Speech #910262514

They and frequently their wives and children engage in the hardest sort of backbreaking manual labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor. migrant workers receive an annual wage lower than that of any other income group in the country. In 1969 they worked an average of 85 days a year and they averaged a meager annual salary of only $891. This is approximately $30 less than the average migrant salary for 1967 and 1968. Their pitiful income is in shabby contrast to the earnings of American factory workers. The basic necessities of food and clothing consume all of their meager paychecks and more. This month in my home State of Ohio approximately 15.000 migrant workers are laboring to harvest tomatoes and sugar beets. By November more than 50.000 migrant laborers will have worked. often on their hands and knees. in nearly half the counties of Ohio for the lowest wages paid to any sizable economic group in the State. They will have worked an average of fewer than 100 days and earned an average annual wage of less than $1.000. Mr. President. nationwide more than 21/2 million men. women. and children are caught in this dismal web of poverty and degradation in the midst of plenty. Housing for migrants both at home and while traveling is disgracefully below what the average American expects for his own family. Because we have not yet devised programs to eliminate poverty amongst a mobile population. social and poverty legislation have been of minimum benefit to the migrant worker who travels a substantial portion of the year. Unlike most other labor groups in our society agricultural migrant workers are: totally lacking in either politicalor economic power. Their economic and political weakness is even more disgraceful when compared with the awesome power of the agricultural growers and processors who purchase their labors. : . Migrants are excluded from the protection given to other workers in their attempts to organize or strike. They are not protected by age requirements inchild labor laws. They are not guaranteed workmens compensation -and they are ineligible for unemployment insurance.