompaniments." In 1909 the Immigration Commission cited a grower who had hired Japanese for $1.25 a day, but soon experienced six strikes in two days which raised their wages by one-third, while b y the end of the season he was paying them $2.00 a day. 47 T h e same Commission noted other similar examples and remarked that "Another objection to the Japanese is that if one quits or is discharged they are all likely to quit." This sort of solidarity was very effective in improving the Japanese workers' conditions, but stimulated grower hostility which expressed itself in efforts to introduce competing groups to break the Japanese monopoly on particular types of work. From 1910 to 1920 and after, some sporadic efforts were made by both the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World to organize these workers, but without great success. T h e former group sought to build locals in each community around nuclei of resident workers whose numbers would be increased at times of seasonal labor needs by the arriving migrants. Migratory workers in the union were instructed to attach themselves to the local in each community they entered. But though members were enrolled, they were too mobile and too disinclined to pay dues to induce the A F L to continue these efforts after 1914. T h e I W W consisted primarily of migratory workers and had adapted its tactics and strategy to their problems, but except for a few strikes and some minor sabotage it appears to have been of little importance. The mass arrests of 1917 effectively stopped its activity in California as elsewhere, though some effort was made to revive it among southern California orange pickers in 1921. 4 8 Although a strike of Mexican workers occurred in 1928 in the Imperial Valley, the real upsurge of fruit and vegetable worker unionism did not come until 1930 and the years following, when Communist organizers entered the field.49 The sharp decline in prices and wages which took place during this period prepared an excellent ground U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X V , 374. J. A. Stromquist, "California Oranges," Industrial Pioneer, I, No. 2 (March, 1921), 23-26. 49 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, LXII, 2253s. 47

48

ECONOMICS

94

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

for unionization. Growers, faced by declines of 50 percent and more in the prices they received, found the easiest cost to reduce was their workers' wages. Taxes, irrigation charges, and interest were thoroughly rigid. Prices for fertilizer, insecticide, and farm machinery were controlled by tightly knit groups of manufacturers. But casual workers' wages were flexible since such laborers had no organization, and the number seeking work had increased greatly. Between April,

1929,

and April, 1933, the average daily wage without board in California dropped over 50 percent. 50 From 1930 to early 1933, Communist organizers sought out the spontaneous strikes which broke out as workers rebelled against the low wages and poor conditions to which they were being forced. The Communists sought to assume leadership of these struggles and hoped to build up a strong union by winning strikes and enrolling the strikers. In the Imperial Valley in 1930 these tactics had their initial trial when Filipino, Mexican, and native white workers walked out en masse, but though the Communist organizers enrolled hundreds in their union, the strike was broken. 51 When they sought to continue their organizational activities, a number were arrested and eight were convicted of criminal syndicalism. This type of activity continued through 1 9 3 1 and 1932, however, and the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) was formed as a paper organization into which it was hoped members might be enrolled. Conditions worsened steadily, increasing discontent, but the first real signs of approaching storm became apparent in November, 1932, when 400 fruit pickers at Vacaville remained on strike for sixty days under C A W I U leadership, despite many arrests and the kidnaping of union leaders. Although no gains were made, word of this militant effort spread through the state, encouraging others. Spring and early summer, 1933, witnessed strikes of pickers of peas, lettuce, cherries, and apricots, with some wage concessions won. July and August saw successful strikes for higher wages by pickers of tree fruits. One of these strikes was the first really carefully organized affair, with 50

Farm Wage Rates, Farm Employment and Related Data (Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1943), pp. 126, 130. 51 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, L X I I ,

22535-

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

95

the workers quitting the job and then going back in a disciplined group. From a few hundred members in January, the union grew quickly until it claimed 8,000 in August. 5 2 A t the union's convention in Sacramento that summer, the delegates organized an industrial union open to all workers in the fields, canneries and packing sheds. Monthly dues were fixed at 25 cents for employed members and 5 cents for those who were jobless. A list of demands was drawn up, including abolition of piecework and the contractor system, an eight-hour day, time and a half for overtime, equal pay for women, and abolition of child labor. The greatest strikes were still to come, however, as was the real employer counteroffensive. What was probably the most

important

fruit or vegetable strike of 1933 occurred near Fresno and Lodi when more than 6,000 grape pickers struck in late summer, but this was overshadowed by the even greater cotton pickers' strike in the San Joaquin Valley shortly afterward. Grower opposition was vigorous, and several people were killed during these conflicts, but some wage concessions were won and the union's prestige mounted. Of the more than thirty fruit and vegetable strikes in California in 1933—in which probably over 20,000 persons participated—most were conducted by the C A W I U . S S But not all the 1933 strikes were under C A W I U leadership. A t El Monte, for instance, Mexicans struck against wages of ten cents an hour for celery and onion work. A strike of six thousand won a higher minimum wage. The strikers were aided by local merchants and by the Labor Party of Mexico. 5 4 Early in 1934 the full weight of the growers' counteroffensive was felt. Several thousand Imperial Valley lettuce workers walked out in January and additional hundreds left the pea fields in February. A government investigating body visited the Valley shortly afterwards and "uncovered sufficient evidence to convince us that in more than 5 2 Norman Mini, "That California Dictatorship," Nation, 224-26.

Feb. 20, 1935, pp.

63 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations 0} Free Speech and Rights of Labor, L X I I , 22536. 54 C. B. Spaulding, " T h e Mexican Strike at El Monte, California," Sociology and Social Research X V I I I (1934), 571-80.

96

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

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LABOR

one instance the law was trampled underfoot by representative citizens of Imperial County and by public officials under oath to support the law." Many strikers were arrested and held in high bail. It was charged that police officers broke up a peaceful meeting with tear-gas bombs, and that a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union was abducted. 55 These tactics broke the strike as they did a number of others in the spring. The final blow to the union came in July when seventeen of its leaders were arrested on charges of criminal syndicalism. It took two years to clear all the defendants of these charges and by that time the union had been destroyed. Leading this anti-union campaign was an employers' organization, the Associated Farmers of California. Organized in early 1934 by a small group, it was largely financed by such non-farm groups as railroads, canneries, public utilities, and the Industrial Association of San Francisco, but was represented to the public as an organization of embattled farmers eager to protect their lives and property against " R e d " terrorists. This organization met much of the expense involved in prosecuting the union leaders, going so far as to pay the traveling expenses of Imperial County's district attorney to Sacramento so he might assist in drawing up an indictment charging criminal syndicalism. After 1934 the Associated Farmers organized local units of farmers pledged to fight unions of their workers and secured passage of anti-picketing ordinances in many of California's counties. Its county units were instrumental in defeating many of the later strikes which broke out.50 By 1934 fruit and vegetable worker unionism was no longer confined solely to California. Organizations had appeared among Florida citrus workers, Ohio onion laborers, and South Jersey vegetable employees. In all these cases the same factors of low wages and poor living conditions arising from the depression were important stimulants to unity. A successful strike was conducted in the spring against the Seabrook Farms in New Jersey, and over 1,000 members were organized into eight locals of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union in South Jersey. The Seabrook strike was marked by clashes between police and strikers and many arrests, conditions which were present 55 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, 56 LIV, 20049-50. /bid., LV, 20075 ff. and L X , 21980-85.

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

97

also in Hardin County, Ohio, when the Scioto Marsh onion w o r k e r s — stranded former Kentucky subsistence farmers for the most p a r t — organized an A F L union and sought to raise their wages from the ten to twelve and a half cents an hour levels to which they had fallen. 57 This latter strike was largely defeated and was followed, as we have noted above, by the abandonment of most onion growing in the area. B y the fall of 1934 most of the unions remaining active after the destruction of the C A W I U in California had joined the A F L and sought to induce that organization's Executive Council to use Federation funds for an intensive organizing campaign among farm workers. T h e y also petitioned for lower dues and broader jurisdictions for their locals in order to overcome the peculiar problems they faced. But when the 1934 convention ended, their pleas had been denied and they had to be content with a vague promise that an effort would be made to conduct an intensive organization campaign among field and cannery workers. 58 Nothing came of this, however. The year 1935 saw a continuation of the spread of unions outside California. A t Driggs, Idaho, pea pickers demanded a wage rise, but were defeated when National Guardsmen appeared on the scene and "deported" fifty suspected "agitators," thus leaving the strikers leaderless. In the area surrounding Laredo, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville, Texas, 2,000 Mexican onion workers formed the Association de Jornaleros and struck for wages of $1.25 a day. This strike was not won, but many workers had their pay raised to $1.00 a day and were granted free transportation to and from work daily. In New Jersey the union which had conducted the Seabrook strike the year before eschewed this weapon in 1935, relying on propaganda regarding the worker's conditions to get higher wages. It also fought grower efforts to have relief workers thrown off the rolls to force them to pick berries. 59 These years also saw the first steps taken toward national unity among the scattered local fruit and vegetable unions. Shortly after the 1934 A F L convention, a number of these locals formed the National 5 7 Anna Rochester, Why Farmers are Poor (New York, International Publishers, 1940), p. 156. 5 8 American Federtaion of Labor, Report of Proceedings, 1934 (Washington, 1935) > PP- 179-80. 58

Rural

Worker,

1935,

passim.

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

98

LABOR

Committee for Unity of Agricultural and Rural Workers. They established their own paper, The Rural Worker, for propaganda purposes, and in 1936 began publishing a Spanish newspaper to reach Mexican and Spanish-American workers. At both the 1935 and 1936 A F L conventions the fight was continued for formation of a national A F L agricultural workers union with low dues and elastic jurisdiction. But William Green answered these pleas with the assertion that the A F L would not form a separate union for agricultural workers until it was sure that such a group would be self-sustaining, and that its leadership would be composed of "real, bona fide agricultural workers." 60 This last remark was a slap at a number of local organizers who had appeared rather suddenly on the farm labor scene, having been previously in quite different occupations. Perhaps the chief example of this was Donald Henderson, the leading spirit first of the New Jersey union and then in the national committee formed by several locals. He had previously taught college economics before attempting to unionize the Seabrook Farms' work force. Dispirited by continuing rebuffs from the A F L , the groups seeking to form a national union of farm workers turned to the rapidly growing Committee for Industrial Organization which had already achieved notable successes by the end of 1936. The Committee's leaders responded favorably to the proposals for a national union of workers in agriculture and allied industries. The result was the formation of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, more familiarly known as UCAPAWA. Besides fruit and vegetable workers, the new union included locals of sugar-beet, cotton, and other farm workers, as well as of processing and canning workers. Among the fruit and vegetable locals were not only former A F L locals, but also independent unions of Filipino, Mexican, and Japanese workers. At the organizing convention held in July, 1937, Donald Henderson, who was elected president, claimed the new union had 60,000 dues-paying members and 40,000 additional adherents who could not afford to pay dues. To start the new union off on a sound footing, the CIO advanced funds to finance the setting up of union headquarters and to pay union 60

American Federation of Labor, Report 1936). P- S9i-

oj Proceedings,

1936

(Washington,

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

99

organizers and officers for three months until the new organization could obtain resources of its own. 91 Although the new organization started off with high hopes and great enthusiasm, its achievements in the direction of organizing fruit and vegetable workers were not great. Its chief activity among these workers took place in California, but even here it was not able to overcome the offensive of the Associated Farmers. In mid-1939 it had only about 2,500-3,000 agricultural workers of all kinds paying dues in California. 62 In 1940 the union's chief California organizer told the La Follette Committee that the organization was very weak and that its chief activity was providing leadership and guidance to workers who had gone out on spontaneous strikes and then had appealed to it for aid. 63 Not only did the U C A P A W A have to fight grower opposition in California, but it was also bitterly attacked by the A F L Teamsters' Union, which had some ambition to enroll the fruit and vegetable workers into its own ranks and was eager to fight a CIO union as its contribution to the battle between the two major labor organizations. In a number of California fruit and vegetable strikes led by the U C A P A W A , growers were warned that if they recognized the CIO group, A F L teamsters would refuse to haul their produce to market, and A F L cannery workers would refuse to process it.64 At its 1940 convention U C A P A W A decided for all practical purposes to abandon most field worker—including fruit and vegetable —organization activity. Its efforts had been expensive, and great amounts of energy and time had been devoted to the task with relatively minor results. Instead, the organization decided to center its efforts upon cannery and processing workers who were more stable than field workers, could afford to pay dues, and came under the provisions of the Wagner Labor Act so that the most effective employer tactics could not be used against their unionization.65 61

This

Information from UCAPAWA national office. U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, L X I I , 22540. 63 Ibid., L X , 22069. 04 Harry Schwartz, "Recent Developments among Farm Labor Unions," Journal oj Farm Economics, X X I I I (Nov., 1941), 837. 85 Ibid., p. 835. 62

ECONOMICS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE

100

LABOR

decision to abandon the field was put into effect in January, 1 9 4 1 , when U C A P A W A organizers virtually handed over organization work among a group of lemon pickers at Ventura, California, to A F L members who continued the work and called an unsuccessful strike. Since this decision was taken, U C A P A W A has gained enormously in membership among workers in packing sheds, processing plants, and the like. Its leaders hope that by first building a strong union among these workers, it will some day have the strength and finances necessary for a renewed drive to better conditions among the fruit and vegetable—as well as other—field workers. Perhaps the most important development among fruit and vegetable unions during the late 1930's was the success of F A L A , originally known as the Filipino Agricultural Laborers Association and later as the Federated Agricultural Laborers Association. Composed almost entirely of Filipino farm workers around Stockton, Sacramento, and other California cities, this union won several important strikes, gained union recognition, wage increases, improved conditions, and written contracts. It saved thousands of dollars for its members by calling the authorities' attention to the practice of some farmers of deducting workmen's compensation payments from their employees' wages in defiance of statute. Organization of F A L A

was the response of

Filipino

asparagus

workers at Stockton to a threatened wage cut. Formed under the guidance of the late Francisco Varona, labor assistant to the Philippine Resident Commissioner in Washington, it led the walkout of 6,000 workers which persuaded growers to rescind the cut. Spurred on by this success, the union spread to other cities and localities where it also made gains for its "stoop labor" members. Frequently it was aided by the CIO and the A F L , both of which sought to have its affiliation. It also worked closely with independent unions of Mexican and Japanese workers, going out on strike with them and refusing to help defeat their struggles. In late 1940 F A L A obtained an A F L charter, hoping thus to secure the aid of A F L teamster and cannery unions. After 1 9 4 1 , it seems to have been inactive, however, in part because of the large number of Filipino fruit and vegetable workers who joined the armed services after Pearl Harbor. 68 66

Ibid., pp. 838-39.

ECONOMICS

OF FRUIT

AND VEGETABLE

LABOR

101

Since Pearl Harbor, union activity among seasonal fruit and vegetable workers has been negligible. Probably the most important reasons have been the great degree of absorption of the pre-war professional fruit and vegetable harvesters into the armed forces and war industry, plus the sharp increases in farm wages since 1941. Many seasonal workers now are volunteers from the cities, working for patriotic motives, or they are foreign workers imported by the government. In neither group has unionism found fertile ground. During the present conflict grower control over labor supply and costs has been weakened by depletion of the usual reservoirs of seasonal workers. In this situation growers have perforce paid much higher wages than in previous years, but by and large these wages have been well within the limits permitted by increased prices for fruits and vegetables. Scarcity of workers has worked far more effectively than previous formal or informal modes of protest to improve workers' incomes and living conditions. To the extent that labor shortages have been eased by government recruitment and provision of different types of workers—urban women and children, foreign importees, and so forth —the pressure of labor shortage has been diminished and wages have not risen as far as they might have. Federal wage ceilings on farm wages have also acted to ease the impact of labor shortages on growers. But, despite these aids, the seasonal labor market during war has been largely a seller's market. Only the resumption of customary peace time non-farm unemployment can permit return of the former grower control over wage rates.

4 WORKERS

B

IN SUGAR

BEETS

ORN OF TARIFFS and bounties, sugar-beet growing in this country is almost entirely a twentieth-century development. From its inception as a major agricultural industry, it has had three

chief characteristics: dependence on government protection against foreign competition, close alliance with large-scale industry and investment, and reliance upon foreign workers to do work despised by Americans. Without all three elements, sugar-beet growing would probably not have progressed much beyond its infinitesimal size of the 1890's, except possibly during war. A s late as 1898 only 37,000 acres of this crop were harvested, but by then the Tariff of 1897 had already provided an explosive stimulant. Taxing foreign sugar more than 75 percent of its value, the Dingley Tariff opened prospects of comfortable profits for domestic producers. Since most of our states have too temperate a climate for sugar cane, they hastened to encourage the infant beet industry by offering cash bounties, tax exemptions and other inducements. Michigan offered one cent a pound for all sugar produced in the state, and appropriated $10,000 annually to pay it. In 1899 sugar-beet processors presented the state with a bill for over $330,000 bounty and indicated that they would claim over $700,000 the following year. Fearing wrecked state finances,

Michigan scrapped the bounty, but expansion continued.1

Similar speedy expansion occurred in other states. In 1899 harvested beet acreage was 135,000 acres; by 1906 it was 376,000 acres.2 In the past decade, sugar beets have usually been grown on over 750,000 acres in some twenty states, but the bulk of production has 1

U.

S. Congress, House,

Select C o m m i t t e e

National

Defense

Migration.

Hearings

Investigating National Defense M i g r a t i o n ,

before

the

77th Congress, 1st

Session (Washington, 1 9 4 1 ) , X I X , 7863. 2

Federal

United

States

Trade

Commission,

Report

on

(Washington, 1 9 1 7 ) , pp. 26-27.

the

Beet

Sugar

Industry

in

the

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

103

been concentrated in California, Michigan, and Colorado. These states usually produce from half to three quarters of all beets in this country and have held their leadership since the beginning of the century. Two main producing areas may be distinguished: the humid area embracing Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and adjacent states, where the crop is grown with adequate rainfall; and the irrigated area embracing about twelve western states, primarily California, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. In the former area, the average beet acreage per farm is small, less than 1 0 acres in 1941. In the latter area, farm beet acreages are usually larger. In 1941 planted beet acreage per farm averaged 71 acres in California, 3 1 in North Dakota, over 26 in Wyoming, and 19 in Colorado. 8 To extract sugar from the beet, a substantial investment is required. A fully equipped factory may cost over a million dollars. As they come from the earth, sugar beets, being bulky and heavy, are low in value compared to their transportation cost. Hence the factory must be near the source of its raw material. Conversely, there is no profit in sugar-beet growing unless there is a factory near by which will buy the crop for processing. In short, sugar-beet agriculture and the factory production of beet sugar are inextricably linked in what is today a curious union of family farms and million dollar corporations. The key element in this crop's production is the hand labor required. This was almost unaffected by technological improvement from the inception of beet growing until 1940. After the ground has been ploughed and seeded, the plants sprout thickly, with each ordinary seed sending up four or more shoots. A worker then goes along the rows and blocks out the plants into clusters several inches apart. Each cluster is thinned so that only the strongest plant remains. Much of this work is done on hands and knees or kneeling. Two or three hoeings are required in the course of the cultivating season to loosen the earth and remove weeds. These operations occur between M a y and July in most areas. In the fall, a machine known as the lifter is run over the ground to loosen the beets. Workers pull the beets from the ground, cut off the tops with a long, hooked knife, and toss the beets onto a pile. The beets are later loaded on trucks and sent to the factory for 3

Data from the Department of Agriculture.

WORKERS

104

IN SUGAR

BEETS

processing. These hand operations are extremely fatiguing. Only since Pearl Harbor has any substantial alteration in this work occurred, but of this more below. All these hand operations must usually be done under pressure, thus often necessitating fourteen or fifteen hours of work daily. In the spring blocking and thinning must be done quickly, before the plants are too large and crowded. In the fall, since maximum sugar content depends on keeping beets in the ground as long as possible, farmers usually attempt to compress harvesting into the shortest period possible before the first freeze. T h e investors who erected sugar-beet processing plants in the rush for profits after the Dingley Tariff's passage found themselves immediately faced with the problem of getting adequate raw material. In the eastern states, such as Michigan, where there was enough rainfall for beet raising, the land was already planted in the traditional crops—wheat, potatoes, and the like. Farmers were reluctant to take on this new crop whose culture required far more care and work than the plants to which they were accustomed. T h e y were particularly loathe to do the "stoop labor" involved. T o induce farmer adoption of this crop, the sugar factories contracted for beet acreages and guaranteed growers a minimum price before the crop had even been planted. T h e y sent out field men who guided farmers in every detail of the growing process, telling them when to plant, block, thin, hoe, and harvest. Most important, they took on the task of providing the seasonal workers required for the hand operations. 4 In the Western States, where beet growing is based on irrigation, it appeared for a time that this crop would become a plantation product, grown predominantly on large acreages. Sugar-beet factories in states like Colorado and Nebraska were often started in semi-arid range areas with sparse farming populations. T o get beets, the factory owners often had to build their own irrigation systems and plant large acreages themselves. During 1900 one Nebraska ranch raised 6,000 acres of beets, employing as many as 1,200 workers in one month, and paying out over $130,000 in wages. 3 In California, farmers' ignorance of beet 4 5

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7864-65. U. S. Industrial Commission, Reports (Washington, 1901), XV, 548.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

105

culture and their reluctance to undertake it compelled factory owners to produce 25 percent of the state's output as late as 1909. In 1 9 1 1 one sugar company owned 20,000 acres of beet land, much of which it operated itself, renting out the rest. John D. Spreckels told a congressional committee that year: We had to buy some lands because of the farmers. We had to educate them in the cultivation of beets and they were loathe to do it. They were accustomed to handle grain, to scratch the ground up a little bit and put in wheat and go back to town in the back of the saloon and play cards.* In all these western areas, small growers were encouraged to plant beets, but, like the Easterners, they had to be shown how by company field men and guaranteed that seasonal labor would be supplied. Whether it operated land itself or got others to grow beets, the sugar factory had to find workers. Complicating the hand-labor problem of sugar-beet production were its two labor peaks, blocking and thinning in the spring, and harvest in the fall. This raised the possibility of having to recruit workers twice a year, an expensive matter. Hence growers and processors pondered how to tie a worker down so he would be present at both times of peak labor load and need be recruited only once. One approach was to stagger plantings over several weeks to enable each worker to take care of a maximum number of acres, thus increasing his income and reducing the slack period between the two peaks to a minimum. About 1900 some California growers raised strawberries to keep their workers employed during the off season. But the most important single measure taken to assure that the same workers would be available for both periods of hand work was the introduction of the written contract. This document is unique in the agricultural labor field, for it puts relations between worker and employer on an explicit basis, with each party knowing his obligations and compensations before any work is done. First introduced in the early 1900's, the chief purpose of the contract was to get the worker to obligate himself to do both the spring and fall beet work.7 Contracts in the past often had "holdback" clauses, «Quoted in Carey McWilliams, Factories in the Field (Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1939), p. 87. 7 U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports (Washington, 1 9 1 1 ) , X X V , Pt. II, 90-91.

WORKERS

106

IN SUGAR

BEETS

permitting employers to retain part of the worker's pay after each operation as a forfeit to assure the worker's completion of the work, but this has been forbidden under the sugar legislation of the 1930's. In addition, many contracts have permitted employers to hire extra workers if the original contractor did not do the work satisfactorily, the extra workers being paid out of amounts otherwise going to the original contractor. Where these written contracts have been used, they have usually been printed forms prepared and executed for the growers by the sugar companies who secure the workers (see Appendix B). California had the first successful sugar-beet factory in the United States and at an early date its farmers turned to Orientals in order to get seasonal beet laborers. Chinese were employed first, and then Japanese succeeded them in the 1890's. White workers were also employed, many of them immigrants imported by the sugar companies from southern Europe. Mexicans were employed from the industry's beginning in southern California. Native Americans seemed disinclined to accept this back-breaking labor, and in 1909 the Immigration Commission noted that at best such workers stayed in beets only a year or two before drifting to other occupations, although they were sometimes ousted by Japanese who were willing to work for less. Of the 6,000-7,000 hand workers in California's beet fields in 1909, about 4,500 were Japanese, 1,000 Mexicans, 600 Hindus, and the rest Germans, Portuguese, Chinese, and so forth. 8 Since the average beet acreage per California farm was large, many growers required large numbers of seasonal laborers. They often turned, therefore, to labor contractors to provide the necessary workers. Sometimes a contractor would take responsibility for all hand operations, and sometimes only for those in one season of the year. Since the Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans had organized themselves so as to secure employment in gangs, it was easiest for employers to hire them in large numbers either directly or through a contractor. The foreign workers were usually glad to get beet work, for it paid well compared to railroad maintenance or picking fruits and vegetables. Paid by the acre, a worker in beets could earn as much as his energy and skill * Ibid., p. 96.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

107

permitted. A s against $ i or $1.50 a day for railroad work, most of California's beet workers earned over $1.75 a day in 1909, many of them getting over $2.00 a day. T h e beet growers had to pay relatively high wages because otherwise beet labor was relatively undesirable. Railroad work was much steadier and lasted longer; labor in the orchards and vegetable gardens was usually much pleasanter. Also, in some isolated districts, there was little else but beet employment, so that the wages had to be high enough to compensate at least in part for unemployment much of the rest of the year and induce workers to stay from spring to fall.® Colorado, Nebraska, and adjacent states also depended upon immigrants from Europe, Japan, and Mexico to build the beet industry. T h e Europeans were primarily German Russians, with large families. T h e y were imported from Europe by the sugar companies or came themselves. These people were descendants of Germans who had settled in Russia along the Volga River about

1770 at the invitation of

Catherine the Great, who had promised them exemption from military service as well as other privileges. Almost all of them had been farmers in Russia, and they were accustomed to hard work in which all members of the family joined. Their exodus from Russia in the last half of the nineteenth century was originally inspired by population pressure on their land and by the revocation of their old special privileges. After 1900 the sugar companies stimulated their migration, having found those who had come earlier to be excellent workers. Grand Island, Lincoln, and other Nebraska cities became central points for distribution of these German-Russian workers to beet farms after 1900. From these cities they went to near-by farms and also to other states. Between 1900 and 1910, trainloads of German-Russians were taken annually from Nebraska to Colorado. 1 0 In 1903 Michigan sugar-beet companies imported 500." Their employment was also frequent in Utah, Idaho, and adjoining states, but whatever the location, the use of these German Russians was built around the family, all of whose members labored in the beet fields to fulfill the contract entered 9 10 11

Ibid., pp. 102-3. ¡bid., p. 117. U. S. Congress, House, National

Defense

Migration,

X I X , 7865.

WORKERS

108

IN SUGAR

BEETS

into by the family head. With many workers in each family, the German Russians could contract for large acreages and have a large total family income. Ambitious to better their lot, they usually saved their money, and in the two decades after 1900 many became independent farmers. The sugar-beet companies, anxious to colonize their beet areas with a resident labor group, readily aided these ambitious workers by giving them generous terms on which to buy or rent company land. T h e flood of German-Russian immigration continued until the outbreak of the First World War, providing new hired laborers each year to replace those climbing up the agricultural ladder, and also permitting continued expansion of beet acreage. Japanese and Mexican workers were also widely used in Colorado, Nebraska, and adjoining states before 1910. Both these groups were hired in gangs, much as in California. The Japanese were sometimes brought from the Pacific Coast, but more often flocked to beet work from railroads and mines near by. 1 2 Many Mexicans were imported directly from Mexico. I t was not unusual for a sugar-beet company to send its foreman or manager down to the Mexican border to recruit a hundred or more workers. The sugar company usually paid the train fare to bring the laborers from El Paso to the beet fields at the beginning of the season, and then to return them if they wished to go back at season's end. 13 M a n y Spanish American workers were recruited from N e w Mexico during this period, but little distinction was made between them and those from Old Mexico, both being termed

"Mexicans."

These Spanish-speaking workers were most important in the southern Colorado beet area in the Arkansas River Valley, but some were also employed in the northern parts of the state. The Japanese were important in northern Colorado, and were the chief element among the contract hand laborers of Utah and Idaho in 1909. That year the Immigration Commission estimated that of 15,000 hand workers in Colorado, about 6,600 were German Russians, 2,600 Japanese, and an equal number Mexicans, with the rest of the force consisting of American Indians, Koreans, Greeks, and other nationalities. 14 U. S. V. S. Labor No. 1 4 U. S. 12

13

Immigration Commission, Reports, X X V , Pt. II, 117. Clark, Mexican Labor in the United States. Bulletin of Bureau of 78 (Washington, 1908), p. 476. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X V , Pt. II, 114.

WORKERS IN SUGAR

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109

Like the German Russians, the Japanese males who worked in the fields were eager to rise above the status of hired laborers and become growers. To further this ambition, they often started by sharecropping beet acreages or renting such land. The Japanese were often willing to pay very high rents to get land, and before 1910 the competition among them became so intense in northern Colorado that some of their associations had to set ceiling rents which they tried to force their members to observe. The Mexicans, on the other hand, showed little interest in improving their status, and the overwhelming majority remained beet laborers. In Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin, labor recruiting was much easier than further west, for these states had large cities from which workers could be drawn as needed. Gangs of men, women, and children were taken from Grand Rapids, Lansing, and other cities to do a day's work in the fields and were then returned at night in farmers' wagons. The Grand Rapids Press noted in August 1900: An instructive lesson may be read by witnessing the behavior of a crowd of juveniles as they receive their weekly pay for weeding beets. Some of the tots are so small that their chins hardly reach the level of the paying clerk's desk, but each receives his wages and marches off, a capitalist . . . Immigrant men, mainly Belgians, Bohemians, and Hungarians, were brought from Detroit, Cleveland, and other cities to live and work on the farms during the beet seasons. About 1900, Russian Jews and other foreigners were taken from Chicago for the same purpose. About 1909, Belgian men were preferred for this work in northern Ohio. During the winter they worked in Detroit factories or in Michigan's lumber camps. Sugar company agents recruited them in gangs each spring, aided by Belgian saloon keepers, boardinghouse owners, and small shopkeepers in Detroit. Whole families of foreigners began coming to the beet fields after 1905, and efforts were made to settle them in the beet areas so that they might provide a resident labor supply. In 1907, for instance, plans were made for colonizing beet families on five-acre lots in Lansing, Michigan. Many of these beet-laborer families did rise in the agricultural ladder, going from hired labor to tenant farming and then land

110

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

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ownership. But in the main the seasonal beet laborers formed an unstable labor supply, their numbers rising and falling inversely with industrial employment. Each year the sugar company labor agents had to revisit the foreign quarters of near-by cities to obtain contract workers, since most workers found beet labor unattractive and preferred to accept other work when available. 1 5 Until this country's entrance into the First World War, the labor supply of beet growers was that described above, although there was a continued decline in the importance of Japanese workers after their immigration ceased as the result of the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. M a n y Japanese became growers themselves or went into urban occupations after 1909, and no new workers came from Japan to replace them in the beet fields. T o replace the Japanese, growers relied on Mexicans in California, and on both Mexicans and German Russians in Colorado and other mountain states. T h e demand for workers continued brisk in all areas as acreage rose under continued protection. As it did to other intensive farm industries, the First World War brought labor difficulties to the beet industry. Where German Russians had settled and become growers, these difficulties were minimized by the fact that these farmers did the hand work with the help of their families. B u t elsewhere the pull of war industry wages and the draft tended to dry up usual sources of workers, and immigration

from

Europe became unimportant during the conflict. M a n y Mexicans left the United States at the outbreak of the war for fear of being drafted, further intensifying the industry's difficulties. T o aid the industry, the government lifted all restrictions on the importation of Mexican workers. Thousands were brought in for all areas of beet production, including Michigan and Ohio which had never employed Mexicans before. One recruiter for the Spreckels Sugar Company of California raided Carranza's army in Mexico and brought back with him for beet work 1,400 ex-soldiers. 16 In December, 1918, the head tax and literacy requirements were restored and the contract labor U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7865-67. U. S. Congress, Senate, Investigation of Western Farm, Labor Conditions. Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Farm Labor Conditions in the West United States (Washington, 1943), II, 305. 15

16

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

111

BEETS

ban was reinstated, but after a short time pressure from the sugarbeet industry induced the government to permit unhampered importation of beet laborers once again, and this privilege lasted until June, 1920. During the 1918-20 period about 20 percent of the hand laborers came straight from Mexico. During the war and immediately after, beet growers and processors did their utmost to recruit domestic workers too. Wage rates were raised appreciably between 1 9 1 7 and 1920, 50 percent or more in many states. Children enrolled in the government-sponsored Boys Working Reserve were brought to the beet fields and set to thinning and harvesting as a patriotic duty. Labor agents went far afield for workers, searching the slums and foreign districts of cities for hundreds of miles. Michigan's beet fields alone got families from Buffalo, New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Toledo. In 1920 the search was extended to West Virginia's mining fields and the small towns of Texas. 1 7 Workers brought in for the spring work often disappeared before harvest time and new ones had to be recruited. The Great Western Sugar Company alone spent over $360,000 to get domestic and Mexican beet workers in 1920, and other companies also spent substantial sums. 18 The results were both successful and profitable, for sugar-beet acreage jumped almost one third between 1 9 1 7 and 1920, while prices paid farmers increased over 50 percent. Families of Mexican and Spanish American workers imported from Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico became the chief source of beet workers during the 1920's. The Immigration Act of 1924 strengthened the position of these workers by placing permanent quota restrictions on European immigration, thus ending the free flow of German Russians, Belgians, and other Europeans willing to bend their backs over beets. The European immigrants who had come before the war became too old for beets or got better jobs in the cities. The rise of the automobile industry in Michigan, for instance, gave jobs to many who might otherwise have been available for beets. The immigrants' children 17 18

U. S. Congress, House, National

Defense

Migration,

XIX,

7870.

Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, Vol. V I , N o . 2: "Valley of the South Platte, Colorado" (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1929), p. 1 3 3 .

112

WORKERS

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spurned beet work as much as they could, for they had absorbed native American ideas and looked with scorn upon those who did "Hunky" (or " J a p " or "Greaser") labor. The Japanese and other Oriental groups had become unimportant labor sources before 1917, so they could not be looked to for workers. For these reasons, the growers and processors turned to the Spanish-speaking workers. By 1926 they were one third of the contract labor force. In 1927 a survey made by the United States Beet Sugar Association indicated that of 58,000 hired hand workers that year, 30,000 were Mexicans or Spanish Americans, more than half the total. In the same year they were shown by a government survey to be 75-90 percent of the hand workers in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Dakota. 19 Texas became the great labor supply center of the sugar-beet industry during the 1920's. Agents of the mountain and eastern states' companies came to the Lone Star State for Mexican immigrants from Old Mexico, for Mexicans long resident in the state, and for Spanish Americans. Fort Worth and San Antonio became the chief recruiting points, but the labor agents also spread down into the lower Rio Grande Valley and all along the Mexican border to get workers. Fertile recruiting areas were the winter vegetable and citrus fruit producing counties in South Texas, whose workers were offered the opportunity to combine work in Texas from November to March with work in the beet areas the rest of the year. Files containing the names and addresses of Mexican families who had done beet work in previous years were maintained and form letters were sent them each year, telling them where they could sign a contract for the new season's work. Once recruited, the workers were often brought up in special trains with meals and train fare paid for by the companies who distributed the workers to the farms at their destination. As the decade wore on many of the Mexicans came up in their own cars, while others arrived in trucks. In 1926 alone the Great Western Sugar Company shipped over 14,500 workers northward, spending more than a quarter of a million dollars for the task.20 This decade saw bitter rivalry among three groups desirous of using 19 20

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7873. Taylor, op. cit.

WORKERS IN SUGAR

BEETS

113

this Mexican labor supply. The eastern and mountain state beet companies competed with each other for workers, and both fought Texas farmers who wanted to keep these laborers in the state for cotton picking and other farm work. Despite the sugar companies' frequent assertions that the Mexicans were "homers" who went straight back to Mexico, Texas, or New Mexico after the beet harvest, the Texas farmers knew that many remained in the North. In any event, those who worked the beets were not available for cotton picking. Sometimes the farmers took matters into their own hands to hinder the exodus, shooting tires on recruiters' trucks or warning labor agents to leave town. In 1929 the state of Texas forged a formidable instrument against out-of-state labor agents, the Texas Emigrant Agent Law, which placed heavy taxes upon those recruiting workers for outside interests. But the recruiting continued when necessary, sometimes legally, sometimes otherwise.21 The Spanish-speaking workers remained in the North for several reasons. In the Great Lakes region some found that they could get what seemed to them princely wages for unskilled labor in Chicago, Gary, and Detroit industries. Steel and automobile producers had also felt the impact of immigration restriction, and welcomed the Mexicans in the 1920's since they would do hard, unpleasant work that other laborers shunned. Further, the Mexican learned that the charities in large cities were well organized and ready to lend a helping hand if he could not land a job in the factories or on a construction project. In some states the beet companies offered the workers five dollars an acre more if they waived return transportation at the end of the season, and this was an added inducement to remain. As a result, by the late 1920's Mexican colonies were established throughout the Middle West, and sugar company recruiters added the names and addresses of these city families to their files of available experienced beet workers.22 In Colorado and other mountain states a deliberate policy of encouraging Mexicans and Spanish Americans to settle near or in the beet areas was embarked upon during the 1920's by the Holly, Great 21 22

I

U . S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7874-76. R. N. McLean, The Northern Mexican (New York, Home Missions Council,

93°)> passim.

WORKERS

114

IN SUGAR

BEETS

Western, and other sugar companies. T h e objective was to build up a resident labor supply that would replace the German Russians and remove the necessity for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to recruit workers and move them to and from the beet areas. Workers were encouraged to build houses on lots owned by the sugar companies. T h e y were furnished materials and offered the opportunity to pay for land and materials over a period of years. Farmers, railroads, and other employers were urged to hire the Spanish-speaking workers during the slack seasons, thus giving them something

approaching

year-round employment. Sometimes financial aid was given the workers to tide them over the winter, the aid being repaid the following beet season. 28 This campaign was successful in many parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska. Thousands of these workers settled down in colonies organized by the beet companies, while many more thousands moved to Denver, Billings, Cheyenne, and other important cities of the area, living on a combination of casual unskilled labor and charity while they hibernated between beet seasons. T h e absence of important manufacturing activity in this area deprived these workers of the opportunity for profitable urban work enjoyed by their brothers in the humid beet area. In northeastern Colorado alone, during the i92o's, an average of 1,500 additional workers each year remained during the winter after having been shipped into the area by the Great Western Sugar Company, and there were many others who settled down elsewhere in the mountain beet area. 24 Increasingly each year, therefore, the beet companies turned to the major cities and towns adjoining their factories for experienced hand workers, looking to New Mexico and Texas primarily when they needed help for increased beet acreage. All during the twenties the beet growers and processors—supported by other large-scale agricultural employers in Texas cotton and California fruits and vegetables—maintained a constant fight against every attempt to restrict free immigration from Mexico. T h e y went so far as to denounce the restrictions requiring payment of a head tax and establishment of literacy, although Mexican immigration during the 1920's 23

Taylor, op. cit., pp. 136-38.

24

Ibid., p. 139.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

115

soared. Appearing before Congressional committees to oppose restrictive measure after restrictive measure, they hammered home the same argument: without Mexicans the sugar-beet industry could not continue to exist. T o the suggestion that American workers might be employed in the fields, one grower retorted: "If you are going to make the young men of America do this back-breaking work, shoveling manure to fertilize the ground, and shoveling beets, you are going to drive them away from agriculture . . . you have got to give us a class of labor that will do this back-breaking work and we have the brains and skill to supervise and handle the business part of it."

25

When confronted by statistics of relief expenditures from Los Angeles and other cities to which Mexicans flocked after the farm season, the beet interests denied that their workers remained in or near the growing areas after harvest. The Mexican is a "homer" and "he always goes back," they insisted, despite the growing colonies of Mexicans in northern cities and the mounting public expenditures for their winter care which investigators were finding throughout the beet areas. Asked whether the Mexican workers might not displace American farmers as the Japanese and Chinese had done to some extent, the beet growers and processors assured Congress that this was one thing they never feared. The chief labor recruiter for the Great Western Sugar Company put their attitude in these terms: This Mexican . . . is not a saver. He is a spender. Hence, he remains longer as a worker than many other people . . . we are in, or perhaps have come to, a new period, for we no longer want settlers to occupy vacant land . . . what we want is workers to work for the settler who came before.2® The complete denial of any "agricultural ladder" or other opportunity for the Mexican to advance himself economically was put forward consistently as a reason why this type of worker could safely be admitted 2 5 U. S. Congress, House, Seasonal Agricultural Laborers front Mexico. Hearing before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 69th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, 1926), p. 66. 20 U. S. Congress, House, Immigration from Countries of the Western Hemisphere. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 70th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, 1928), p. 246.

116

WORKERS

IN

SUGAR

BEETS

to the country. Congress was assured that, a peon in Mexico, he would remain a beet worker in the United States. These appeals for an alien labor force willing to do work that Americans allegedly refused won out consistently during this decade and no legislative or other change in the status of Mexican immigrants was made until late 1929. T h e onset of depression and increasing unemployment in this country resulted in a tightening of the bars at the borders, even without legislative changes. American authorities refused to give entrance permits to laborers who might become public charges, and since practically all potential beet laborers fell into this category, the number crossing the border declined sharply. Moreover, the tide turned and the large-scale repatriation of Mexican families described in the previous chapter on fruits and vegetables took several thousand beet families out of the country. One other important new group joined the beet labor force during the 1920's. Filipinos, by the thousands, came from Hawaii and their home islands looking for work. L i k e the Japanese and Chinese workers before them, they were young unattached males in the prime of life, and soon several thousand of them were thinning and harvesting beets, first in California and later in other states, particularly Montana and Idaho. L i k e the Oriental groups which had preceeded them, the Filipinos worked in gangs under a contractor or elected leader and spent the slack seasons as migratory laborers in the fruit and vegetable crops or as unskilled laborers in the cities. More than most beet workers, these gangs of Filipinos tended to follow the beet crop from state to state, taking advantage of the fact that from southern California to Montana and the D a k o t a s there was some succession of

thinning

periods in each of which they could get work. Sometimes they turned back during the early summer and started the same migration with the successive harvests, or, alternatively, they might remain in the area that had the last spring work period, seek other farm labor in the slack season, and then pull and top the beets in the fall. 27 Beet acreage increased in the early 1930's, reaching a record height in 1933 because this crop's prices fell less relatively than did those 2 7 U. S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Committee on Education and Labor. Senate Report No. 1150, 77th Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1942), II, 443.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

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117

of competing crops, such as grains and potatoes. B u t labor was no problem

during

this period,

for many

unemployed

workers

were

eager to accept this work, and old prejudices against "stoop labor" surrendered to economic necessity. M a n y of these workers had never done beet field labor; others had done it many years before but had thought they had risen above it until the depression hit their jobs. So plentiful was the resident supply of labor available that importation of beet workers from T e x a s and N e w Mexico virtually ceased for a time, and little difficulty arose from the tightening of restrictions on Mexican immigration or the repatriation of Mexican

families.

The

abundance of beet labor during this period is judged best from the fact that farmers in 1933 harvested what was then the largest beet acreage in United States history at per acre wages roughly 40 percent below the 1930 level. 28 M a n y more farmers than usual, of course, did their own hand work, saving the money they would ordinarily have paid to a contract laborer. A l l through the 1930's much of the sugar-beet labor supply was supported during the off months by federal, state, and local relief, since the great volume of unemployment which persisted during this decade hindered beet workers in getting unskilled jobs in the cities after the beet season was over. As with other crops, growers exerted pressure 011 the relief authorities to make sure that their workers would be forced off relief in time for them to thin beets. In 1938, for instance, the director of the Colorado W P A asserted that it was customary for his organization to lay off men with Spanish and Mexican names each spring on the assumption that they were beet laborers and should be out in the After

fields.29 1932

transportation

northward

of

Mexican

and

Spanish

American workers from Texas and N e w Mexico revived, in part because the recovery in urban employment was reducing the surpluses available for beet labor, in part perhaps because the sugar companies wanted to keep in touch with the workers in Texas and N e w Mexico and not

and

23

Agricultural

29

Regional zo,

graphed) .

1937

Statistics,

Sugar

Beet

(Denver,

1942 Labor

Works

(Washington, 1943), p. 130. Conference, Progress

Denver,

Colorado,

Administration,

1937),

as of March p.

1

ig

(mimeo-

WORKERS

118

IN SUGAR

BEETS

become entirely dependent on resident labor. Also, of course, the more migrants who were brought in or came to an area, the less pressure there was for an upward revision of wages. From 6,000 to 10,000 workers were recruited from Texas annually during the late 1930's, most of them going to Michigan. The reason for these heavy importations was explained by the director of the Michigan State Employment Service in early 1940: The situation concerning sugar-beet field workers is just about the same this year as in previous years. . . . [some] concerns say very frankly that they prefer Mexican labor and insist upon having it for the reason that the Mexican sugar-beet field worker will do about five times the amount of work that the local farm hand (will do) for the same amount of money. Furthermore, that they are more dependable, and that they are on the job ready to prepare for the harvest, while the local farm hand is very apt to desert the sugar-beet work in favor of some easier job about harvest time.30 T h e willingness

of beet companies

to import workers even with

adequate labor available in their home territories was shown in the spring of 1937, when one firm distributed leaflets on the West Coast and in New Mexico urging workers to come to Colorado for beet work. This was done despite the fact that many experienced beet workers were on the relief or W P A rolls in that state already. Aroused at this threatened influx of outsiders who might have to be added to the relief rolls, the governor of the state stepped in and got the company to promise to give resident workers—many of whom had been originally imported by the company—priority

over out-of-state people when

assigning workers to its contracting farmers. 31 Most of the workers sent north during the 1930's were shipped by truck, rather than by train as earlier. The trip from Texas to Michigan is a long one, about 1,600 miles, and not pleasant if one has to stand or sit on a rough bench in the back of a truck. Many of these vehicles, moreover, were crowded to the limit, with some passengers having to stand all the way. Often the trucks roared north at great speed, stop80

U.

S . Congress, House,

Interstate Migration.

Hearings

before the

Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute

Citizens,

Select 76th

Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1 9 4 0 ) , V , 1847. 81

Information from materials in the files of the Denver office of the F a r m

Security

Administration.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

119

ping only occasionally to refuel or have the motor checked, at which time the passengers might get a chance to move around and attend to personal needs. The reason for speed and crowding was that the truck drivers were paid a fixed price per passenger delivered to the Great Lakes beet region, so that their profit depended cm the number of passengers they could bring up each trip and on the number of trips they could make each season. A t $9.00 a head, the usual price in the late 1930's, sizable incomes could be made at this trucking. One combination labor agent and trucker got $5,700 for his services from one sugar company in the Great Lakes area in 1940. Frequently, workers brought up by truck were stranded in the North and had to settle there or get back as best they could by "jalopy," hitchhiking, or otherwise.82 In 1941 the Interstate Commerce Commission prosecuted a sugar company, its labor-recruiting subsidy, and one of their labor-agent truckers for moving workers north without proper permits or insurance. The company and its subsidiary pleaded nolo contendere, and the latter was fined $2,000 and costs, while the agent was fined $1,000 and costs. In 1941, consequently, many more workers were brought by train to Michigan and Ohio than had been for many years previously." Beginning in 1939, Mexican workers recruited in Texas have been examined by physicians before being allowed to contract for work in Michigan. This requirement was put into effect as a result of two findings in 1937. In Saginaw County, Michigan, it was discovered that 25 percent of the hospital patients were Mexicans who had come from Texas as beet laborers, while the permanent Mexican population of the county was but 2 percent of the whole. Almost simultaneously, the health commissioner of the county discovered that more than half of a group of these laborers reacted positively to tests of tuberculosis infection. Alarmed by the implications of these facts for the health of Michigan citizens—and mindful of the fact that it costs over $1,000 a year to care for a tubercular patient—the state's health authorities secured the consent of the sugar companies to the institution of preliminary fluoroscopic and X - r a y examinations to detect and weed out in Texas tubercular applicants for beet work. In 1939, Saginaw County 32 33

U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7796-7840. Ibid., p. 7778.

120

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

authorities vaccinated 500 Mexican workers after a case of smallpox was found among them. In August, 1941, a near epidemic of diphtheria was barely averted in a Mexican beet-workers' colony near Blissfield, Michigan. As the result of these incidents, Michigan authorities began extensive immunization of Mexican families brought to the beet fields in 1942. 34 A survey by the Department of Agriculture in 1939 gave a comprehensive picture of the composition of the contract beet labor force in that year. Of the 93,000 workers employed, 57 percent were Mexicans or Spanish Americans; 16.5 percent, native Americans; 7 percent, German Russians; 7 percent, Filipinos; and the rest, of various other nationalities. Fewer than 100 Japanese workers were found. The relatively small number of German Russians among hired workers was due to the rise of this group to farm ownership or tenancy. Colorado had 21,000 workers, two thirds of them Spanish speaking; California had 16,500 workers, two thirds of them Spanish speaking and one fourth Filipinos; Michigan had 12,300 workers, three fourths Mexicans and the rest belonging to miscellaneous groups.35 The diversity of labor supply sources which some states drew upon in 1939 is best illustrated by Montana, which got two thirds of its workers, or 4,400 from outside the state. About 2,600 came from California, mainly Mexican and Filipino males, while 800 came from North Dakota, 400 from Washington, 300 from Colorado, 300 from Texas, and a few from Arizona and Oklahoma. Many of the California migrants stopped in Montana to do the thinning and blocking, then traveled on to other areas before the harvest, so that other laborers had to be imported to take in the crop.36 With the entrance of the United States into the Second World War, beet growers and processors found themselves hard-pressed for workers. Mexicans in northern cities found they could get year round industrial work, and other foreign workers had the same experience as barriers of race, nationality, and age were lowered by non-farm employers. Even 34

Information from the Farm Labor Administration.

33

U . S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Committee on Education and

II, 44336 U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration,

XIX,

7874.

Labor,

WORKERS

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121

in Texas there was some tightening of the labor supply, and recruiters sent there found themselves competing with industrial, railroad, and other agricultural interests seeking workers. The acreage planted in the spring of 1942 skyrocketed to help meet domestic sugar needs, and some emergency measures were required to get enough workers for thinning and blocking. The fall outlook looked black, since many of those who had done the spring work succumbed to the lure of higher industrial wages or went into the armed forces. However, the second largest acreage planted in this country was harvested successfully. Part of the beet harvesting in the mountain states was done by about 5,000 Americans of Japanese descent who had been evacuated from their Pacific Coast homes under Army security regulations. They were volunteers who left their relocation centers to help out even though most of them had never done such work before. Throughout the beet areas schools, stores, and offices closed down, and men, women, and children from urban communities bent their backs over the beets. The government stepped in directly to help in the 1942 beet harvest. With emergency funds granted by the President, the Farm Security Administration imported 3,000 workers from Mexico for California's beet fields and sent several hundred subsistence farmers from Kentucky to Michigan's harvest. 37 With these emergency forces supplementing what remained of the usual labor supply, the 1942 beet harvest reached almost a million acres. The importation of Mexican workers for sugar-beet work in the fall of 1942 was done on a different basis from the importations of 1917-20. All movement was under government supervision, and was in accordance with provisions of an agreement between the governments of the two countries. The Mexicans brought in were first given medical examinations in Mexico City, and care was taken to draw workers only from areas which had labor surpluses, thus minimizing the undesirable effects of this importation on the Mexican economy. The contract guaranteed these workers that they would receive the same wages as those secured by workers doing the same labor in the United States—but no less than thirty cents an hour —and they were guaranteed employment for 75 percent of the working 37

Information from the Farm Security Administration and War Authority.

Relocation

WORKERS IN SUGAR

122

BEETS

days that they spent in this country. Assurance was also given them that housing provided would meet minimum standards at least. To some growers, this consideration for the Mexican economy and for the workers' interests seemed like "bureaucratic obstructionism." They thought back fondly to the happy days of the First World War when they recruited unhampered. Nevertheless, they cooperated to get workers. The California beet processors set up a special corporation, California Field Crops, Inc., which negotiated with the United States government, signed the necessary contracts, and provided financial sureties that the safeguards would be met. In addition, this corporation distributed the workers to the farmers and helped keep the elaborate bookkeeping records required to insure full payment to the workers.'8 As the time approached for planting sugar beets in the spring of 1943, processors found farmers reluctant to contract for beet acreages. The difficulties met in harvesting the 1942 crop had made them afraid of an even greater labor shortage in 1943. In addition, prices offered by the government for competing crops, such as potatoes and beans, were extremely attractive, promising returns better than those in sugar beets with less labor difficulty. Acreage planted in 1943 dropped 40 percent as a result. Impressed by the success of Mexican laborers in California the previous fall, sugar-beet processors in the mountain states formed a corporation to secure such workers for their contracting farmers. About 5,000 imported Mexican laborers helped with the 1943 crop in Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas. In the eastern sugar-beet area Negro workers were imported from Jamaica for the same purpose, and over 2,000 of them labored in Michigan, Ohio, and adjoining states, thinning, blocking, and harvesting. California's 1943 beet labor force again included a large proportion of Mexican importees.38 In 1944 beet acreage remained at about the 1943 level, and the same groups of foreign workers were employed. The manner in which sugar-beet workers' wages are determined has 38

Consolidated Progress Report of the Mexican Farm Labor Transportation Program of the Farm Security Administration, through November 20, 1942 (San Francisco, Farm Security Administration, 1942), passim. ** Information from the Farm Security Administration.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

123

changed radically in the past decade. Since he has been the farmer's chief labor recruiter, the sugar processor has always been interested in wages. His recruiters have had to know how much they could offer workers, and he has had to be sure that wages were not so high relative to beet prices as to make beet farming unattractive. The grower who pays the wages has an obvious interest in them. Wages before 1937, therefore, seem usually to have been determined through joint conferences of growers and processing officials. Wages were set at levels determined in part by the level of sugar prices and in part by what was believed necessary to get sufficient workers in the face of bids from competing districts. 40 Once a wage level had been established in a given factory district, there was usually little chance of the worker getting a higher rate that season. Within the district, the company usually made sure there were enough or more than enough workers so that there was no farmer competition for labor. All the growers in one district usually paid the same rate because all had gotten their workers through the sugar processor. Another district might pay higher wages, but frequently the worker did not know what the rates were in different districts, and even if he did find out after having accepted a contract, he was held by the agreement. Very rarely did the sugar companies raid each other's labor forces. Of course, in an unusual year like 1942, when sugar prices were high and labor inadequate, there was much labor pirating and competitive bidding among farmers. In such a year, the worker could shop around and increase his wage. But during most years he had no alternative other than to accept the wage offered. This unilateral wage determination was ended by the Sugar Act of 1937 which provided that growers wishing to receive government benefit payments must at least pay fair and reasonable wages as set by the Secretary of Agriculture. The 1934 Sugar Act had a somewhat similar provision, but then the Secretary was authorized to set wages only when there was a dispute among the parties concerned. The one wage determination issued under this power was handed down in 1935 and covered parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana. 4 0 U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and 76th Congress, 3d Session (Washington, 1940), LI, 18706.

Labor. Labor,

124

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

Since the passage of the Sugar Act of 1937, the wage determinations have been issued after public hearings held in the beet areas. Processors, growers, workers, and others interested have been able to express their views and suggestions on these rates. The concept underlying these wage determinations was expressed by President Roosevelt as ' the principle that an industry which desires the protection afforded by a quota system, or a tariff, should be expected to guarantee that it will be a good employer." In other words, the minimum wage is an effort to insure that some of the benefit of such government subsidy will accrue to the workers in the industry and not be confined to growers and processors because of lack of worker bargaining strength. While initially this government setting of minimum beet wage rates acted to raise their level, its further operation has indicated a number of problems. As is so often true, there has been a tendency for the minimum to become the maximum. One reason sugar companies have brought in surplus workers has been to keep wages down. Mindful of the minimum rates set, they have tried to bring in sufficient workers to maintain the rates at the minimum. Further, since most of the workers are unlettered and little skilled in the intricacies of the law, the impression has been widespread that the "government wage" is the legal wage which must not be exceeded. Even sugar company employees sometimes get this impression. One of them told the writer in early 1943 that farmers in his district had violated the law in 1942 by paying

93« 1939

18.76

I I.I I 1.9 I I .2

65-93

28.5

62.59

25.2

1S.23

5-94 5-26 5-1.3 5'6 5-7^

18.87 20.05

Year

1927

15-78

1.9

24-7

IO.4

57-46 5°-57 5V-9°

6.05

11.6

70.18

26.9

11.6

22.21

5-27 4-65

O1.13 58.-3

38.2

21-34

4.76

56.17

38.0

14.21

if>-33

0.8

125

11.8

32.3

30-4 32.8

* Acre return is ton price multiplied by yield per acre. Sources: Wage data from National Defense Migration. Hearings before the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, House of Representatives, 7 6 t h Congress, 1st Session (Washington, 1 9 4 1 ) , X I X , 7 8 8 3 . Yield and ton price data from Agricultural Statistics, 1Q4J (Washington, 1 9 4 3 ) , p. 8 5 . costs of sugar-beet p r o d u c t i o n — t a x e s , irrigation assessments, interest on loans, and so f o r t h — w e r e largely b e y o n d grower control. A significant

feature of

the d a t a a b o v e

is the sharp increase

most during

1937-39 in workers' share of the sugar-beet dollar. T h i s relative increase carried them far b e y o n d the ratio attained even in 1929 and w a s a reflection of the intervention of a government agency into the sugar-beet production picture. T h e actual level of beet wages, however was lower than in 1929. W h i l e wages are an i m p o r t a n t determinant of sugar-beet

worker

earnings, two other factors must also be considered: the number of acres a worker can contract for and the beet yield on these acres. I t should be noted that the a v e r a g e daily earnings of beet workers tend t o be high compared to time w a g e s for other farm work. In 1933, for example, if a worker did all the beet labor on seven acres in 50 d a y s ,

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

129

he would have earned roughly $ 1 0 0 on the average, giving him a daily earning average of $2. This was much higher than the 1 9 3 3 national average day wage without board which was only f i . n . Although the average earnings per day worked in beets tend to be relatively high as compared with the return from other agricultural work, the difficulty has been that the beet laborer has had to spread these earnings so as to allow for the many days on which he had no work at all. The earnings of 50 or 60 days in beets have often had to last him and his family for six or seven months. The number of acres a worker can tend depends upon his skill and energy, and also upon the interest of the employer in giving him maximum earnings. From 1900 to 1 9 1 0 it was often reported that employers spread out their plantings over several weeks in order to make it possible for their workers to tend maximum acreages. Japanese workers were reported to average between 1 2 and 1 5 acres a season while other groups averaged somewhat less. 5 1 Workers who tended between 1 5 and 20 acres a season were not uncommon. T o an important extent these staggered plantings of the past were induced by labor shortage or fear of it. This incentive w a s largely absent over most of the 1920's and 1930's. With labor surpluses available in most years, the employer tended to plant all his acres simultaneously at the time he considered optimum, thus reducing the number of acres that any one worker could handle. The added speed in ground preparation and planting afforded by the tractor was a further factor militating against staggered plantings. Aside from these technical considerations, employers tended to adopt a policy of giving every applicant some work, so that each could make something and be encouraged to come back again next year, in the hope of doing better. B u t when every member of a surplus labor force gets some work, many of them do not get enough work. T h e following quotation from a 1 9 3 9 Michigan study illustrates this point: Very few beet workers were found who could not have taken care of a considerably larger beet acreage than that assigned to them. A complaint frequently heard among Mexicans with small acreages was "Trucks bring up too many from Texas." Several fieldmen and beet growers expressed the belief that any family which does not have more than 7 acres per worker 51

U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X V , Pt. II, 104.

130

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

would hardly make expenses. There are many instances where some beet workers cared for 2 or 3 times the acreage taken care of by the average person.02 It may be noted that in that study the average acreage worked by a Mexican was seven. In the past beet workers often depended upon their large families to bring them good acreages and adequate earnings. The German Russian of Colorado and Nebraska climbed up the agricultural ladder with the aid of his family's work, and the large Mexican beet-labor family was the industry's main dependence during the 1920's and 1930's. Under the Sugar Acts of 1934 and 1937, the labor of children under fourteen was forbidden and the work of children of fifteen and sixteen was limited to eight hours daily. This reduced family earnings, to the extent that the law was obeyed, and made beet processors and growers less eager for family laborers than heretofore. Since the key unit in sugar-beet production during the past two decades has been the family, we may compare the findings on family earnings in 1920, when the highest beet wages were paid, and in 1934, a year in which rates were somewhat higher than the 1933 low but still below the level of most years. The difference in real income received during the two years is exaggerated below, since cost of living is ignored. In 1920 the median family income of Colorado beet workers, from beet work, was $1,002.55; in Michigan, it was $854. 53 In 1934 the median family incomes from beet work in Colorado were $110 in the Arkansas Valley, and $250 in the rest of the state, while in Michigan the median figure was $430 in the southern part of the state and $470 in the central portion. 54 Bearing in mind the fact that this money is the bulk or all of a family's earnings during the six or seven months of beet work, it is not surprising that many beet workers had to receive relief during the early 1930's, even while they were working, in order to make ends 5 2 J. F. Thaden, Migratory Beet Workers in Michigan. Michigan State College Agricultural Experiment Station Special Bulletin 319 (East Lansing, 1942), p. 13. 53 Department of Labor, Child Labor and Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan (Washington, Children's Bureau Publication No. 115, Government Printing Office, 1923), pp. 112-13. 84 E. S. Johnson, Welfare of Families of Sugar-Beet Laborers (Washington, Children's Bureau Publication No. 247, 1939), p. 64.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

131

meet. There were over six members in the average family studied in 1934, most of whom worked in the beet fields. For 1940, when the average number of employable workers per family had dropped because of the Sugar Act restrictions, a Department of Agriculture official estimated average beet family income over the nation at about $400 for the season. 55 Despite the fact that beet workers' earnings from this source are relatively low even in the best years, this work is often—perhaps usually in most years—the major source of cash income for these people. If the beet worker is lucky, he may be able to get other agricultural work between spring thinning and fall harvest, or perhaps get a job in a near-by city. After the harvest he may find some work in a non-agricultural occupation or go on relief. During both the 1920's and

1930's, the supplementary

income from non-beet sources

was

usually small because the beet worker had to accept unskilled casual labor, lacking the skill for a better job or debarred from one by prejudice based on his color or nationality. T h e opportunities for supplementary work are obviously greater in areas such as southern Michigan, where many other intensive crops are grown and where there are many near-by industrial communities, than they are in some sections of Wyoming, where beets are virtually the only intensive crop raised and there is little non-agricultural activity. A Department of Labor study found that the median beet family income from all sources except relief in 1935 was $430, varying from $280 in eastern Minnesota to $740 in southern Michigan. In 1920, median total earnings from all sources were almost $1,400 for Michigan beet workers. In both years, most of this income was from beet work. In 1938, the average annual family income of northern Colorado beet workers was almost $570, of which about 75 percent came from beet work; in southern Colorado, the average was about $400, almost half of this coming from relief sources. A 1937 survey of Wyoming beet families in the Torrington area found that more than half earned less than $300 annually, exclusive of relief, 41 percent of these families having no other 55

II.

U. S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Committee on Education and Labor,

450.

WORKERS

132

IN SUGAR

source of income than beet work.

56

BEETS

Despite the low economic status

indicated by these earnings, studies of Texas Mexicans during the 1930's indicated that beet families were regarded as the aristocrats among them, usually receiving more income than families that followed other crops. All investigations made of beet-worker housing on farms indicate that these quarters are frequently poor and often lack even the most elementary requirements for sanitation and health. From the beginning of beet culture, those workers who were not drawn daily from a neighboring town, were provided some sort of quarters near the fields. Sometimes they were lodged in the same house with the farmer and his family, but this was rare, since most beet workers have been foreigners looked down upon by their farmer employers. Few were the native American farmers who would share their homes with Japanese, GermanRussian, or Mexican workers. Sugar companies realized the importance of housing to induce workers to stay, and sometimes experimented on their own initiative. One type of housing tried in 1909 for Belgian workers in Ohio was described as follows: The men in each gang are housed in a shanty 16 feet long by 7 feet wide and 7 feet high, with a door at each end and two windows on each side. This shanty is built on ordinary wagon wheels so as to be readily moved. One end is equipped with a stove and a table, for cooking and eating, while the other is fitted up with bunks for sleeping. An average of five men live in each of these shanties. When a gang has finished the fields of one grower, the farmer hitches his team to the wagon and readily moves them to the next farm. 5 7

While the inadequacy of housing in the early years of the beet industry can be understood because of farmers' unwillingness to invest money in building quarters which they would not need if they should discontinue beet growing, it is more difficult to understand the persistence of poor housing over the decades. A Department of Labor survey in 19,35 gave this description of the housing available to beet families in areas where this branch of agriculture has been important for almost four decades: 56 57

Information from the Farm Security Administration. U. S. Immigration Commission, Reports, X X I V , 572-73.

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

133

Leaky roofs, cracks and holes in walls, and general lack of repair were frequently complained of by the families, and representatives of growers and sugar companies were seriously concerned with the bad housing facilities. The prevailing conditions were explained . . . as being due to the recent hard times for the sugar beet growers and to the impossibility of persuading some of the farmers that they had a responsibility to provide better quarters for their beet laborers. The complete lack of any standards on the part of some growers is illustrated by the fact that in one case a family of 10 was given a very small, windowless room in a stable between the horse stalls and the grain room and a small tent to live in. 58

While the excuse given in 1935 for poor housing was bad times for beet growers the same conditions had been found in similar studies in 1919 and 1920, when prices received by beet growers were at record highs. An investigator for the National Child Labor Committee described the workers' quarters on Michigan beet farms in those years as "unspeakably wretched" and noted a "shocking degree of insanitation." In 1920 the Children's Bureau noted that in Michigan "many of the beet-field laborers were obliged to sleep with from three to ten persons of both sexes in a small, ill ventilated room, even when the combined kitchen and living room was also pressed into service as a bedroom."

69

In Colorado in the late 1920's an investigator noted that only continued exhortation by the sugar-beet companies was inducing farmers to begin providing adequate shelter. " D o not expect a high class of labor if you have a poor place for them to live," was the reminder constantly put before the growers by the company which had the problem each year of securing workers. But in 1940 another investigator reported that an examination of northern Colorado beet houses showed that practically none of them had adequate waste disposal facilities, refrigeration, or indoor toilets, while two thirds had leaky roofs and were without proper drainage.60 In the discussion above it has been emphasized time and again that in most years since sugar-beet growing became an important industry in this country the labor market has been controlled by processors and growers. Sharply improved conditions for workers have been 68 69 60

E. S. Johnson, op. cit., p. 76. Quoted in U. S. Congress, House, National Defense Migration, X I X , 7879. Study in the files of the Denver office, Farm Security Administration.

WORKERS IN SUGAR

134

BEETS

the result either of wartime labor shortages, as in 1942 and 1943, or of government wage fixing, as in 1937-39. Efforts by the workers themselves to improve their conditions have been relatively few and ineffective, but they deserve examination for the light they throw on the difficulties of seasonal-worker organization and self-help.61 In some respects, sugar-beet workers are even better prospects for unionization than seasonal fruit and vegetable laborers, but in other respects they offer greater difficulties. Sugar-beet workers are usually a stable group, since they work on a farm for several months during the year and depend on this work for a very important fraction of their year's income. In many areas they form a homogeneous group united by cultural background, color, language, and national origin. These are important elements favoring common action. On the other hand, these laborers rarely work in large gangs—outside of California— but are usually employed in family groups on individual farms. This complicates the problem of reaching them with union propaganda. Also these workers are usually too poor to pay union dues willingly over the long period needed to build up an effective organization. The Mexican workers who have formed the major group of beet workers in recent years have lacked experience in collective action and this has hindered efforts to unite them for their own betterment. Collective action among beet workers to better their condition was not infrequent in the early days of the industry when Japanese played a leading role. As early as March, 1903, one thousand Japanese and Mexican sugar beet workers struck in Ventura County, California, demanding higher wages and elimination of the labor contract system. But this effort like others before the First World War did not lead to any permanent union of beet workers. By and large, processors and growers still retained domination. In 1927 the IWW tried to organize Colorado beet workers but without much success. In 1928 a union of Mexican beet workers was organized in the same state, but it achieved little in the way of tangible improvement of conditions. In 1932 a Communist organ reported that 81

The following discussion of unionism among beet workers is based on Harry Schwartz, "Unionization of Agricultural Labor in the United States" (Unpublished M A thesis, Dept. of Economics, Columbia University, 1 9 4 1 ) .

WORKERS

IN SUGAR BEETS

135

18,000 Colorado beet workers were on strike under the leadership of the Agricultural Workers Industrial League, but this seems to have been a failure in the face of the widespread unemployment which existed at that time. These efforts do indicate the existence of restlessness among the Mexican beet workers and an inclination to organize for improvement of their conditions. Organization continued among the beet workers, though it was weak and was bitterly opposed by employers and sugar companies. A convention held at Denver in February, 1935, was attended by representatives of thirty-eight local beet worker unions in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska. A minimum wage scale of $23 per acre was demanded by the conference, which sent organizers out among the workers to secure additional members and gain signatures on petitions. It was this conference's activity that prompted the Secretary of Agriculture to issue a minimum wage determination for these states, under the provisions of the 1934 Sugar Act permitting him to do so when there was a dispute between workers and employers. In January, 1936, a similar National Beet Workers Conference took place with fifty-one delegates from thirty-nine local unions in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota attending. These voted to affiliate with the A F L and set as their objective the creation of a separate A F L beet workers union. In March of the same year eleven A F L locals, formed the Colorado Conference of Beet Field and Agricultural Workers Unions to coordinate their activities. The first sign of union activity in the eastern beet region came in 1935, when two sugar-beet worker locals, both affiliated with the A F L , were organized at Blissfield, Michigan, and Findlay, Ohio. The workers in the former area threatened to strike and actually succeeded in forcing wages up from $14.40 an acre to $ 1 9 . The agreement they secured also gave their union some control over the number of workers given beet contracts so that they were able to increase the average acreage tended per worker. A 1935 survey by the Children's Bureau found that of ten beet areas in the mountain and eastern states, the workers who had the largest numbers of acres to work on and received the best incomes from beet work were those in southern Michigan. The Bureau attributed this showing to the agreement the union had secured with

136

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

62

the growers. The Blissfield agreement was notable in that it established a closed shop, with only union members permitted to work in the fields unless union approval was given to the hiring of outsiders when extra workers were needed. Union leaders asserted that this clause was inserted to prevent undermining of wages by city workers who flocked to the beet fields when work was slack in the near-by cities. When the United Cannery, Agricultural, and Packing Workers of America was formed as a CIO affiliate in July, 1937, most of the beet worker local unions affiliated with it. In 1938, the UCAPAWA claimed forty-one locals in the mountain states and listed 20,000 members in the sugar-beet and sugar-cane fields, most of them in the former. That these claims were probably highly exaggerated was indicated to the writer by persons, formerly close to the union, whom he interviewed in Denver in 1941. Apparently the UCAPAWA organizer in this area was able to secure substantial financial backing from liberals by claiming that he had a large organization which needed financial help only because of the workers' poverty. In mid-193 9 this organizer was removed on charges of misappropriation of funds and treason to the union. Whatever the truth of the charges, his removal—together with the lack of any really substantial organization among the workers— disillusioned many former supporters and resulted in further losses of membership. Although the UCAPAWA claimed 12,000 beet worker members in mid-1940, this writer's investigations in the mountain area a year later indicated there was but a shadow of an organization left, and he could not find even one paid organizer in the area. 63 Although the beet unions in the mountain states never called a successful strike and never won any spectacular victories for their members, they were of some aid to the beet workers. For one thing, the unions represented the workers at hearings held by the Department of Agriculture to determine minimum beet-wage rates. We have already noticed that the one determination secured under the 1934 Sugar Act was made after pressure from these unions. Their systematic presenta62

E . S. Johnson, "Wages, Employment Conditions, and Welfare of

Sugar

Beet Laborers," Monthly Labor Review, Feb., 1938, pp. 339-40. 63

1941.

Information gathered during author's investigations in Colorado in August,

WORKERS

IN SUGAR

BEETS

137

tion of the workers' views at government wage hearings may have helped to secure wage rates somewhat higher than they would have been if only the growers and processors had participated. Further, the unions were extremely active in pressing workers' claims for unpaid wages, thus helping in the policing of the Sugar Act and aiding many workers. Union officials also were active in getting relief for their needy members and fought the policy of severing beet workers from relief rolls every spring. While very weak because of lack of funds and workers' apathy, these local unions were important because they represented a potential power which growers, processors, and government officials had to take into account in reaching decisions. We have seen that the sugar-beet industry from its inception as a major farm activity has been constantly dependent upon a labor supply composed of persons in the lowest economic and social strata, willing to do the "stoop labor" that others were unwilling to perform. These workers have always tended to receive treatment as "second-class citizens," both because of their work and because of their color and nationality. The fellowship and equality which have

traditionally

marked the treatment of the American hired hand have been completely absent from the treatment given seasonal beet laborers. Their children have been seriously handicapped by this, often being able to secure but little education because of community contempt for them and community belief that they were most useful as uneducated beet workers. Before Pearl Harbor even government intervention had done relatively little to improve these workers' situation, so that as late as 1940 beet work from spring to fall and relief the rest of the year were complementary employments in the eyes of thousands of these handworkers. Since 1940 several scientific developments have occurred which appear likely to revolutionize the cost and labor aspects of sugar-beet production. Three technical advances make it possible to cultivate beets with far less use of labor than ever before. If adopted widely, they give promise of enabling the beet industry to dispense with the majority of hand laborers heretofore employed by it. One major technical advance is the development of segmented seed, which was first planted widely in 1943. The ordinary sugar-beet seed ball actually contains several seeds, so that it sprouts a cluster

WORKERS

138

IN SUGAR

BEETS

of plants, making thinning difficult. Segmented seed is whole seed run through a grinding process which breaks it up into several individual seeds f r o m each of which one plant will sprout, thus reducing blocking a n d thinning labor. In 1943 and

1944 thousands of acres were

p l a n t e d w i t h this seed in western areas, and its increased use seems likely." M e c h a n i c a l blocking has been practiced for a number of years, b u t mechanical thinning has proved successful only since 1940. In

1942,

experiments a t the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station showed that on land thinned b y hand 27.2 man hours of labor were required per acre, while on machine-thinned land only 2.5 man hours per acre were required. 6 5 T h e final a d v a n c e in eliminating beet hand labor is the

recent

development of the mechanical harvester. One manufacturer describes this machine as follows: This machine is mounted on a tractor and controlled entirely by the tractor operator himself . . . This machine automatically tops the beets, collects the tops and deposits them on the ground in a windrow . . . It then lifts the beets, picks them out of the ground, agitates them to separate the soil from the beets and then by means of a laterally adjustable conveyor, conveys them into a windrow. . . . tests showed that one machine will replace from six to eight men at harvest time. 68 W h i l e some technical problems remain to be solved in extending the use of these devices to all t y p e s of land and climatic conditions, the m a j o r technological difficulties seem to h a v e been overcome.

It

seems likely that their widespread adoption in the future will depend upon economic factors, particularly labor costs. If these new developm e n t s are widely adopted, the sugar-beet worker on hands and knees will be largely replaced b y the tractor driver. T h e only major hand operation l e f t will be hoeing. T h e new mechanization m a y give an i m p o r t a n t impetus to the creation of beet f a r m s with very large acrea g e s w h i c h will be tended with machines rather than with the hordes Time, Feb. 28, 1944, pp. 48-50. E. M. Mervine and R. D. Barmington, Mechanical Thinning of Sugar Beets (Fort Collins, Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, 1943), p. 1. 6 6 Material furnished the author by the John Deere Company. 64

65

WORKERS IN SUGAR

BEETS

139

of laborers that were necessary formerly. All these developments are likely to reduce the cost of beet-sugar production greatly and perhaps even make the industry independent of tariff or quota protection. But for the worker who looks to this work for income, the blow will be serious, unless he can get a job elsewhere.

5 SEASONAL A

FARM LABOR POSTWAR ERA

IN

THE

L T H O U G H T H E PRECEDING c h a p t e r s h a v e d e a l t c h i e f l y w i t h

/ \

sea-

sonal w o r k e r s w h o produce fruits and vegetables and

sugar

beets, they h a v e indicated characteristics and problems

com-

m o n to cotton pickers, sugar-cane cutters, wheat harvesters, and

other

A.

seasonal

farm laborers.1

E a c h group has usually experienced

low

in-

comes, l o w wages, irregular employment, poor housing conditions,

and

intense competition

em-

ployment These

have

for jobs. Only

they

gains have

been

been

able

made

in p e r i o d s o f

to i m p r o v e because

their

these

high non-farm status

periods

are

substantially. marked

s h a r p d e c l i n e s in t h e n u m b e r s e e k i n g a g r i c u l t u r a l e m p l o y m e n t , so farmers have

had

to increase their w a g e

bids t o get adequate

that help.

A t t e m p t s t o i m p r o v e t h e e c o n o m i c c o n d i t i o n s of s e a s o n a l w o r k e r s unionizing

them

have

been

sporadic

and

usually

by

by

short-lived.2

1 M u c h information on groups of seasonal laborers not treated in detail in this book is contained in the chief references cited before: Reports of the Industrial Commission; Reports of the Immigration Commission; Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor; Interstate Migration; and National Defense Migration. Among the studies dealing with specific groups, the following may be consulted as representative of the very large literature in this field: C. F. Reuss, P. H. Landis, and R . Wakefield, Migratory Farm Labor and the Hop Indtistry on the Pacific Coast (Pullman, State College of Washington, Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin N o . 363, 1938) ; M . Brown and 0 . Cassmore, Migratory Cotton Pickers in Arizona (Washington, 1939) ; D. D. Lescohier, Harvest Labor Problems in the Wheat Belt. U. S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 1020 (Washington, 1922) ; Origins and Problems: Texas Migratory Farm Labor (Austin, T e x a s State Employment Service, 1938) ; Paul S. Taylor, "Power Farming and L a b o r Displacement in the Cotton Belt, 1937," Monthly Labor Review, March and April, 1938; and Harold Hoffsommer, The Sugar Cane Farm. Louisiana Bulletin No. 320 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Agricultural Experiment Station, 1940). 2 Stuart M . Jamieson, "Labor Unionism in Agriculture" (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Economics, University of California, 1943), passim.

SEASONAL FARM LABOR AFTER

THE WAR

141

Except during wartime, employers have usually dominated the seasonal farm labor markets during the present century. Employer superiority in bargaining strength has arisen from the surplus of job applicants in the farm labor market during most peace years. Frequently, grower agreements to set wages and recruit labor have further strengthened their position.3 Farmers requiring many seasonal laborers have traditionally cared only about securing an adequate number of workers available whenever needed and willing to accept "reasonable" wages. They have been concerned with the structure of the farm-labor market and its weaknesses only in those relatively few years when shortage of job applicants has forced them to compete actively with each other and raise wages appreciably. During most peace years since 1900 this situation has been relatively infrequent, and has generally arisen because of unusual weather or sharp increases in intensive crop acreages in particular localities. Except for these occasions, growers have been able to get help readily, either by relying on their own contacts and knowledge of labor sources, or by using labor contractors. During years of great non-farm unemployment, farmers have found themselves flooded with job seekers. During the past four decades, the only years of widespread farmer concern with seasonal labor have been 1917-20 and during the Second World War, when the needs of the armed forces and of war industry drained the countryside and kept in the cities those who normally leave them for some time each year to get farm work. What is the outlook for these two groups—employers and workers —in the years to come? Most important, how many seasonal jobs will be open and how many applicants for these jobs will there be in the postwar years? This is the central question. Upon the balance between these two factors depends in large measure farmers' profits, workers' incomes, and—to a lesser extent—the supply of certain farm products. Ancillary to this is the problem of farm labor market organization after the war and the possible decasualization of seasonal farm work. The analysis of these questions below seeks chiefly to indicate the main factors whose interaction will determine the actual course of events. Now that the war is over, will the farm labor situation resemble that 3

Cf. Chaps. 3 and 4.

SEASONAL

142

FARM

LABOR AFTER

THE

WAR

which followed World War I ? At the conclusion of that struggle, the farm labor market found itself still confronted with labor shortages. Industrial prosperity during 1 9 1 9 and much of 1920 permitted absorption of returning soldiers into the labor force with no great increase in non-farm unemployment. As a result, wages continued to rise and emergency means of farm labor mobilization had to be resorted to in 1 9 1 9 and 1920. Only with the break in industrial employment in the latter year did the farm labor market begin to get increased numbers of workers so that fanners could reduce wages and dispense with inexperienced workers recruited on the basis of patriotic appeals to save crops.4 The sharp decline in daily farm wages after 1920 and their rough constancy at a lower level during the rest of that decade (see Appendix A ) indicates rather clearly that although there was general industrial prosperity through much of the 1920's, there was a residue of low-income urban and rural workers who provided adequate numbers of seasonal farm workers, despite the great volume of farm to city migration. The sharp increase in agricultural mechanization also played an important role in these years. It is most unlikely that the pattern of events after this conflict will be the same as that which followed the First World War. The most obvious difference arises from the fact that this has been a war in which every part of our national economy, agricultural as well as industrial, small unit as well as large, has been affected. As a result, there is a vastly more complex task of reconversion which must be carried out after this victory, a reconversion which literally dwarfs the similar process of 1918-20. In short, only by analysis of the specific factors which are likely to affect the postwar farm labor market can we hope to gain an insight into probable developments. A mechanical analogy will not do. Of the two factors involved, demand and supply, we shall examine the demand side first. In the postwar years, three of the elements mentioned in chapter 1 seem likely to be of prime importance in determining farmers' needs for seasonal workers: ( 1 ) the acreages planted to different crops; (2) the technology of crop production; and (3) the •Harry Schwartz, "Farm Labor Adjustments after World War I," Journal of Farm Economics, XXV (Feb., 1943), 269-77.

SEASONAL

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structure of land tenure and farm size. The future of each of these merits consideration. Acreages planted to fruits and vegetables, sugar beets, and sugar cane are likely to increase after this war, while cotton acreage is likely to continue the downward trend of the past decade. T h e rise in fruit and vegetable acreage is likely as the result of the same dietary changes which have boosted this production during the past four decades. These changes are basically the result of improved public knowledge of nutrition and of steady improvement in methods of fruit and vegetable preservation and transportation. Neither of these forces has spent itself yet, and their impact should result in continued increase in acreages after this war. Sugar-beet acreage, cut sharply since 1942, will probably rise when government price aids are withdrawn from competing crops. This conclusion assumes continued government support of this industry, which is likely in view of the political strength of beet growers and processors. Sugar-cane acreage, too, should expand after the war, for the same reason, particularly if the Philippine Islands become fully independent and are further restricted in their access to the American sugar market. At best, United States cotton acreage may

expand

slightly immediately after the war to meet extraordinary foreign demand for textile materials during the rehabilitation period, but the long-run outlook does not seem promising in view of the relatively high cost of cotton production in this country and the repercussions of this upon American exports. On the home market, the growth of rayon and other synthetic fiber output promises increasing competition. Continued government support of cotton prices may at most keep cotton acreage roughly constant and thus partially shield this industry and its labor from the further consequences of the loss of foreign and domestic markets. 5 These acreage changes will obviously important repercussions upon the demand

have

for seasonal farm wage

laborers, but other factors must also be considered in assessing the outlook. The most important influence on future demand for seasonal farm workers seems likely to come from recent and future efforts aimed at accomplishing mechanically the tasks which have in the past required 5

Business

Week, July 29, 1944, p. 46.

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seasonal handworkers. In the previous chapter, the development of segmented seed, machine blocking, and machine harvesting for sugarbeet production was pointed out. During the war great strides had also been made in mechanizing sugar-cane harvesting. A one-man potato harvester capable of digging and cleaning potatoes and« depositing them in a row properly bagged is reported almost fully developed. Progress in cotton-picking machinery has been marked during the past few years, and six companies are believed to have plans for commercial production of such machines very shortly. 6 While the degree of excellence of this equipment cannot be judged until it is used commercially, it seems clear that increasingly in the future farm machinery research will be directed at those operations now done by hand and therefore lagging behind the planting and cultivating operations which can be done by tractordrawn implements. That much of this research will be successful seems likely in view of the past history of mechanical progress in agriculture. Despite these efforts, the need for hand labor is likely to persist for a long time in crops like strawberries or tree fruits which are sold fresh. In these crops, the need for an attractive-looking product combines with physical conditions of production to militate against mechanical harvesting. Less fragile crops grown in regularly spaced rows are very likely prospects for complete mechanization. However, it is one thing to invent a machine or a process; it is quite another to have it used commercially. The discussion above suggests that the employment of seasonal farm labor is likely to decline steadily as machines progressively take over the jobs now done by human beings. But the rate of adoption of these machines will depend upon many factors. It will be rapid if continued high employment after this war makes seasonal workers scarce and keeps farm wages high, while farmers remain prosperous. It will be slow if we have a ubiquitous residue of five to ten million unemployed, and farm income goes down sharply. Farmers will bear in mind the fact that while interest on investment and depreciation of machinery are inflexible charges over a number of years—regardless of farm-product prices—seasonal farm labor costs have been elastic in the past and capable of adjustment by farmers to meet their changing price and income situations. This 6

Wall Street Journal, April 6, 1944.

SEASONAL FARM LABOR AFTER

THE WAR

145

may tend to slow down the adoption of machines. But, in the long run, it seems unavoidable that much of the work now done by seasonal farm laborers will be done by machinery, and the hired man will take over the harvest of cotton, potatoes, and many other crops now hand picked. At least one major precedent exists in the history of American agriculture for the displacement by machines of several hundred thousand seasonal farm laborers. Until the middle 1920's the wheat harvest in this country produced a large-scale migration annually from northern Texas to the Dakotas as thousands followed the ripening wheat north through the heart of the continent. Other thousands in each area came from the cities, towns, and small farms to participate in the local harvest. The large-scale adoption of the harvester-thresher combine ended most of the need for this seasonal labor, since a few men and a combine could replace many men. Between 1926 and 1930 about 115,000 combines were manufactured in this country as against less than 25,000 in the previous five years.7 By 1938 combines were used to handle 90 percent of the wheat in Kansas. 8 What happened to the wheat harvesters in the late 1920's can happen to those who gather cotton, potatoes, sugar cane, and other crops using many seasonal workers. The impact upon farm-tenure and farm-size patterns of wide-scale adoption of mechanical harvesters for cotton, sugar beets, and other intensive crops is likely to be mainly in the direction of increasing the size of farms. Given favorable price conditions, a man who might be reluctant to plant 700 acres of sugar beets if he would have to hire 100 men to tend them by hand would be willing to plant this acreage if all he needed were 10 to 20 machines. In cotton, particularly, the need for many workers at the cotton chopping and cotton picking seasons has accounted for the retention of sharecropper and tenant cultivation with their concomitant small scale of operations. Machines would make possible large-scale cultivation of cotton without the labor problems and complications that retard such cultivation today. During the 1930's 'Agricultural Statistics, 1942 (Washington, 1 9 4 2 ) , p. 681. U. S. Congress, Senate, Violations of Free Speech and Rights Supplementary Hearings, I I , 4 2 1 . 6

oj Labor,

1941,

146

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FARM

LABOR

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THE

WAR

the greater tractor use in the southeast cotton area tended to increase cotton acreages planted by individual entrepreneurs, many of whom ousted sharecroppers and tenants to take advantage of the savings made possible b y large-scale tractor operations. 9 The introduction of a successful mechanical cotton picker would probably have similar results but on a much greater scale. B y encouraging larger farms, this mechanization may well lead to large-scale displacement of

small

farmers, who will have to seek casual agricultural employment unless absorbed in the non-farm economy. From what has been said before, it is clear that the supply side of the postwar farm labor picture will depend in large measure upon non-farm employment. The level of employment in our economy after the war is a subject far beyond the scope of this book. Necessarily, therefore, it can receive relatively little consideration here. But two important factors bearing directly on the supply of farm labor may be considered separately below. During the war a large number of Negroes, Mexicans, and other minority group members had gone from farm labor to relatively skilled industrial tasks or to the armed services. As a result of the many training programs which have operated during the past several years, many of these minority group workers will be skilled, experienced laborers. T h e y have become accustomed to higher standards of living and more lucrative jobs than were their lot before the war. They will be loathe to return to harder, less pleasant, and less remunerative farm jobs. Despite the work of the Fair Employment Practices Committee, it seems probable that presently employers—aided by union seniority policies—will more readily be able to show race and color prejudices in choosing employees. The non-farm employment of members of these minority groups is most likely to be sensitive to changes in the total volume of employment, since they are usually the "last hired, first fired." Employing farmers may welcome measures forcing these workers to seek "stoop jobs" in the fields. Y e t , since many Negroes and Mexicans will want to remain in industry, this problem holds the elements of fierce strife among groups in this country. T o the extent that these workers are successful in staying out of the farm labor market, the 9

Taylor, op. at.

SEASONAL FARM LABOR AFTER

THE WAR

147

pressure for quick adoption of mechanical harvesting devices will increase. Second, it is possible that even if we experience recurrence of unemployment of several million workers in the very near future, the full impact of this may not be felt in the farm labor market. The number seeking seasonal labor may not immediately reflect increases in the number of jobless workers. This may happen because most of those who may be unemployed by next year are today either employed at non-farm civilian jobs or are in the armed forces. They will be entitled to unemployment insurance, for several months in the case of civilians, and for up to a year in the case of veterans. If offered farm jobs, the unemployed may decline them, especially if these jobs offer earnings below or only slightly better than the amounts of unemployment insurance compensation. Ordinarily this refusal would result in cessation of insurance payments, but if insurance authorities narrow the definition of "suitable employment" to a point where this excludes low-wage farm jobs, this penalty need not be suffered. It was pointed out in Chapter 2 that in Indiana during the late 1930's relief authorities refused to force off relief rolls Indiana workers who rejected tomato picking jobs, on the ground that the low compensation for these jobs made them not "suitable/' There is every likelihood that strong political pressure will be exerted by unions, veterans' groups, and other interests to force insurance and relief authorities to narrow the number of jobs which unemployed workers must accept if they are not to lose state aid. In the 1930's many of those who were forced to do farm work because of the withdrawal of public aid were politically powerless since they had no vote. They were foreigners who had never become American citizens, disfranchised Negroes, migrant Americans who could not establish residence to meet voting requirements, and others. But by this time many of these have become voters, gaining their citizenship through service in the armed forces, or having lived in an area long enough to satisfy the voting requirements. Particularly in the case of veterans, the public pressure against requiring them to accept farm jobs irrespective of wages or other conditions will be extremely great. The possibility exists, therefore, that the seasonal farm labor market may be at least partially

148

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FARM

LABOR

AFTER

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insulated from the impact of urban and rural unemployment during an appreciable period in the postwar era. Although the factors considered above do not all point in the same direction, the probable general trend of postwar farm labor developments seems clear. It will be a trend dominated by increasing mechanization of the chief crop operations requiring labor with consequent displacement of many small farmers and reduced need for seasonal workers. If urban unemployment remains high for a number of years, this development will be accelerated; if urban employment drops sharply, leaving several million jobless in a position where they must seek seasonal farm jobs, the speed of mechanization may be slowed down. And after mechanization of the chief operations has occurred, the nation will be faced with the problem of finding some other residual type of employment to occupy those whom our major industries cannot or will not employ. The only alternatives, if we must have continued cyclical down-swings in employment, are renewed large-scale spending on relief, or widespread human distress. The next question considered here is one that has concerned students of the farm labor market for decades. What progress can be anticipated in the future in the organization of this market? Closely related is the problem of decasualizing seasonal farm labor, that is, providing steady employment to replace the irregularity at present characterizing this work. Before Pearl Harbor—it has been pointed out above—most states did little to bring farm employers and workers together, or to collect and disseminate information regarding conditions in the agricultural labor market. This made for wasteful use of labor and for loss to both workers and employers. A contributory factor to the lack of organization has been the casual character of seasonal farm labor, an occupation which has promised some work and earnings to all who applied. Since little skill and no union card are needed for most of these jobs, many urban and rural persons have sought this work in periods of large-scale unemployment, intensifying the irregularity and uncertainty of employment which characterize farm labor in even the most prosperous years. The casual nature of farm labor and its lack of an organized market are closely linked. Farmers have not felt the need for farm labor

SEASONAL

FARM LABOR AFTER

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149

market organization during most years because large numbers of willing casual workers have been available. From the worker's standpoint, there is relatively little to be gained from organization of the farm labor market if he faces competition from every person who cannot find a job elsewhere. The obstacles to setting up employment exchanges in areas employing seasonal farm workers are much the same as the obstacles to decasualizing this seasonal labor force. Both efforts are hampered by the short periods of employment offered by many seasonal operations, by the reluctance of farmers to lose freedom of action, and by worker irresponsibility. During the recent conflict Congress had entrusted to the local county agents throughout the country the task of mobilizing farm labor locally and placing it with farmers, supplementing their work with interstate and international recruitment and transportation of farm workers by the Department of Agriculture. This mechanism has resulted in more efficient use of workers throughout the country. A similar, though less elaborate, mechanism was evolved during the First World War, but after the conflict such work was largely dropped except for placement activity in connection with the wheat harvest migration. In other crops, farmers, despite their recurrent cries of "labor shortage," did not find the problem pressing and centered their political demands about other issues. Retention of the present farm labor organization in the future seems dubious unless high non-farm employment and a resulting tightness of the seasonal farm labor supply continue. Should the supply situation ease considerably, farmers would see little reason to limit their freedom of choice by relying upon a central agency, and would probably prefer to go back to their old methods of getting workers. Successful decasualization of the farm labor supply in a given area would require agreement among farmers to hire only a particular group of workers, each of whom would be given employment for all or most of a year. This is manifestly impossible where there are sharp peaks and troughs in the demand for laborers, for the size of such a non-casual labor force cannot be much greater than the minimum number of workers who can be given nearly year-round employment. Maintenance of such a force would have two major results: (a) it would create a

ISO

SEASONAL

FARM LABOR AFTER

THE

WAR

stable group of workers enjoying levels of income and employment far above those usually available to farm workers in peace years; (b) it would give farmers assurance of adequate labor familiar with its task and skilled at its work. Turnover of workers and irregularity of employment could be reduced to a minimum, with evident advantages for both the groups involved. The objective of supplying regular employment to what are now seasonal workers implies either a leveling off of peak farm employment needs or a combination of farm and non-farm employments in a locality. The first requirement is most easily met in crops such as citrus fruit, where the harvesting season is long and appreciable non-harvest work is necessary at different times of the year. But this is not the situation in most crops. In many areas, therefore, the same objective must be approached by planting a combination of crops so that the peak work loads follow one another over several months, while general maintenance and repair activity may be postponed until times when actual crop work is at a minimum. Where available, seasonal industrial or railroad jobs can be integrated with farm work patterns to give employment over a large portion of the year. The advantages of decasualization result from more rational use of labor. They would be most important from the standpoint of society and the workers, but would also benefit farmers. But serious obstacles make widespread postwar action of this type very unlikely. Some of these obstacles arise from the physical setting of agricultural labor, from the uncertainties of weather and the characteristics of particular crops. Large-scale strawberry production, for example, probably could never be fitted into a decasualization plan, simply because of the extreme disproportion between the number of workers required at harvest and those needed at other periods of the crop year. The major difficulty, however, is that most farmers would be hard to convince that it was to their advantage to employ only certain workers and to modify their farm plan so as to give maximum employment. The advantage of such a plan would be least appealing to them when workers seeking jobs are plentiful, although in times of labor stringency farmers might be more willing to cooperate if assured they would get workers. It is apparent that the prospects for extensive efforts at decasualiza-

SEASONAL

FARM

LABOR

AFTER

THE WAR

1S1

tion are not favorable in this country. Yet only by some such device can the condition of seasonal farm laborers be materially improved in the long run. Continuance of open entry into this occupation means that in the future, as before the war, every period of greatly increased unemployment will witness sharp increases in the number of farm-job seekers, so that the available number of jobs will have to be split among more and more workers, most of whom will obtain incomes permitting of only bare subsistence. And conversely, in times of high total non-farm employment, farmers will find themselves faced with shortages of workers, those whom they employed in less prosperous times having had no incentive to remain in agriculture when opportunity opened to leave it. It should be noted that essentially this device of restricting the number of employables has been the chief weapon employed in some of this country's most successful attempts to alleviate the evils of casual employment, for example, in the distribution of jobs to longshoremen along the Pacific Coast, and in the hiring of extras in Hollywood. 10 Decasualization could be accomplished by strong unions of seasonal laborers which would restrict farm jobs to their members, while simultaneously restricting the number of members, but the preceding discussion indicates that the growth of such unions is unlikely. The short periods during which most seasonal workers are concerned with farm labor each year; the poverty and mobility of the workers; the vigorous opposition from farmers; the lack of interest in such a project by urban labor unions which are most anxious to placate farmer opinion; the lack of government aid as a result of the exclusion of farm workers from the National Labor Relations Act—all these factors have prevented the growth and permanent existence of such unions in the past. Their importance is not likely to increase substantially after the war. From this review of the situation, the economic outlook for seasonal farm workers does not seem very hopeful. These workers are not only at the mercy of the cyclical drops in employment likely to recur after the war, but will also suffer from the probable downward trend in the demand for seasonal farm labor resulting from the mechanization of 1 0 Murray Ross, Stars and Strikes 1941), chap. 4.

(New York, Columbia University

Press,

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LABOR

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important tasks now done by hand. Lacking strong unions to press their interest, they cannot expect improved income to result

from

restriction of the number from whom the farmer must choose his workers, so that their employment is likely to continue to be casual and irregular. Facing this dark prospect, what can seasonal farm workers expect from the government in the way of aid? Like all Americans, of course, they can hope for policies which will encourage high employment and permit them alternative job opportunities so that they will not be absolutely dependent upon agricultural tasks. But, unlike most Americans, they do not receive help in the form of unemployment or old-age insurance, or protection of their working standards through minimumwage and maximum-hour levels, or government sanction of their efforts to organize for collective bargaining. All these benefits are denied them because of the exclusion of farm workers from practically all the social legislation of the past decade. As indicated before, only the Sugar A c t of 1937 provides for some degree of social protection for these workers, and then it was granted only because of the belief that government benefits to farmers should be managed so as to aid their workers as well. Even slight reflection on the history of the relation of government to agriculture since 1933 is sufficient to show that the same argument used to justify giving special aid to sugar workers applies also to practically every other type of farm worker. Ever since 1933 the prices of major farm commodities have been held up by government action. For some crops production restriction—accompanied by compensatory benefit p a y m e n t s — h a s been used. Elsewhere, the government has sanctioned and given legal force to grower agreements aimed at limiting the volume of a certain fruit or vegetable actually marketed to the amount which will produce a desired satisfactory price even if this means leaving part of a crop to rot in the field.11 Large numbers of producers have been promised government support of their prices at parity levels for two years after the war, and further measures to protect farm incomes are not unlikely. Can sugar growers and 11

sugar

Carl T . Schmidt, American Farmers in the World Crisis (New York, Oxford

University Press, 1941), passim.

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153

workers be regarded as unique in American agriculture when practically all major crop producers receive extensive government aid? Y e t , while it may be logically sound to argue that government aid for all farm workers is as justified as government aid for sugar workers, there seems little reason to expect that provisions similar to those in the Sugar A c t of 1937 will be applied to other farm industries. T h e reason, of course, is simple: employing farmers compose an aggressive and well-organized economic bloc capable of supporting their demands with votes. 1 2 Their unorganized workers can have no hope of defeating this employer

strength

unless the present

alignment

of

American

political forces changes very substantially. T h e problems of seasonal farm workers have been brought to the attention of the American people every few years at least since the turn of the twentieth century. Y e t almost no formal steps to aid these workers have been taken. Periodic up-swings of the business cycles have been relied upon to mitigate the worst evils. There seems no reason to expect a change in this situation in the discernible future. A s in the past, therefore, the chief postwar hope for farm workers must rest on the maintenance of non-farm prosperity and of opportunities for escape from agricultural employment. 1 2 W. C. McCune, The passim.

Farm

Bloc

(New York, Doubleday, Doran,

1943),

APPENDIX

A

HOURLY WAGE RATES OF FARM AND FACTORY WORKERS,

1910-43 Year

Hourly Farm Wages» CCents)

Hourly Earnings of Factory Workers (Cents)

Ratio of Farm to Factory Earnings (Percent)

1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 i9'5 1916 1917 1918 1919

13-9 «3-9 14-3 14.6 14-3 14.4 15.8 19.8 25-4 30-3

20.0 20.3 21.2 22.1 22.3 22.9 26.1 3«' 40.8 47-7

70 68 67 66 64 63 61 64 62 64

1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

34-6 21.2 20.7 22.5 22.9 22.9 23« 22.8 22.7 22.5

57-8 50.6 46.4 52.0 54-5 54-4 54-8 55-2 56.0 56.6

60 42 45 43 42 42 42 4« 4' 40

«930 1931 1932 «933 «934 «935 1936 «937 1938 «939

20.8 16.2 12.0 11.1 12.6 «3-3 14.2 16.1 15-8 «5-6

55-2 5«-7 45-8 45-5 54-1 55-9 56.4 63-4 63-9 64.4

38 31 26 24 23 24 25 25 25 24

1940 1941 1942 «943

«5-9 «9-3 24.9 32.7

67.0 72.9 85.3 96.1

24 26 29 34

a Computed from data on farm day wages without board on assumption of ten-hour day.

Sources: Farm Wage Rates, Farm Employment, and Related Data (Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1943), pp. 3, 4, and 188. Data for 1943 from Bureau of Agricultural Economics and from Bureau of Labor Statistics.

APPENDIX B TYPICAL MODERN B E E T WORKER

CONTRACT

Grower's Contract with Field Worker UNDERSIGNED GROWER AND FIELD WORKER AGREE

The field worker agrees— To do all field work and properly care for the Grower's field of beets according to instructions given from time to time by the Grower. To bunch and thin beets so as to leave the beets, when hoeing is completed, not more than eight to ten inches apart on the average, and not more than one beet in a place. To hoe the beets whenever required, so as to remove all weeds, keep the beets clean in the rows and for four inches on each side of each row. To pull and top beets when ready for harvest, removing all the dirt possible by striking beets together before removing tops. To top beets at the lowest leaf line at a right angle to vertical axis. To pile topped beets in piles consisting of the beets from sixteen rows, the piles to be at least two rods apart. To cover piles every night with all the leaves. To level and prepare the surface of the ground where beets are to be piled. To accept as full payment for said work the amounts shown on the schedule printed on the back of the contract, payable as stated in said schedule. To pay the cost and expanse of doing any work which he fails or refuses to do at the time or in the manner in which it should be done, and he authorizes the deduction of any such cost or expense from the amount herein agreed to be paid to him. To pay any cost or expense, including attorney fees, imposed on the Grower or Great Lakes Sugar Company by reason of any attachment or garnishment of the amount payable to him hereunder, or by any litigation of any nature, or by any damage done by him to property of the Grower or said Company, and he authorizes the deduction and withholding of the amount of any such cost or expanse from the amount payable to him.

APPENDIX

156

B

The grower agrees— To keep beets cultivated clean between the rows in a proper manner and give them at least one cultivation before they are blocked and thinned. To lift the beets when ready for harvest. To pay the Field Worker for said work according to the schedule printed on the back of this contract. To make all settlements with the field workers through the Company's fieldmen. That, to secure payment to the Field Worker, any and all proceeds to which the Grower may in any way become entitled to receive under his contract with the Company shall be charged with the payments and be paid out by the Company as provided in said contract, and this contract when filed with the Company shall be an order for such payment. To haul or deliver the beets to the Great Lakes Sugar Company's plant. General

agreements.

In case the Grower fails to obtain a satisfactory stand of beets, or if at any time for the performance of work hereunder the condition of the crop shall be such that in the judgment of the Grower further work on the crop would not be justified, the Grower may terminate this contract by giving notice to the Great Lakes Sugar Company, the Field Worker and the holders of any orders given by the Grower and paying the Field Worker the fair value of what he has done to such date as nearly as may be according to the schedule on the back hereof. The Grower and Field Worker shall be bound by the acreage as measured and the tonnage per acre as determined by the Company. In the event the Grower and Field Worker disagree as to any matter pertaining to this contract or the performance thereof in any respect, or as to the amount payable hereunder, either party may notify Great Lakes Sugar Company, or upon said Company hearing of any such disagreement, it may appoint a representative to look into such matter and his decision shall be final and binding upon the parties, but that Company shall not come under any liability to the parties or either of them if it fails or refuses to decide such matter or because of any decision. All debts incurred by the Field Worker as a result of credit extended or guaranteed by the Grower or Great Lakes Sugar Company shall be paid out of proceeds due the Field Worker hereunder from whatever source. Great Lakes Sugar Company by accepting this order or otherwise shall not come under any obligation or liability to pay the Field Worker except out of money that may become payable to the Grower and then only after deducting therefrom any amount owing by the Grower to said Company and

APPENDIX

157

B

any other items provided to be first paid by the terms of its contract with the Grower. I n accordance with the regulations of the U . S. Department of Agriculture governing benefit payments to beet growers under the Federal Sugar A c t of 1937, children under 14 years of age are not permitted to work in sugar beets and those between 14 and 16 years of age m a y not work more than 8 hours in any one day. T h e grower and worker agree that if the worker permits his or any other children to work in violation of these regulations or said A c t , this contract shall automatically terminate as of the date such violation

shall first become known to the grower;

the worker

receiving

payment in full f o r work performed before such date. SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS PER MEASURED ACRE

For Blocking, Thinning, and H o e i n g : $11.00 f o r blocking, thinning, hoeing and keeping beets free f r o m weeds, payable when work is completed. For harvesting Net tons per acre Below 4

Rate per ton $i-So

Net tons per acre—Con. Below 10

Rate per ton $0.91

4 5

1-3° " 5

11 12

89 87

6 7 8 9

1.06 1.00 96 93

13 14 15 16 or above

85 83 81 80

( T h e rate for all fractional tonnages between 4 and 16 tons rounded to the nearest tenth of a ton shall be in proportion within each interval.) (Provision has been made in the determination that if, because of unusual circumstances, it is essential to employ labor on other than a piece-rate basis, and/or in those circumstances in which the use of special machine methods are used, rates other than the above m a y be applicable provided such rates are approved by the State Committee as equivalent to the piece rate for such work specified herein. See y o u r Fieldman.) Final settlement, according to terms of contract, to be made as soon as practicable a f t e r all beets have been delivered and net weight per measured acre determined.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS

Barger, Harold, and Hans H. Landsberg. American Agriculture, 1899-1939. New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1942. Beveridge, William H. Unemployment; a Problem of Industry. London, Longman, Green, 1909. Collins, H. H., J r . America's Own Refugees. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1941Das, R . K . Hindustani Workers on the Pacific Coast. Berlin and Leipzig, W. de Gruyter, 1923. Ducoff, Louis J . , et al. Wages of Agricultural Labor in the United States. Washington, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1944. Fletcher, S. W. The Strawberry in North America. New York, Macmillan, 1917. Gamio, Manuel. The Mexican Immigrant. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1 9 3 1 . Hathaway, Marion. The Migratory Worker and Family Life. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1934. Howard, L. E.

Labour in Agriculture. London, Oxford University Press,

1935Ichihashi, Yamato. Japanese in the United States. Palo Alto, Stanford University press, 1932. McWilliams, Carey. Brothers under the Skin. Boston, Little, Brown, 1942. Factories in the Field. Boston, Little Brown, 1939. Ill Fares the Land. Boston, Little, Brown, 1942. Myrdal. Gunnar. An American Dilemma. New York, Harpers. 1944. Parker, Carleton. The Casual Laborer, and Other Essays. New York. Harcourt, Brace, 1920. Schmidt, Carl T . American Farmers in the World Crisis. New York, Oxford University Press, 1 9 4 1 . Taylor, Paul S. An American-Mexican Frontier: Nueces County, Texas. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1934. Mexican Labor in the United States: Dimmit County, Winter Garden District, South Texas. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1930. Mexican Labor in the United States: Imperial Valley. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1930. Mexican Labor in the United States: Valley of the South Platte, Colorado. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1929.

159

BIBLIOGRAPHY

United States Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Tmmigi #ttion and Naturalization. Seasonal Agricultural Laborers from Mexico. 69th Congress, 1st Session, 1925. United States Congress, House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens (Representative Tolan, chairman). Report. House Report No. 369, 77th Congress, 1 st Session, 1941. Interstate Migration. 76th and 77th Congresses, 1940 and 1941 (Vols. 1-10). Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration. National Defense Migration. 77th Congress, 1st and 2nd Sessions, 1941 and 1942. (Vols. 11-33.) United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Education and Labor. Report. Senate Report No. 1150. 77th Congress, 2d Session, 1942. Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor. 76th and 77th Congresses, 1940 and 1941. United States, Immigration Commission. Report of the Immigration Commission. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1911. United States, Industrial Commission. Reports of the Industrial Commission. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1901. United States, Industrial Relations Commission. Final Report and Testimony, Industrial Relations Commission. Senate Document 415. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1916. Wilson, C. M. Aroostook: Our Last Frontier. Brattleboro, Stephen Daye Press, 1937. P A M P H L E T S AND PERIODICAL

ARTICLES

Abbott, W. Lewis. Report of the Committees on Labor Conditions in the Growing of Sugar Beets. Washington, 1934. Bean, L. H. "The Lag in Farm Wages," Agricultural Situation, October, 1937Black, J. D. "Agricultural Wage Relationships; Historical Changes," Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1936. Blair, Fred. "Development and Localization of Truck Crops in the United States," Yearbook of Agriculture 1916. Bremer, H. M. People Who Go to Tomatoes. New York, National Child Labor Committee, 1914. California State Chamber of Commerce. Migrants: a National Problem and Its Impact on California. San Francisco, 1940. California State Relief Administration. Agricultural Migratory Laborers in the San Joaquin Valley, July and August 1937. Sacramento, 1937. Catapusan, B. "The Filipino Labor Cycle in the United States," Sociology and Social Research, September, 1934.

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Clark, V. S. Mexican Labor in the United States. Washington, Bureau of Labor, 1908. Close, Kathryn. "They Harvest New York's Crops," Survey Graphic, January, 1945. Fogelberg, N., and A. W. McKay. The Citrus Industry and the California Fruit Growers Exchange System. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1940. Folsom, J. C. Truck Farm Labor in New Jersey, 1922. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1925. Fuller, R. G. Children in Strawberries. New York, National Child Labor Committee, 1940. Handman, Max. "Economic Reasons for the Coming of the Mexican Immigrant," American Journal of Sociology, January, 1940. Hopkins, John A. Changing Technology and Employment in Agriculture. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1941. Johnson, E. S. Welfare of Families of Sugar Beet Laborers. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1939. Kane, Hamett T. "Revolution in Sugar," American Mercury, March, 1945McLean, R. N. The Northern Mexican. New York, Home Missions Council, 1930. Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Statistics. Berry and Vegetable Pickers in Maryland Fields. Baltimore, 1929 Menefee, S. C. Mexican Migratory Workers of South Texas. Washington, Works Projects Administration, 1941. Pittman, C. W. E. "Migratory Agricultural Workers of the Atlantic Seaboard," Employment Security Review, June, 1940. Schwartz, Harry. "Recent Developments among Farm Labor Unions," Journal of Farm Economics, November, 1941. "On the Wage Structure of Agriculture," Political Science Quarterly, September, 1942. "Hired Farm Labor in World War II," Journal of Farm Economics, November, 1942. "Farm Labor Policy 1942-1943," Journal of Farm Economics, August, 1943Shields, L. F. "Labor Conditions during the 1926 Apple Harvest in the Wenatchee Valley," Monthly Labor Review, April, 1927. Sidel, J. E. Pick for Your Supper. New York, National Child Labor Committee, June, 1939 Taylor, Paul S. "Migratory Farm Labor in the United States," Monthly Labor Review, March, 1937. "Migratory Agricultural Workers on the Pacific Coast," American Sociological Review, April, 1938.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

161

Tetreau, E. D. Arizona's Farm Laborers. Tucson, University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, 1939. Texas State Employment Service. Origins and Problems, Texas Migratory Farm Labor. Austin, 1940. Thaden, J. F. Migratory Beet Workers in Michigan. East Lansing, Michigan State College, 1943. United States Children's Bureau. Child Labor and Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and Michigan. Washington, 1923. Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Truck Farms. Washington, 1924. United States Federal Trade Commission. Report on the Sugar Beet Industry in the United States. Washington, 1917. Wakefield, Richard, and Paul H. Landis. "Types of Migratory Farm Laborers and Their Movement into the Yakima Valley," Rural Sociology, June, 1938. Williams, D., and M. E. Skinner. Work of Children on Illinois Farms. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1926. Wolfson, Theresa. "People Who Go to Beets," American Child, November, 1919.

INDEX Adams, R . L., quoted, 58 Advertising, indiscriminate, for workers, 22

Agricultural Adjustment Act, 48 Agricultural work, percentage of hired farm labor to total force, 3 ; nonfarm dwellers in, 10 Agricultural workers, see Fruit and vegetable workers; Sugar beet workers Agricultural Workers Industrial League, I3S Agricultural workers union, A F L fight for a national, 98; CIO's response to proposals, 98 Alien Land Laws of California, 56 American Civil Liberties Union, 96 American Federation of Labor, efforts to organize migrants, 93; union active after the destruction of CAWIU joined, 97; fight for a national agricultural workers union, 98; Teamsters' Union's attack on UCAPAWA, 99; F A L A affiliation, 100; beet workers union, 135 Anne Arundel County, Md., housing conditions, 87 Anti-picketing ordinances, 96 Apple production, outstanding areas of, 30 "Arkies," entered picture, 62 Armed forces, effects of inductions into, 23 Aroostook County, Me., potato region, 20, 30; gross on year's crop, 3 1 ; seasonal workers engaged as harvesters, 35 Asparagus, wage rates for cutting and prices received by grower, 79 ff., tab., 79; cutting largely restricted to Filipinos, 80 Associated Farmers of California, antiunion campaign, 96, 99 Association de Jornaleros, 97 Automobile industry, seasonality of employment, 14

Bahama Islands, farm workers imported from, 25 Belgians, as sugar-beet workers, 109 Berries, production expenses per acre, 30; see also strawberries Berry pickers, 51 ff. "Bindle stiffs," 57 "Blanket men," 57 Blissfield, Mich., 135 Boy Scouts, 65 Boys' Working Reserve, 24, 65, 1 1 1 Bridge ton, N. J . , 20 California, fruit, vegetable, and beet production, 30, 3 1 ; fruit and vegetable migration, 53 ff.; variety of successive harvests, 53; surplus agricultural laborers, 57; competition between native white and foreign workers, 6 1 ; "Okies" and "Arkies" entered picture, 62; grower cooperation to set wage rates, 70; tendency to accumulate a surplus labor supply, 73; strikes, 74, 88 (see also Strikes); wage differentials on basis of nationality and color, 83; average incomes of migrants, 84; efforts to improve conditions through state action, 89; first successful sugar-beet factory in U. S., 106 Department of Industrial Relations, «8 California Commission of Immigration and Housing, 89 California Field Crops, Inc., 122 California Immigration and Housing Commission, 57, 58 California Packing Corporation, 31 Canneries, helped to finance anti-union campaign, 96 Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, 94; demands, 95; locals in south Jersey, 96; unions remaining active after destruction of, joined A F L , 97 Cape Cod, cranberries, 30

164

INDEX

Carranza's army raided for beet workers, n o Casual farm labor, see Farm laborers; Fruit and vegetable workers; Migrants; Sugar-beet workers Catherine the Great, 107 Chicago strawberry market, 51 Children, as urban day workers, 3 7 ; in beet fields, i n ; of beet workers seriously handicapped, 137 Chinese, fruit and vegetable workers, 54 ; wages, 83 ; as sugar-beet workers, 106 Chinese Exclusion Act, 54 Citrus fruit, upward movement of area, 17; increase since 1900, 28 City workers, role in meeting wartime shortage of seasonal labor, 65 Colorado, melons, 3 0 ; sugar-beet production, 107 ; nationalities represented in sugar-beet fields, 108; sugar-beet workers, 134 Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, 138 Colorado Conference of Beet Field and Agricultural Workers Unions, 135 Color prejudice, 146 Combine harvester thresher, 18 Commercial farms, 3 Committee for Industrial Organization, response to proposals for a national union of workers in agriculture and allied industries, 98 ; opposed by AFL,, 99; UCAPAWA formed as affiliate of, 136 Communist organizers brought real upsurge of unionization, 93 Conscientious objectors, brought to crop fields, 25 Contract, written: unique in agricultural labor field, 105 ; beet grower's, with field workers, 105; test, 155-57 Contractors, see Labor contractors Cook County, 111., market garden farms, 3 0 ; child workers, 38 Corn, relatively small production expenses per acre, 30 Cotton, downward trend in acreage, 17; likely to continue downward trend after war, 143 Cotton pickers, Mexican, 11 Cotton-picking machinery, 144

Cotton production, importance of tenancy in, 18 County agents, states set up farm labor organizations centering about, 24; entrusted with task of mobilizing and placing farm labor locally, 149 Crops, variation of man-hour needs, 17; influence of price movements on seasonal labor, 19 Decasualization of seasonal farm work, see under Farm labor, seasonal "Del Monte" products, 31 Dietary changes, effect on fruit and vegetable production, 143 Digiorgio Fruit Company, 31 Dingley Tariff, 102, 104 Discrimination, because of race and color, 15, 137, 146 "Divide and rule" policy of employer, 91 Drought refugees, 64 Earnings, see Wages East Coast migration, fruit and vegetable workers, 47 ff. Economic condition of seasonal farm laborers, 2 Emigrant agent laws, 44 Employer-employee relationships, 3 ff.; in fruit and vegetable field, 67, 70 ff., 90 Employment, nation must find, to occupy those whom industries cannot employ, 148 Employment cycle, 33, 35 Employment exchanges, 23; obstacles to setting up, 149 Erie County, N. Y., truck growers, 42 Factory workers, discrepancy between farm workers' earnings and those of, 12 ff.; chart, 13 Fair Employment Practices Committee, 146 Families, migratory, increase in number of, 52; Mexicans, 58; study of, in Yakima Valley, 64; average incomes, 85, 86, 130 Farmers, cooperation in setting wages, 7 1 ; reluctant to do "stoop labor," 104; reluctant to contract for beet

INDEX acreages, 122; effect of mechanization on small, 146; employing, compose economic bloc capable of supporting demands with votes, 153; see also Fruit and vegetable growers; Sugarbeet growers Farm labor, seasonal: in postwar era, 140-61; decasualization, 141, 148; likely to decline steadily, 144; lack of organized market and casual nature of, closely linked, 148; advantages of decasualization, 150; chief weapon in attempts to alleviate evils, 1 5 1 ; how decasualization could be accomplished, 151 Farm Labor Act of 1943, 24, 72; Pace Amendment, 25 Farm laborers, hired hands, 4, 9; skilled workers, 4, 6; hired hands and seasonal farm workers in U. S., Sept. 24-30, 1939, and March 24-30, 1940, tab., 7; discrepancy between earnings of, and those of factory workers, 12 ff.; chart, 13; incomes reduced by irregularity of work, 14; excluded from social legislation: serious social problems ignored, 26; use of violence and illegal tactics, 92 - — s e a s o n a l , 1-27; recruiting in colonial period, 1 ; a variegated lot, 2; importance in contemporary U. S. agriculture, 3 ; major groups, 4; instability of job tenure: variety of jobs, s ; importance of seasonal harvest workers, 5; distinctional between long-term labor and, 6; "hired hands" and, in U. S., Sept. 24-30, 1939, and March 24-30, 1940, tab., 7; employment pattern, 7; geographical distribution of employment, tab., 8; concentration in South, 8; relatively least important in North Central states: concentration on a relatively small number of farms, 9; proportion they were of 1943 labor force: nonfarm dweller, 10; tab., 1 1 ; professional migrants, x i ; "stoop" labor, 15 (see also "Stoop" labor); influence of technology on employment, 18; other factors that influence, 19; differentiation among workers and jobs, 21; civilians aid in farming

165

vital crops in wartimes: abrupt decline of migratory workers, 24 ; movement out of a county prohibited: importation of foreign workers, 25; contrast between pre-Pearl Harbor migrations and wartime "Land A r m y " mobile groups, 66; major results of maintenance of year-round employment, 149; faces competition from every person who cannot find a job elsewhere, 149; economic outlook not helpful, 1 5 1 ; what they can expect from government, 152 ; see also Farm labor market; Fruit and vegetable workers ; Sugar-beet workers Farm labor market, organization of seasonal, in peace and war, 12 ff.; influences which affect supply and demand, 15 ff.; several coexisting: in monocrop and multicrop areas: organized or unorganized, 21; drained by World Wars, 22; employment exchanges, 23, 149; little done to organize in interwar period, 26; employer superiority in bargaining strength: postwar organization, 141, 148; demand, 142; supply will depend upon non-farm employment, 146; may be partially insulated from impact of unemployment, 147 ff. ; what progress can be anticipated m organization of, 148 Farm labor organizations centering about county agent set up by states, 24 Farms, impact of mechanical harvesters upon tenure and size patterns, 145 Farm Security Administration, provided transportation for wartime workers, 25; study of Florida's inter-state migrants, 43; seen by growers as threat to their control, 72 ; established camps in major fruit and vegetable areas, 89; stepped in to help beet harvest, 121 Federated Agricultural Laborers Association, 100 Filipino Agricultural Laborers Association, 100 Filipinos, discrimination against, 1 5 ; "stoop" jobs done by, 21; fruit and vegetable migratory laborers, 59 ff. ;

166

INDEX

Filipinos ( C o n t i n u e d ) numbers leaving U . S., 1935-39, 6z; put on q u o t a basis, 62; asparagus cutting largely restricted to, 80; on beet labor force, 116 Florida, winter garden products and citrus fruit, 30 Fruit and vegetable growers, aspects of competition f o r labor among, 16 ff.; combine to recruit workers and set wages, 20; F S A seen b y , as threat to their control, 7 * ; opposition to unionization, 9 1 ; use of violence to break strikes, 92; hostility to Japanese monopoly, 93; counteroffensive against strikes, 9 5 ; see also E m ployer-employee relationship Fruit and vegetable production, increase since 1900, 28; market gardens near m a j o r cities: expansion for processing, 29; outstanding areas: expenses per acre, 30; intensive use of hired labor: uneven labor requirements, 32; seasonal distribution of employment, 33, 3 5 ; contractor system, 39 ft. (see also L a b o r c o n t r a c t o r s ) ; free flow of casual labor threatened by government relief, 42; economics of, 671 0 1 ; role of labor costs, 67 ff.; employer-employee relationship, 67, 70 ff., 90; acreages planted to, likely to increase a f t e r w a r , 143 Fruit and vegetable workers, 28-66; harvest time requirements, 3 2 ; main sources of supply: combine industrial w o r k w i t h farm w o r k , 3 3 ; "hired hands" and skilled workers, 34; labor force pick, can, and d r y products, 34; m a j o r groups of hired seasonal workers, 42 ff.; movement to winter bean and berry fields, 43; laws to combat this emigration, 44; variety of rural people who look to casual labor f o r portion of income: problem of living through winter, 46; m a j o r migratory routes, 4 7 ; East Coast migration, 47 ff.; migration up Mississippi Valley, 51 ff.; single workers: increase in family labor, 52; Pacific Coast migration, 53 ff.; Hindus, 55; crews: crew foreman, 60, war-time volunteers, 65; foreigners

imported, 1943-44, 66; growers efforts to minimize wage rates, 69 ff. (see also W a g e rates); tendency of California growers to accumulate a surplus labor supply, 73; strikes, 74, 88, 90 (see also Strikes); factors that put premium upon immediate availability of, 74; median annual employment of six groups of harvest migrants 1939, tab., 45; variations in abilities of individuals, 78; low cash incomes, 84; migratory families on relief, 8 5 ; average incomes, 85, 86; elements of conflict between employer and, 90; w h y difficult to organize into a permanent, cohesive union, 91 ff.; real upsurge of unionism, 93 ff.; see also U n e m p l o y m e n t ; Wages "Fruit tramps," 51, 56 Gentlemen's Agreement of 1007, 55, 56. 116 Georgia, peaches, 30 German Russian, as sugar-beet workers, 107 ff. passim; eager to become growers, 109; rise to ownership or tenancy, 120 Germans, as sugar-beet workers, 106 Glassford, P. D., 85 Grape industry, increase in production since 1900, 28; wage setting, 70; wage rates for picking Thompson seedless and prices received by growers, 79 ff., tab., 79 Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), 26 Great Lakes Sugar Company, growers' contract with field worker, 155-57 Great Western Sugar C o m p a n y , m , 112, 114, 115 Green, William, 98 Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California, 71 Hardin C o u n t y , Ohio, onion farms, 44, 45 Harvest, fruit and vegetable: quirements, 32; labor costs, sugar, 121 Henderson, Donald, 98 Hindus, as fruit and vegetable 55; wages, 83; as sugar-beet xo6

labor re68; beet

workers, workers,

INDEX "Hobos," 51, 56 Hollywood extras, 151 Housing conditions, problem of securing adequate sanitary, for fruit and vegetable workers, 87 ff.; beet workers, 13» ff. Immigrants, as casual laborers, 38; second and third generations reluctant to do field work, 41; European groups used in fruit and vegetable production, 55 Immigration Act of 1924, i n Immigration Commission, 26, 83, 84, 85, 93, 106, 108 Imperial Valley, strike, 1934, 74, 88 Incomes, see Wages Indiana, tomatoes, 30 Indiana Public Employment Service, 45 Industrial Association of San Francisco, helped to finance anti-union campaign, 96 Industrial Commission, 26, 46 Industrial Relations Commission, 26, 57 Industrial Workers of the World, efforts to organize migrants, 93; efforts to organize Colorado beet workers, 134 Industries, color and nationality prejudice, 15 Ingham County, Mich., onion fields, 44. 45

Interstate Commerce Commission, prosecuted sugar company and its subsidiary, 119 Italians, migration to South Jersey, 40; undercut Negro wages, 48, 83; wages of, in fruit and vegetable field, 83; average incomes of families going to New Jersey farms, 86 Itinerant workers, see Migrants Jamaica, farm workers imported from, 25

Japanese, furloughed from relocation centers for work in crop fields, 25; as fruit and vegetable workers, 54; number of farmers and agricultural laborers in California, 55, 56; reasons for popularity, 55; harvesters demand piece rates, 78; wages, 83; average income, 84; exhibited strong solidarity to gain ends, 92; as sugarbeet workers, 106, 108 ff.; eager to

167

become growers, 109; decline in importance after immigration ceased, n o ; harvesting done by Americans of Japanese descent evacuated from homes, 121; collective action among beet workers, 134 Johnson, E. S., quoted, 133»: Kentucky, subsistence farmers as casual laborers, 44 King Farms, Pa., 32 Labor contractors, fruit and vegetable migrants organized by, 39 ff.; used elsewhere in agriculture and industry, 40; move workers to induce farmers to hire contractors' potato machinery, 49; Japanese, 55; Mexicans and Filipinos under guidance of, 60; for sugar-beet industry, 106 Labor market, seasonal: methods of recruiting urban day workers, 36; recruitment made illegal or expensive, 44; economic forces which shape grower-worker relationships, 67, 70 ff.; largely a seller's market during war, 101; see also Labor contractors Labor Party of Mexico, 95 La Follette Committee, 26, 92, 99 Land tenure, 2 Legislation, sugar, see Sugar Acts Lettuce, man hours of labor required to grow and harvest, 32 "Little Italys," 38 Long Island, market garden farms, 30 Longshoremen, 151 Los Angeles County, Calif., market garden farms, 30 Machines, tractor-driven: increase dependence upon seasonal laborers, 18 Maine potato production, 20, 30, 31,35 Man-hour requirements, effect of fluctuations in, 17 Marines, brought to crop fields, 25 Market gardens, see under Fruit and vegetable production Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Statistics, 88 Massachusetts, legal compulsion used to get hired workers in colonial days, 1 Mechanization, see Technological change Mexicans, cotton pickers, 11; discrimi-

168

INDEX

Mexicans (Continued) nation against, is, 146; "stoop" jobs done by, 21 ; grower importation of peons, 25; as casual workers, 39; fruit and vegetable workers in California: importation in 1920's, 57 ff.; relief and charity cases, 59, 115; repatriation in 1930's: emigration to U. S. sharply curtailed, 61 ; importation in i94o's, 63, 66; wages, 83; annual incomes, 85 ; strike against low wages, 95 ; as sugar-beet workers, 106, 108 ff.; showed little interest in improving their status, 109 ; left U. S. for fear of being drafted: restrictions on importation of, lifted, 110; why workers remained in North, 113; colonies established throughout Middle West, 113; fight against restriction of free immigration, 114; tightening of restrictions on, 117; health problems, 119; importation of, for sugar-beet work in 1942: medical examinations, 121; restlessness, inclination to organize, 134; many have gone from farm labor to relatively skilled industrial tasks, 146 Mexico, government repatriation program of 1930's, 61; consideration for effects of 1942 importation of workers on economy of, 121 Michigan, bounty on sugar produced in state, 102 ; received best incomes from beet work, 135 Michigan State Employment Service, 118 Michigan Sugar Company, 125 Migrants, combine industrial work with seasonal agricultural labor, 11 ; average family incomes, 85, 130; politically powerless since they had no vote, 147; see also Fruit and vegetable workers; Farm laborers, seasonal; Sugar-beet workers Minority group workers, many have gone from farm labor to relatively skilled industrial tasks, 146 Mississippi Valley, migration up, 51 ff. Missouri State Employment Service, study of berry-picker migration, S3 Montana, diversity of labor supply sources, 120

National Beet Workers Conference (1936) 135 National Child Labor Committee, 41, 87, 133, excerpts from reports, 51, 52 National Committee of Agricultural and Rural Workers, 97 f. National Defense Migration, excerpt, 128 National Labor Relations Act, result of exclusion of farm workers from, iSi Nebraska, sugar-beet production, 107 Negroes, effect of abolition of slavery, 1; discrimination against, 15, 146; as casual laborers, 38; dominant in East Coast migration, 47 ff.; moved by labor contractors, 49; migratory workers from Bahamas and Jamaica, 66; wages, 83; incomes of fruit and vegetable migrants, 86; sugar-beet workers imported from Jamaica, 122; many have gone from farm labor to relatively skilled industrial tasks, 146; disenfranchised, politically powerless, 147 New Deal intervention into seasonal farm labor market, 16 New Jersey, market garden farms, 30; average earnings of Italian migrants, 86 New York, apple crop, 30 Norfolk, Va., child workers, 37 f. North Carolina, average family income of strawberry pickers, 86 "Oakies," entered picture, 62 Onion field migrations, 44 Oregon, fruit and vegetable migratory workers, 63 Department of Labor, 73 Oriental groups, worked in gangs under a contractor or elected leader, 116 Pacific Coast, use of seasonal farm labor, 9; fruit and vegetable migration, S3 ff-; see also California Packing occupations, S7 Padrones, see Labor contractors Parker, Carleton H., S7 Penal and corrective institutions, inmates of, brought to crop fields, 25

INDEX Philippine Islands, 1 4 3 ; casual laborers f r o m , see Filipinos P l a n t a t i o n e c o n o m y in S o u t h , f o u n d a tion, 1 " P o l a c k t o w n s , " 38 Political pressure exerted to force authorities to n a r r o w number of jobs u n e m p l o y e d w o r k e r s must accept, 147 Portuguese, as sugar-beet w o r k e r s , 106 P o t a t o harvester, o n e - m a n , 144 P o t a t o production, 30; gross on year's crop, 3 1 ; pickers, 49, 50 Prejudices, race and color, 15, 137, 146 Prisoners of w a r , b r o u g h t to crop fields, 25 Public utilities, helped to finance antiunion c a m p a i g n , 96 P u y a l l u p V a l l e y , W a s h . , berry district, 42 R a c e prejudice, 15, 137» 146 Railroads, helped to finance anti-union campaign, 96; w o r k e r s ' wages, 107 R a y o n , 143 Reconversion, 142 Relief, g o v e r n m e n t : effect of p r o g r a m s u p o n f a r m l a b o r market, 1 6 ; effect on casual l a b o r , 4 2 ; M e x i c a n s on, 59, 1 1 5 ; f o r beet workers, 130, 137 R o o s e v e l t , F r a n k l i n D . , quoted, 124 Rural Worker, The, 98 Sacramento V a l l e y , grape pickers, 35 Sailors, b r o u g h t to c r o p fields, 25 S a n i t a r y conditions, 87 San J o a q u i n C o u n t y , Calif., d e m a n d for seasonal w o r k e r s , 20 San J o a q u i n V a l l e y , grape pickers, 35 L a b o r B u r e a u , 70 Scioto M a r s h , O h i o , onion f a r m s , 44 Seabrook F a r m s , 20, 32, 3 4 ; strike, 96 Sharecroppers, 1 4 5 ; status, 2 ; sharecropping beet acreages, 109; ousted t h r o u g h introduction of mechanical c o t t o n picker, 146 Shelters on f a r m s , f o r casual w o r k e r s , 39 Skilled workers, see F a r m laborers S l a v e r y , effects of abolition, 1 Social legislation, denied f a r m laborers, 26

Soldiers, brought to c r o p fields, 25

169

South, effect of abolition of s l a v e r y , 1 ; concentration of seasonal w o r k e r s , 8 Spanish Americans, sugar-beet w o r k e r s , 108, i n , 1 1 2 ; w h y t h e y remained in N o r t h , 113 Spreckels, J o h n D., quoted, 105 Spreckels S u g a r C o m p a n y , 1 1 0 " S t o o p " Steinbeck, J o h n , 26; l a b o r , I S> 34i done b y Mexicans, 2 1 ; or Filipinos, 21, 60; Japanese willing to do, 5 5 ; reinstated socially, 6 5 ; f a r m ers' reluctance to do, in beet fields, 104; A m e r i c a n s disinclined to accept, 106 Strawberries, m a n h o u r s of labor required to g r o w a n d harvest, 3 2 ; dev e l o p m e n t of successive areas, 5 1 ; pickers' annual cash earnings, 86 Strikebreakers, 9 1 ; use of violence, 92 Strikes, of fruit and vegetable w o r k e r s , 74; 88, 90; under C A W M leadership, 94; of Filipino asparagus w o r k e r s , 100; Japanese and M e x i c a n beet workers, 134; C o l o r a d o beet w o r k e r s , 135 Sugar, tax on foreign, 102; emergency measures to help meet needs, 121 Sugar A c t s of 1934 and 1937, 123, 130, I3S. 136» 1 3 7 , 1 5 2 ; forbade " h o l d b a c k " clauses, 106 Sugar-beet industry, chief characteristics, 102; m a i n areas o f : hand labor required, 103; cost of f u l l y equipped f a c t o r y : must be near source of r a w material, 1 0 3 ; p r o b l e m of getting r a w material. 1 0 4 ; complication of t w o l a b o r peaks: w r i t t e n contract, 1 0 5 ; hard-pressed for workers during W o r l d W a r I I , 120; 1942 h a r v e s t , 1 2 1 ; farmers reluctant to contract f o r beet acreages, 1 2 2 ; scientific d e v e l o p m e n t s revolutionize cost a n d labor aspects, 1 3 7 ; acreages planted to, likely to increase a f t e r w a r , 1 4 3 ; political strength of growers and p r o cessors, 143; schedule of p a y m e n t s per measured acre, 157 Sugar-beet w o r k e r s , 102-39; Orientals as seasonal, 106; wages, 107, 122 ff. (.see also W a g e s ) ; i m m i g r a n t s i m ported f r o m E u r o p e , J a p a n , and M e x i c o to build, 107; other nationali-

170

INDEX

Sugar-beet workers (Cont.) ties represented, 108, 109; plans for colonizing families, 109; companies' efforts to colonize beet areas, 108, 1 : 3 ; recruited in Middle West, i o g ; an unstable labor supply, n o ; efforts to recruit domestic, i n ; meals and train fare paid, 1 1 2 ; Mexican and other Spanish Americans encouraged to settle near beet areas, 1 1 3 ; practically all become public charges, 116, 1 1 7 ; growers exerted pressure to force, off relief, 1 1 7 ; imported when adequate labor was available, 1 1 8 ; composition of contract, 1939, 120; harvesting done by Americans of Japanese descent evacuated from their homes: emergency forces, 121; method of payment, 124; average per-acre return of growers and average per-acre wage of workers, 192739, 127, tab., 128; number of acres a worker can tend, 129; supplementary income from non-beet sources, 1 3 1 ; unionization, 134 ff. (see also Unionization) ; dependent upon labor supply from lowest economic and social strata, 137; receive treatment as "second-class citizens," 137; see also Japanese; Mexicans Sugar cane production, acreage planted to, likely to increase after war, 143; mechanical harvesting, 144 "Sunkist," fruit harvested by picking crcws, 61 Synthetic fiber, 143 Tariff of 1897, 102 Taylor, Paul S., 84 Technological change, dividing line between types of workers shifts in response to, 6; influences seasonal labor employment, 18, 143 ff.; scientific developments revolutionize costs and labor aspects of sugar-beet production, 137 Tenant farmers, 145; status, 2 Tenant farmers, ousted through introduction of mechanical cotton picker, 146 Tenure system, role of, 18 Texas, winter garden products

and

citrus fruit, 30; labor supply center of sugar-beet industry, 112; forged a law against out-of-state labor agents, 113 Texas Emigrant Agent Law, 113 Textiles, postwar outlook for cotton and synthetic fiber output, 143 Tolan Committee, 26 "Tramps," 51, 56 Transportation of migratory workers, difficulties arising from shortages of gasoline and tires, 24; for wartime workers provided by FSA, 25; how travel expenses cut into earnings, 46, 85; train fare of sugar-beet workers paid, 112; by truck, crowded to limit, 118 Truck farms, see under Fruit and vegetable production Unemployment, 57; cause of workers' entering seasonal farm labor market, 15; among seasonal fruit and vegetable workers, 75; impact factors that make for less than full employment, 76 Unemployment insurance, 147 Unionization of migrant workers, w h y relatively infrequent, 91 ff.; real upsurge of unionism, 93 ff.; final blow, 96; in Florida, Ohio, and New Jersey, 96; spread of: first steps taken toward national unity, 97; of sugarbeet workers, 134 ff.; decasualization could be accomplished by strong, 151 Unions, restricted numbers of workers eligible for employment, 14 ff.; use of violence and illegal tactics, 92; Mexican beet workers union, 134; exert political pressure to force authorities to narrow number of jobs unemployed workers must accept, 147; see also American Federation of L a b o r ; Committee for Industrial Organization United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, union formed: affiliated with CIO, 98, 136; bitterly attacked by A F L Teamsters' Union, 99; decision to abandon most field workers, 99 United States, government action in aid

INDEX of growers during world wars, 23; wage fixing action in which workers had almost no representation, 72; relation of government to Agriculture since 1933, 152 Children's Bureau, 133, 135 Department of Agriculture: responsibility for farm labor recruitment and placement, 24; survey of composition of contract beet labor force, 1939, 120; beet wage rates set by, 123, 126; minimum wage determination, 135; recruitment and transportation of farm workers, 149 Immigration Commission: Reports, excerpt, 40 Labor Department: study of California migration, 53; study of median beet family income, 131; survey of housing available to beet families, 132 United States Beet Sugar Association, 112 United States Crop Corps, 24; volunteers enrolling in, 66 United States Employment Service, effect on farm labor market, 24 Valley Fruit Growers Association, 70 Varona, Francisco, 100 Vegetable workers, see Fruit and vegetable workers Veterans' groups exert political pressure to force authorities to narrow number of jobs unemployed workers must accept, 147 Victory Corps, 65 Violations of Free Speech and Rights o] Labor, excerpt, 74 Wages, of farm laborers governmentfixed, in colonial days, 1 ; differential between farm and non-farm, 12 ff.; chart, 1 3 ; pressure on agricultural, resulting from industrial exclusion of color and nationality groups, 1 5 ; influence of wage movements on seasonal labor, 19; more subject to grower decisions than other farm costs, 69; grower cooperation to set, 70; F S A seen by growers as threat of further wage fixing after war, 72; diversity of methods of payments in fruit and

171

vegetable field, 76; rates for picking grapes and cutting asparagus and prices received by growers, 79 ff., tab., 79; tendency of Federal price-wage ceilings to stabilize labor force: relationship between piece rate and earnings, 81; average daily earnings in 1929, 82; differentials on basis of age, sex, color, and nationality, 83; family earnings, 85, 86, 130; differences in median income among racial groups, 86; in depression years, 94; of railroad workers and beet workers, 107; how sugar-beet workers' are determined, 122 ff.; unilateral determination ended by Sugar Act of 1937, 123; government setting of minimum rates in beet industry, 123; tendency for minimum to become the maximum, 124; method of payment, 124; bonus system, 125; levels in different areas, 126; unorganized workers have undue share of cost of price declines, 127; average per-acre return of growers and average per-acre wage of workers, 1927-39, 127, tab., 128; improved housing conditions the result of government wage fixing, 134; minimum scale demanded by beetworker unions, 135 Wagner Labor Act, 99 War industries, raided agriculture for recruits: improved levels of employment and income, 23 Washington, state, apple crop, 30; seasonal laborers, 35; fruit and vegetable migratory workers, 63; income of fruit and vegetable workers in Y a k i ma Valley, 85 Water, impure: provided for migratory workers, 88 Weather, influence on seasonal labor, 19, 21 Wenatchee Valley, 30, 35 Wheat, production expenses per acre, 30; man hours of labor required to grow and harvest, 32; effect of harvester-thresher combine upon seasonal labor, 14s Wheatland riot of 1913, 89 Women, as urban day workers, 37 Women's Land Armies, 24, 65

172

INDEX

Workmen's compensation payments, deducted from employees' wages, 100 World War, First: effect of manpower requirements of Army and war industry, 57; intensive farm industries brought labor difficulties, n o ; farm labor market at conclusion of, 142 Second: pattern of events after, will differ from those of World War I, 142

World wars, drained labor market, 22; growers turned to government for aid: state organizations integrated into a Federal system, 23; seasonal farm labor in postwar era, 140-61 WPA, 1 6 ; projects shut down because of farmer pressure, 43; lay beet laborers off relief rolls in spring, 1 1 7 Yakima Valley, 30, 35, 85