To reduce the $321.3 million appropriation by any amount. in this instance approximately $8 to 9 million. will mean that additional lowincome persons will be without the services of an attorney. When a civil legal problem arises. the proposed reduction would have to be absorbed by legal services officials throughout the country. It would reduce representation for the urban poor. the elderly. the handicapped. the native American. and the migrant farmworkers. In 1980. the Legal Services Corporation allotted $8.2 million to 31 local legal services programs for civil legal assistance to lowincome migrant farmworkers. These programs operate in 35 States and Puerto Rico to ensure that migrant farmworkers have some access to our system of justice when in need. Attorneys. expert in migrant problems who visit the camps. provide crucial advice about legal rights and responsibilities to the migrants and handle their legal problems. It is crucially important that disadvantaged groups. especially lowincome migrants who cannot afford to pay for legal assistance. continue to have the availability of free legal services. To suggest that this group of workers should not receive legal assistance. is to state that we in Congress are going to allow a group of workers. who may be the poorest of the working poor. to have no access to our system of justice. The Nations migratory workers are among the neediest and the most deserving of legal assistance. First. simple access to an attorney is often an overwhelming problem for migrants who move with the crops. and are then confined to labor camps without adequate transportation or language abilities. Lowincome migrants experience the important. yet mundane legal problems suffered by many poor personsdivorce. child custody. governmental benefits. In addition. they have numerous statusrelated legal problems that unfortunately create tension and controversy between growers and workers. Second. migrant workers have been exploited by unscrupulous crew bosses and have been rejected by the very communities. which enjoy the fruits of the migrants labor. This sad history was well documented by the Committee on Education and Labor in its report on amendments to the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act in 1974: Abuse of workers by the contractor/crew leader appears more the rule than the exception. The testimony revealed that in many cases the contractor tends to exaggerate conditions of employment when he recruits workers In their home base or that he fails to inform them of their working conditions at all: tends to transport them in unsafe vehicles. fails to furnish promised housing or else furnishes substandard and unsanitary housing. often operates a company store while making unitemized deductions from workers paychecks for purchases. and usually pays the workers In cash without records of units worked or taxes withheld. Third. migrant legal services attorneys represent farmworkers in suits for recovery of unpaid minimum wages pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act. recovery of civil damages from unregistered crewleaders for redress of fraudulent misrepresentations (pursuant to the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act) . development of special compensatory education programs under the provision of title IMigrant of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. representation of farmworkers at fair hearings in claims for disability benefits under the Social Security Administration Act. Fourth. my Subcommittee on Manpower and Housing heard testimony last November from various staff attorneys working in legal services programs providing services to farmworkers in various parts of this country. Poor sanitary conditions and day to day violence under which farmworkers and their advocates labored were reported.
Keywords matched
migrants migrant