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362 AMENDENG MIGRATORY LABOR LAWS them. The same labor camps which were used 30 years ago at the time of the La Follette committee hearings are still housing our workers. The same exploitation of child labor, the same idea that farmworkers are x different breed of people—humble. happy, built close to the ground—still prevails. - The Negro problem was the same way. People taiked about it, * people studied it for many years. I ain sure that some very silicere speople really worried about it. But nobody in the State capitals or in out Nation's Capital did anything about it until one woman, Rosa Parks walked to the front of the bus and touched off a revolution. = Then-men and women began freedom rides, and thousands of stu- = dents came to help, and many people were needlessly maimed and ~ slaughtered. What I am hoping its that we, the farmworkers, will not to go that far in order to prove that we are tired of occu- pati 1 discrimination and that we are ready for our freedom. I 10 at you gentlemen hear this message loud and clear, and that you not forget, misinterpret, or try to ignore it. at the farmworkers in our country are asking for is equality. I believe that all Americans should want this for every American— equality, the opportunity to earn a living wage, and not charity. But what has happened to the farmworker is very strange. He usually gets special attention to attack the symptoms of his poverty. But he hever gets anything that will destroy the roots of his poverty, For example, when Senator Williams introduced his package of bills some 6 years ago, the bills that authorized special health and welfare or pro farmworkers were picked out and passed. The migrant eter hl nt health act, the bills incorporated into title III-b of the Economic go, Big Cen Opportunities Act * * * these bills give special services to farm- iaichiere sina eae workers. Tey ‘ But none of his bills which would give equal rights tu farm- EEE workers have been passed. I am referring to the minimum wage bill, S. 1864; the collective bargaining billy S. 1866 and the bill to abolish child labor, 8. 1865. All that these bills do is to xay that peo- ple who work on farms should have the same human rights as people who wor in construction crews, or in factories. or in offires. AIL these bills do is to overcome the farm lobby that Franklin Delano . oe Roosevelt’s administration was subjected to in the thirties which Se ; forced them to decide that farmwork and farmworkers were some- ae a how different from everyone else. I hope everybody here’ today agrees that a man who works on a farm is made just like a factory ee worker, that his children like to eat just as much as a factory worker's, and that his wife does not like to live in a substandard pene ee haven Tall $f faceseenclenee ae anal then thaee Ie nen the eeu ie ie oe , BUUSE. OPP EEs FL LAPHIWOPREES Are OQual, Cen CMey Clese ove CLE SSUES kr iy i. ae: protection of the law that other men enjoy, and the Williams bills i “ which confer this equality must be passed. I do not helieve that a a rn ar e equatity ™ ee . on another advisory committee will help the farmworkers and I am com- we te TO — pletely to the Government subsidizing recruitment programs SS a or farnrorkers. . ; . wm te ; _ The whole system of occupational discrimination must be killed cae TE Te just like the discrimination against people of color is being challenged at ag fe oye in Washi n. This, and nothing more, igs what farmworkers want. ta eo ea me Fee The right to secure a decent minimum wage should be obvious. on ae, 2 The average farmworker in Delano has seven children, lives in a house r