Because the farmers rear those boys and girls, pay the expenses of rearing them until they get mature, then give them to the cities free. of charge. That is the real disparity element in the farm situation. Senator PEPPER. Cities ought to pay them for good material like that.

Mr. SANDERS. We just have too many babies on the farms for our farm prosperity, but they contribute greatly to national prosperity and welfare.

Senator PEPPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanders.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you.

Senator PEPPER. Next is the National Farm Labor Union, A. F. of L., Mr. Mitchell.

Mr. Mitchell, will you defer just a minute.

Mr. Brown, do you wish to make a brief statement?

Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.

Senator PEPPER. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF EDGAR G. BROWN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL NEGRO COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. BROWN. Senator Pepper and members of the committee, I wish to personally thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee and testify on this bill.

I appreciate the courtesy of the witness here and your indulgence. as I am trying to catch a train. I was unable to get here yesterday, as advised by your telegram.

We are strongly in favor, of course, of an increased minimum wage for all workers, including the agricultural workers.

As you very properly pointed out a moment ago, Senator Pepper, the millions of farm workers must be protected, too, they are being neglected in this program unless they are included. They should not be discriminated against, because they are unorganized. We should even go farther, in my judgment, then the proposed 75 cent hourly wage. We feel $1 minimum wage is what we really ought to be working on, or more. If Mr. Ford could pay $1 an hour to laborers on the assembly line 25 years ago, it seems we are progressing very slowly just to come to a 75-cent minimum hourly wage proposal in 1949.

As far as the National Negro Council is concerned, and our thousands of members, we wish to strongly urge the committee to consider a much higher minimum wage.

We are, of course, grateful to the chairman and the committee for making every effort to live up to the administration's campaign pledges and the Democratic and Republican platform in this regard. We are certainly gratified to hear you indicate, as chairman, Senator Pepper, that you wish to make this legislation inclusive of all workers, because that is imperative. It is almost beyond reason to think of people living, with the high cost of living today, on even a 75-cent minimum, and of anyone being excluded in the city or on the farm. I wish to thank you very much for your favorable action in this matter of a higher minimum hourly wage.

Senator PEPPER. Go right ahead, Mr. Mitchell.

90175 49 -29

STATEMENT OF H. L. MITCHELL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARM LABOR UNION, A. F. OF L.

Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, I am H. L. Mitchell, president of the National Farm Labor Union, A. F. of L.

For 16 years now it has been the policy of the Federal Government to guarantee a fair price for farm products. Millions of dollars are appropriated by Congress each year and paid to farmers in the form of subsidies to maintain parity prices of agricultural products. However, during all of these years when the Government guaranteed prices of products for farm owners, nothing has been done to place a floor under the wages of agricultural workers whose labor helps produce the huge crops of food and fiber which are marketed in this country.

In 1947 there was an average of 2,227,000 persons employed as wage workers on farms throughout the United States. During harvesting season each year the number employed as hired workers totals 3% to 4 million persons.

According to the 1945 Census of Agriculture, there were 102,136 class I farm units. Comprising less than 2 percent of all the farms in the country, these large-scale units produced 24.2 percent of all farm products sold on the market. These factories in the fields employ over 50 percent of the hired labor in American agriculture. They operate just like an industrial establishment and are often owned by corporations. It is the workers employed on such farms whom we want to include under the minimum-wage law.

An example of large-scale farm operation is the Di Giorgio Fruit Corp. in Kern County, Calif. The Di Giorgio farm consists of 18 square miles of farm land valued at $2,000 an acre. On this class I type farm there were 1,345 workers employed on October 1, 1947, when they went on strike following refusal of the corporation officials to meet with a committee of irrigators, who are skilled workmen, were not being paid for the hours they were required to work.

The Di Giorgio Corp. is not alone in that State. There are 17,742 other class I farm units in California. Together these farms produce 66.4 percent of the total California farm products sold on the market. The products of these few farms were valued at nearly one billion dollars in 1945-$945,925,880. The value of land and buildings reported by 15,894 of these farms was nearly two billion dollars$1,961,523,229. The average value of each farm being $110,558; 16,131 of these same farms reported farm implements and machinery worth $116,059,010.

In the rich agricultural State of Florida the situation affecting farm production is much the same as in California. According to the 1945 census reports there are 2,430 class I farm units which produce 62.6 percent of the total farm products grown in Florida and sold on the market. Of the State's 13,093,075 acres of farm land, these 2,430 large farm units comprise nearly half of the farm land, or a total of 6,339,802 acres.

In Ohio, another great agricultural State, there are not as many large commercial farms. The bulk of the production is from familysize farm units. The 1,573 class I farms produce only 10.4 percent of Ohio's farm production.

I cite these figures as examples to show the need for a minimum wage for agricultural workers. The citrus fruit and vegetable crops

grown in Florida and California are in direct competition with those grown in Texas. Vegetable and fruit growers in the Rio Grande Valley have an abundant supply of labor to draw upon from across the border. "Wetbacks," as illegal Mexican aliens are called, work for wages of 20 or 25 cents an hour, while agricultural workers in Florida or California are paid 50 to 80 cents an hour for similar work. The family-type farm in the Middle West is in direct competition to cheap labor on the farms of the cotton South. It would benefit small farm operators if those workers whose labor produces the crops grown in the factories in the fields of California were guaranteed a minimum wage, otherwise the family-type farmer will eventually lose out and join the growing ranks of hired hands in the United States.

I realize that there will be representatives of powerful farm organizations to come before this committee and oppose minimum-wage legislation including agricultural labor. They will represent themselves as spokesmen for the little farmer with 40 acres and a mule trying to make a living, while in reality they represent the 102,136 large-scale commercial-type farm operators who are rapidly putting the family farmer out of business as they have already done in so many of the agricultural States of the Nation.

In his annual report for 1948, the Wage and Hour Administrator discussed ways and means whereby the minimum-wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act may be applied to cover agricultural workers on commercial-type farms and exempt from coverage all workers in family-type farms. The report indicates that a provision. based on four or more hired workers employed on a farm in a calendar quarter year would exempt all family-type farms and cover the bulk of hired laborers employed on commercial-type farms.

We urge your committee to write into the Fair Labor Standards Act a provision that will extend minimum-wage provisions to the workers employed on large-scale farms. Hired farm workers whose labor produces much of the food and fiber crops which feed and clothe all of the people certainly deserve some consideration. They are exempt from benefits of labor-relations laws guaranteeing other workers the right to organize and bargain with their employer. They are at present excluded from all provisions of social-security laws, old-age survivors insurance, unemployment insurance, and, in most States, from workmen's-compensation laws. The farm workers of the United States are in reality not even second-class citizens.

We, therefore, urge your committee to take the first step toward bringing these workers up to a basis of equality with industrial workers by including them under the minimum-wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Senator PEPPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Mitchell. We are glad to have had your statement.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you.

(Subsequently Mr. Mitchell addressed Senator Pepper as follows:) NATIONAL FARM LABOR UNION, Washington 1, D. C., April 25, 1949.

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER,

Senate Office Building, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: In reference to your request made to me when I appeared before the subcommittee holding hearings on the Fair Labor Standards Act for a provision to include agricultural workers under the minimum wage provisions of the legislation, we have made inquiries as to the most feasible method of doing this.

Both the Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture specialists on farm labor with whom I have discussed the matter state that the provisions for including agricultural workers on large-scale farms should be based on the number of people employed, i. e., man-days of hired labor.

The Bureau of Agricultural Economics officials tell me that the Census Bureau in making up its classifications of class I farms, arrived at this by including all farms having a total production value at over $20,000 per year, or all farms whose land and buildings exceeded $70,000 in value. They pointed out that monetary values on production and property in agriculture are subject to fluctuation due to weather conditions, market conditions and other factors entering into farming. In view of this situation, we urge you to place before the committee the following proposal: "That provisions relating to minimum wages shall not apply to any employee employed in agriculture except in a farm enterprise employing in excess of 300 man-days of hired farm labor during a calendar quarter year." It is our belief that this type of provision would exempt from the act all family type farms which may occasionally hire a few workers, but include all of those commercial or industrial type farms whose employees are essentially the same as those of any other industrial establishment.

If further information of this matter is desired, we will be pleased to arrange for representatives of the American Federation of Labor, the Department of Agriculture and me to meet with you for a discussion of the matter at your convenience. Sincerely yours,

H. L. MITCHELL,President.

Senator PEPPER. At this point, I would like to read into the record a letter I have received from Robert Rosenwall, president, National Meat Packers, Inc. It is dated April 6, 1949, on the letterhead of the National Meat Packers, Inc., Tampa 1, Fla., and reads as follows:

DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: In connection with the pending amendments to the wage-and-hour law, our attention has been called to the fact that the coverage of the proposed amendments will affect all persons who might be employed in any avocation or business or activity affecting commerce.

Frankly, we believe that coverage is too extensive. It is certainly a far departure from the present coverage which is "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce" affected practically every person engaged in business, even though they did not directly receive or ship any goods in interstate com

merce.

In the case of our business that was true. Because we sold the hides and tallow at our plant we were forced to conform to the law because some of the hides which we sold at our platform did get into interstate commerce.

We cite this to show you how extensive and complete the present coverage is but if it should be changed from "engaged in commerce or production of goods for commerce" to "activity affecting commerce" no one can tell how far-reaching the effect of such change would be.

As the law has been previously construed and administered with the proposed change, it would reach right into the kitchen of every home and say that cooking food was an "activity affecting commerce," and who could deny it.

We hope that you will adopt our point of view and do what is possible to prevent any change in the coverage of the present act.

Thanking you for your consideration in the matter, we are,

Very truly yours,

NATIONAL MEAT PACKERS, INC. By ROBERT ROSENWALL, President.

Senator PEPPER. Next is the Tobacco Workers Union, Mr. Harris. I see you have a button on there which says "Poll Tax Paid." I hope sometime you can wear a button which says "We Don't Have To Pay a Poll Tax."

Mr. HARRIS. I hope so, too.

Senator PEPPER. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD T. HARRIS, PRESIDENT OF LOCAL NO. 216, TOBACCO WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, RICHMOND, VA.

Mr. HARRIS. I am Edward T. Harris, president of Local No. 216 of the Tobacco Workers International Union, American Federation of Labor, Richmond, Va.

Since tobacco is one of the five major industries of the South, employing thousands of workers, the rates paid those workers are vitally important to the economic health of the area. Manufacturing wages are in almost all cases above the proposed 75-cent minimum, though even in manufacturing we find hiring rates at 65 and 70 cents.

Processing of tobacco is, however, the section of the industry where the workers face the problems of low wages, seasonal employment, and now in Virginia due to exemptions for seasonal workers, workers often find themselves after a constantly shortened season unable to draw any unemployment compensation. The shorter season is due to technical improvements which not only make for a shorter season but have caused huge cuts in the number of needed workers.

The tobacco industry is largely in the hands of large corporations, where a pattern laid by the four or five major companies becomes almost a standard for all workers in given areas.

As a tobacco worker who comes from the organized manufacturing division of the industry, I do not speak for myself personally. Rather am I here to ask the Senate committee to place a floor under wages for the benefit of processing workers making less than the 75 cents an hour.

In the processing of tobacco there is some union organization, though many workers are still waiting the day when they are given a contract. The figures I quote to you are from those fortunate enough to be covered by contracts-the unorganized could tell a much worse story, but should they send a spokesman here, he or she might be "jobless" on their return, so we could not ask that.

Our unions hold contracts with companies operating in Virginia and in North Carolina. May I quote the rates?

In Durham, N. C., we find the same wage rates apply to four companies-all seasonal: Minimum rate for women, 50 cents; minimum rate for men, 68 cents, and maximum rates are 75 cents and 81 cents.

In Wilson, N. C., the largest tobacco belt of seasonal operation in that State, we find the women's rate at 55 cents and the rate for men is 65 cents. Some few of the employees are above the minimum.

As we turn toward Virginia, we find slightly higher rates in the stemmeries of the large tobacco corporations but even here we find a great many workers unable to carry home an adequate pay check. In Danville we find women tobacco workers have a minimum of 59 cents and a maximum of 65 cents. For men we find rates from 65 to 75 cents.

In one large stemmery in Richmond we find the wage rates covering the bulk of the workers as follows: Women, 68 cents, and men, 75

cents.