Speaker. very wisely and fortunately this House decided earlier this session to reject a bill to extend Public Law 78. the bracero program. another 2 years. It would perhaps enlighten us further if we were to examine some of the remarks of Miss Fay Bennett before the House Agricultural Subcommittee on Equipment. Supplies. and Manpower on March 28: The fact is that even in the heavy braceroemploying areas only a small part of the farmers hire any kind of labor. domestic or foreign. and still fewer hire Mexican contract labor. Miss Bennett cited statistics showing that 96.6 percent of Imperial County. Calif.. wage bill and 84.2 percent of the Mississippi County. Ark.. wage bill are incurred by farmers whose annual wage bill ran over $5.000. She further cited a census by the Department of Agriculture which supported the contention that "most braceros are employed on largescale and prosperous farms. and that the typical American farmer has no stake whatsoever in the importation of cheap contract labor." The Agricultural Census indicated that 43 percent of the farms in Imperial Valley. a heavy user of bracero labor. paid 96.6 percent of the county wage bill. Might we not say that the small farmers of the bracero areas are not making a respectable living because they are competing with the 20 percent of the larger growers who can get cheap labor at perhaps 50 cents an hour? Those competing with cheap slavelike laborboth domestic migrants and small family farmersare relegated to a wage rate often not higher than 50 cents an hour.
Keywords matched
migrants contract labor