Incidence of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases is 260 per cent higher than the national rate; and,
Accidents are 300 per cent more likely to occur to farmworkers than to other Americans.
As to the permanent residences Mr. Ferrara makes so much of, the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor found in 1969 that 42 per cent of all farm housing was substandard, or three times higher than all other housing (including urban slums). The issue of concern in the UFW's requests for support, of course, is not home ownership or "migrancy" but the real circumstances of farmworker life.
The Growers and the UFW
Finally, Mr. Ferrara claims that growers have been victims of UFW misrepresentations regarding grower size and economic power and that the growers cannot afford nor do the workers want unionization. The image presented is one of farm workers being goaded by "outside volunteers" to make demands against economically marginal producers. In support, Mr. Ferrara asserts that large corporations and conglomerates comprise only a small part of the agricultural industry (1 per cent of all farms and 7 per cent of all farm acreage). He also points to low returns on farm investment in recent years.
Again, his use of data is very misleading. Mr. Ferrara mentions only farm corporations, but USDA figures indicate that in 1968 40 per cent of all farm tax returns over $500,000 were filed by sole proprietorships. In addition, USDA definitions of "farm corporation" include only those corporations where farm products account for the largest part of business receipts. Therefore Tenneco, which owns approximately 1,000,000 of California's 36.6 million acres of agricultural land, would not be included in Mr. Ferrara's statistics. It is estimated that the 1 per cent of farm corporations that Mr. Ferrara refers to receive from 25 to 30 per cent of the nation's farm income.
As even a cursory perusal of the available date would indicate, figures which aggregate farm profits for the entire nation are extremely unreliable because of the large number of small poor farmers, particularly in the South. The following figures are more relevant to any discussion of the UFW's claims because they pertain to that sector of the market that employs large number of farm laborers. California Department of Food and Agriculture figures show in 1973, farm income in that state was a record $77 billion, up 32 per cent over the 1972 figure of $5.8 billion. Bureau of the Census figures for California published in 1972 indicate that (1) lettuce was an $850 million crop; (2) Salinas lettuce companies control 49 per cent of the California-Arizona lettuce market during peak seasons and (3) 38 Salinas growers control 98 per cent of all lettuce production. This same document reports that 6.1 per cent of California farms own 78.6 per cent and 3.8 per cent own 68.8 per cent of the state's agricultural land; 8.6 per cent of California growers pay 70.8 per cent of all farm laborer wages paid in the state. Figures for Arizona and Florida, two other states with large number of farm laborers are similar.
Mr. Ferrara may be quite right that there are few large farm corporations (in fact there are not many large farms). But the number of large farms is simply no indication of their power and influence in the market. As the above figures show, a few farms dominate that sector of the market that employs farm labor, and it is primarily against these large farms that UFW has struggled in California, Florida, Arizona and other states.
The workers, of course, seem far more cognizant of these facts than Mr. Ferrara. Over the past eight years, farm workers have voted for unionization in every election that has been held. In all but one (since reversed) they have voted to be represented by the UFW, and they have ratified every contract negotiated by the Union.
It is inconceivable that a series of strikes involving thousands of workers and lasting over eight years has been manned by "hippies" and "outside volunteers." The most that can be said for this view is that the UFW has received support from many of us who, though not farmworkers ourselves, find their treatment and situation inconsistent with any notions of equity or justice. It is the reality of their living and working conditions, and not misrepresentations, that has produced massive farmworker support for the UFW's efforts.
We cite this date not to initiate a battle of numbers but to point out the necessity of looking very carefully at the sort of "facts" being advanced in an article which claims to be reportorial. It is significant that the article closes with an assertion that union shop agreements--a traditional demand of organized labor--are "a major violation of the civil rights if thousands of farmworkers." Such characterizations have a long history in anti-labor rhetoric. It would be well for those who advance such slogans to be forced to reply more on the available data and less on the sort of partial and inaccurate statements they purport to condemn.
Gary Bellow and Jeanne C. Kettleson are both on the faculty of the Law School. Bellow is professor of Law, and Kettleson is the school's director of administration for clinical programs. Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1972