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Cesar Chavez — Part 5
Page 84
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362 AMENDENG MIGRATORY LABOR LAWS
them. The same labor camps which were used 30 years ag
time of the La Follette committee hearings are still he
workers. The same exploitation of child labor, the same idea that
farmworkers are « 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 am sure that some very silcere
people really worried about it. But nobody in the State capitals or
in our Nation's Capital did anything about it until one woman, Rosa
Park 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 is that we, the farmworkers, will
not to go that. far in order to prove that we are tired of cceu-
pati 1 discrimination and that we are ready for our freedom. I
ho’ at you gentlemen hear this message loud and clear, and that
you not forget, misinterpret, or try to ignore it.
iat the farmworkers in our country are asking for is equality.
I believe that all Americans should want this for every American—
uality, 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
never 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 anthorized special health and welfare
pro ‘or farmworkers were picked out and passed. The migrant
ealth act, the bills incorporated into title ITI-b of the Economic
Opportunities Act * * * these bills give special services to farm-
workers.
But none of his bills which would give equal rights tu farm-
workers have been passed. I am referring to the niinimum wage
dill, S. 1864; the collective bargaining billy S. 1866 and the bill to
abolish child labor, 8. 1865. All that these bills do is
ple who work on farms should have the same human righ
who work in construction crews, or in factories. or in of
these bills do is to overcome the farm lobby that Fri
Roosevelt's admini=tration was subjected to in the t
forced them to decide that farmwork and farmworkers were some-
how different from everyone else. I hope everybody here’ today
agrees that a man who works on a farm is made just like +
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
house. Well, if farmworkers are equal, then they deserve the same
protection of the law that other men enjoy, and the Williams bills
which confer this equality must be pass I do not believe that
another advisory committee will help the farmworkers and I am com-
pletely opposed to the Government subsidizing recruitment programs
‘or farmworkers.
The whole system of occupational discrimination must le killed
just like the discrimination against people of color is heing challenged
in Washi m. This, and nothing more, is what farmworkers want.
The right to secure a decent minimum wage should be obrious.
The average farmworker in Delano has seven children, lives in a house
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