Speech #910258994

I think in many respects the report Is sound. and in many respects excellent in terms of extending coverage and expanding benefits. It incorporates principles with which I wholeheartedly agree. But tragically. and once again. adopting this report we will be repeating what is virtually an ancient and tragic mistake of completely forgetting about the migrant and seasonal farmworkers in America for they have been excluded from coverage. And this omissiorn is despite the fact that the Senate. after substantial and heated debate last April 7. 1970. voted to .take the first step in the right direction by including the large corporate farms and the migrant and seasonal farmworkers who are employed on those large farms under this unemployment compensation program. In our effort to oppose theconference report and send it back with instructions to the conferees to include farmworkers. I am joined by the distinguished Senator from Ohio . who is the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. the distinguished junior Senator from Pennsylvania . who is also a member of the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. and also the distinguished Senator from New Jersey . who is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor. the senior Senator from New York . who is the ranking minority member of the full Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. and I believe there will be others who will publicly wish to join in this effort. I think I speak for all of them when I say we deeply regret the necessity for this effort to reject the conference report. but we see once again the neglect of the most desperately poor in American life. who probably work as hard and earn as little for their efforts as any people in America. These are the migrant and seasonal farmworkers who are the most desperately poor by practically any standard. including income. health. nutrition. housing. education. and the right to enjoy the political. economic. and social benefits attendant with living in a given geographical area. These people have been chronicled time after time in some of the great literature on American life. beginning with reports as eaily as 1901. They have been graphically portrayed in novels such as "Grapes of Wrath." S"Again their plight was discussed by the Tolandcommittee in the 1940s inthe House of Representatives. then again. they were portrayed in a 1951 report in the Truman administration. Moving television -documentaries. beginning with "Harvest of Shame" by Edward R. Murfow. and 2 years ago on educational television in "What Harvest for the Reaper" on migrants in the State of New York. Again. a few weeks ago in an NBC documentary "MigrantAn NBC White Paper." Then a few -days ago in a report by a team of noted doctors who had examined the health conditions of migrant farmworkers in Texas and Florida under the auspices of the Field Foundation. which described conditions that are beyond belief. And all we are proposing to do here is to take the first step to include the farmworker within the unemployment compensation laws of this country. and to include only a small proportion.. affecting less than 20 percent of farm labor and 2 percent of our farmsthe large corporate growers. to be sure.