Many are former sharecroppers. tenant. and marginal farmers. and regularly hired laborers who have been replaced either by machines or foreign labor. They migrate because there are not enough jobs in their home communities to sustain them. or because local wages are too low to provide. for the necessities of life. The chief purpose of todays meeting of the Presidents Committee on Migratory Labor has been to establish a united Committee policy directed toward improvement of the economic and social condition of migrant farmworkers and their families. Our immediate goal is to secure passage by the House of the five bills. introduced by Senator HARRISON A. WILLIAMS of New Jersey and pasded by the Senate during the last session of Congress. These bills deal primarily with the national registration of farm labor contractors and crew leaders. the extension of the child labor provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act to the children of migrants. the extension of health services to migrants. grantsinaid on a matching basis to States for the education of migrant children and adults. and the establishment of a National Advisory Council on Migratory Labor. The Committee has also urged passage of the National Farm Labor Stabilization Acta bill which would make it possible for many more underemployed rural workers to accept jobs in agriculture. We have also advocated strict enforcement of Federal and State laws and regulations which now apply to migrants and their families. and the tightening of regulations governing the importation of foreign labor for work on U.S. farms. In addition. the Committee has advocated "support in principle" for the extension of appropriate minimum wage and labormanagement legislation to agriculture. The Committee has asked the PCML secretariat to review legislative proposals in these fields. The Committee has also directed its secretariat to study provisions of the Area Redevelopment Act and rural development and special food programs to determine how the benefits of these programs can be extended to migrants and their families. In conclusion. Mr. President. we believe that public support for reform in this field is at the highest point ever reached. It is your Committees opinion that effective followthrough by both legislative and administrative forces will produce tangible solutions to the longstanding problems of migrants and their families. Respectfully.
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migrants migrant