Word: ferrara
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...time) who averaged 88 days of work per year and $1160 in annual wages. It can hardly be argued that aggregation distorts this figure, since the USDA breaks the general category down into subcategories, and no subcategory of workers averaged earnings anywhere near the figures quoted by Mr. Ferrara. (See Table.) The USDA's finding that no subcategory of farmworkers averaged even a minimally decent average wage is confirmed by three separate studies (by the USDA, a research group at the University of Denver, and by a subcommittee of the California Assembly). Each of these studies show that...
...Ferrara is correct that USDA figures may not include all wages from piece rates, but, given the realities of agricultural production, it is inconceivable that piece rates would substantially increase the income of a significant number of farmworkers. First, there are only a few instances where piece rates are paid as an increment to a base hourly wage, and piece rates alone generally produce low earnings. (Testimony before the 1969 Senate Sub-committee on Migratory Labor indicated that only 10-25 per cent of all farmworkers worked on a piece rate basis and that, at a maximum, a worker might...
...living conditions, Mr. Ferrara focuses on the issue of whether laborers are "migrant," which he defines to mean without a permanent residence. He ignores the considerable data on the poor working conditions, health, education and housing of farm laborers and seems to imply that if workers have a permanent place o residence living and working conditions will be adequate. This is as factually incorrect as it is logically unsound...
...Ferrara establishes no connection between permanence of residence and the conditions under which farm laborers live and work. For example, many California farmworkers with permanent residences must follow the harvests up the California valleys for as many as eight months a year, enduring the deprivations of labor camp life, despite their "non-migrant" status...
...permanent residences Mr. Ferrara makes so much of, the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor found in 1969 that 42 per cent of all farm housing was substandard, or three times higher than all other housing (including urban slums). The issue of concern in the UFW's requests for support, of course, is not home ownership or "migrancy" but the real circumstances of farmworker life...