The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Texas Farm Workers

JIM LEHRER: This is the story of seventeen people who marched 405 miles for a cause.

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening from Austin, Texas. Eleven years ago some Chicano farm workers staged a long march from the Rio Grande Valley to the state capitol to petition for better pay. Governor John Connelly refused to see them and the Texas Rangers turned them back. Today a lonely band of seventeen Chicanos completed a similar march -- 400 miles in thirty-eight days. Nobody stopped them this time. The media turned out in force today, and Governor Dolph Briscoe invited them into his mansion for coffee.

But that`s not the end of the story. In fact, it`s probably only the beginning. Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, they call themselves the Texas Farm Workers` Union, but it`s a union without much portfolio. The AFofL-CIO is not supporting them, neither is Cesar Chavez and his California Farm Workers` Union.They have no mass following. Their employers, the farmers and growers of Texas, claim they don`t even represent the majority of the Texas farm workers, and the unions leaders don`t dispute that. Nor do they deny the clean reality that the Texas legislature and Governor Briscoe are not about to give them what they want any time soon. In fact, about all they do have right now is a cause and seventeen new heroes.

The roster of the seventeen reads like this: the Garcia family of Weslaco, Texas, father Romiro and his wife Gumecinda and two of their five children -- Diana, fifteen, Tomas, eighteen. Maria Salas, fifty-nine years old, has worked in the fields since she was a young girl. Tomasa Hernandez, also from the Rio Grande Valley, still works in the fields. Helen, her daughter, is a waitress. Johnny Lopez, son of migrant workers, lives in the West Texas town of Muleshoe. Raul Parras, also born of migrant worker parents, no longer works in the fields; he lives in another West Texas city, San Angelo. Julio Coreno, forty-seven, still works in the Rio Grande Valley near the town of Mercedes. Randy Jaramillo I from Muleshoe originally, son of farm worker parents, now works as a welder in Houston. Jose Torres worked as a farm worker as a youth, a college graduate now with a national civil rights organization known as the National Equal Rights Congress. Marcial Silva lives in Salinas, California, an organizer with the farm workers` movement, worked as a farm worker when he was in his teens. Ricardo Monje of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a farm worker activist and union organizer. And Antonio Orendain, the leader of the march, entered the U.S. as an illegal alien in 1950; now a citizen, worked with Chavez in California, came to Texas eleven years ago; a full-time union organizer Claudio Ramirez, fifty-six years old, lives in Pharr, Texas, has been a farm worker all his life. His partner with the lead banner, Jose Rodriguez, sixty-one, the oldest marcher, lives in the Rio Grande Valley town of Alamo, has been a farm worker forty-six years.

It was thirty-eight days ago -- 9:00 a.m. February 26 -- when they began down here in the tip of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the town of San Juan. They marched northward to Corpus Christi on the Gulf, and then to San Antonio and finally to Austin, the state capitol. Why did they do it?

JOSE TORRES: To get publicity, to let the country know, and also other countries, to find out what the conditions of the farm workers are, especially in the Valley. It`s one of the lowest paid sections of the country, where farm workers don`t get very much.

GUMECINDA GARCIA: My reason to march with my whole family is to ask for justice for the Texas farm workers.

DIANA GARCIA: Because I feel that I have the right to have a union. We`re - - how should I say -- we should have a union, and the reason I walked the 400 miles, it`s because I myself am a Texas farm worker and I have a right to work.

CLAUDIO RAMIREZ (ALFREDO de AVILA, Translating): Because it is time that here in Texas farm workers can have a union, because we are migrants and because we travel all over the country and because they exploit us.

LEHRER: How long have you worked in the fields?

RAMIREZ/AVILA: All of my life.

LEHRER: Do you feel that this march has been worth it for you personally to walk this 400 miles?

RAMIREZ/AVILA: I don`t only feel that it`s just personal satisfaction, but I think the most important part was to raise the consciousness level of the people in Texas so they could understand the needs for organizing a union in Texas.

LEHRER: How would you describe the conditions under which a Texas farm worker lives right now?

RICARDO MONJE: Well, mostly I guess what they consider the colonias in the valle, or south of the border -- very unsanitary conditions, no roads, dirt roads with out any ability for transportation outside of mud and dirt and outhouses, extreme shacks in the real sense of the word, that they still live in. And of course financially, without hardly any money, fifteen, thirty dollars a week sometimes, and sometimes none. And food stamps and welfare is very, very low. Texas is one of the lowest states in paying food stamps and welfare.

ANTONIO ORENDAIN: Farm workers, we don`t got money, we don`t have professions, and many of us we don`t got education, so the only thing I can do of free enterprise is my needs; and because I don`t have any training or nothing, they abuse my needs. See, I`m more hungry than you; I`m supposed to be working cheaper than you. So with collective bargaining I will have the right to put prices at things I can do with my hands. This is important. The only thing that one asks is, if you believe in human rights, why deny the right -- to me it`s a sacred right to hold an election to say "I want a union" or "I don`t want a union." Everybody`s preaching about human rights in other places on earth, but we deny the human rights to the living people in this country.

LEHRER: Why, in your opinion, won`t the growers give you these human rights that you want?

ORENDAIN: Because of the simple reason of their wanting to make more profit, and it`s easier to step on somebody under your feet than trying to step on somebody who`s on top of you.

LEHRER: This view of the growers` attitudes was countered by the `American Farm Bureau`s top labor spokesman, Jack Angell. I interviewed him in Austin after Sunday`s march.

JACK ANGELL, American Farm Bureau: There`s a growing awareness in Texas and in other labor-intensive areas that farm labor relations have got to be improved, that farmers have got to know who their work force is, that farmers have got to improve personal relationships with workers; and I think you`ll find if you investigate the farms and ranches of Texas that a lot of this is being done. A lot more needs to be done, and I think a lot is being done from the other side. The only retardant, as I see it, are people who would interject social causation, who would make a political movement out of a difficult economic problem.

LEHRER: Is it your position that the farm workers of Texas are fairly well off and should be satisfied with their life and their plight at this point?

ANGELL: Well, I think that from my knowledge they`re fairly well off. They`re not affluent, but I think the important thing here again is to remember that the out cries, the pleas for organization don`t come basically from the farm worker community; they come from organizers; they come from the clergy; they come from white intellectuals who want to organize farm workers and fasten an organization on them. We don`t hear, in this whole area, an outcry from farm workers themselves.

LEHRER: Why are you and the growers opposed to

unionization?

ANGELL: We`re not opposed to unionization as such. The policy of the Texas Farm Bureau, the policy of the American Farm Bureau is to recognize collective bargaining and unionization of farm workers if this be the decision of farm workers themselves, if it come through collective bargaining, if it come through secret ballot elections and not the massive coercion of the secondary boycott or the type of sweetheart contract that Cesar Chavez and Frank Fitzsimmons just signed out in California which turned thousands of farm workers over to either union on an either/or basis as if so many commodities were being traded on a block. Our policy is very clear on the rights of farm workers to organize: if it be their decision, and if it not be accompanied by the massive coercion of the boycott or the sweetheart agreement between unions.

LEHRER: Do you feel that the people who marched to Austin and who are involved in seeing the government officials here do not represent the farm workers?

ANGELL: I think that`s a very, very obvious fact, given the context of farm labor relations in Texas. One, the Orendain group is not supported by the United Farm Workers, it`s not supported by the Texas AFL-CIO, it can`t in a demonstration before the capitol or anyplace else prove that it represents one single farm worker.

I think, again, this is a spectacle, this is a display, this is an emotional effect and the problem is far deeper than that; the problem is one that requires the deepest kind of examination.

LEHRER: Do you feel that you represent all of the farm workers of Texas?

ORENDAIN: Oh, no. No, I don`t feel representative of the majority of the workers. What I`m thinking is, maybe there`s more among the workers we represent or that wanted to be represented is the same amount of people. Like for one reason or another, in this life, just a small amount of people make the things happen and the rest of it waives the right in the way it is being produced by a very small group.

LEHRER: Do you consider the march and all the events of this weekend to be a success?

ORENDAIN: It is better than what I planned. It is better because I see -- like, I remember the march in 1966 from Delano, California, to Sacramento and I remember the march from Rio Grande City to Austin in 1966, and I see the way the people are receiving us. I see the way the people come, and I think it`s better than what I expect. I don`t expect that good as it is a personal thing.

LEHRER: Successful or not, the marchers had been tired -- some, openly dispirited when we arrived Friday afternoon at the Austin campus of a small Catholic university. Things and spirits picked up on Saturday with a fiesta and a dance.

On Sunday, after a mass and then an ecumenical church service, the original marchers were joined by other supporters for a pre march rally. There were nearly one thousand in the group, and they headed north up Congress Avenue for the final three miles to the state capitol. It was hot and muggy and it took nearly three hours to walk the final distance. The final destination, the state capitol building, was in sight much of the time.

Manana -- tomorrow. And to the Governor`s mansion they went, for forty minutes of coffee, ,juice, sweet rolls and conversation-with the Governor and Mrs. Briscoe. Afterward the Governor was asked if he would support what the Orendain group wants.

Gov. DOLPH BRISCOE, Texas: I`m here to see their petitions. I would not be in a position to comment in detail on that. Certainly they were most polite, and we had a most polite meeting.

LEHRER: What the Governor received from the farm worker delegation was a petition asking for his support of legislation creating an agricultural labor relations board. This would set up a mechanism for labor organizing and collective bargaining, among other things. Robin?

MacNEIL: Few people believe that the bill the Texas Farm Workers want has any chance in the legislature at the moment. Gonzalo Barrientos is a Democratic legislator from Austin and the prime sponsor of the bill in the Texas House. Mr. Barrientos is the son of migrant workers himself. Representative Barrientos, the conventional wisdom around here seems to be that this bill doesn`t have much chance. Is that right?

GONZALO BARRIENTOS: I will grant that it`s an uphill battle, but we can at least begin to, as some of the farm workers said, awaken the conscience of Texas. And whether it has a chance or not at this point in time perhaps is not the most important thing because it will have a chance very soon.

MacNEIL: Can you explain to us why, if the farm workers` cause is as just as they say it is, do they have so few allies? They`ve been abandoned by their former ally Cesar Chavez, they`re not getting any help from the AFofL-CIO; why do they have so few allies?

BARRIENTOS: I must point out that this particular group, the Texas Farm Workers, is one group -- one union. The bill that has been introduced is for farm workers -- all the farm workers of Texas. Eventually, when the law passes, there may be two or three or four different unions that will be up to try to get the workers` votes. This is one union; they`re supported by a group of people, perhaps not the whole spectrum.

MacNEIL: Why do they give so little evidence of having aroused any mass support if the plight of the Texas farm worker is what they say it is, whether they represent them all or not -- why isn`t there more evidence of mass support behind them?

BARRIENTOS: It`s been a while in Texas since a very concentrated effort was made to organize farm workers.It takes time, it takes money, it takes some very dedicated individuals. I myself, the first session that I served, was going to introduce this bill, but I recognized that the people of Texas need to be awakened, need to be made aware of the problems of the farm worker.At this point in time...

MacNEIL: Could you very briefly tell us what those problems are?

BARRIENTOS: As has been mentioned before, the poorest area in our United States of America happens to be in South Texas. Poverty, low education, health needs, hungry people -- it`s all there, and most of the migrants live there, some 300,000 of them.

MacNEIL: Thank you. We`ll come back. The chief spokesman here on the other side is Pat Smith, head of the Texas Farm Bureau`s legislative office. His parents were Texas farmers and he speaks for some 200,000 farm families in the state. Mr. Smith, this bill, I gather, is almost a carbon copy of what is now California state law. Why shouldn`t Texas farm workers have the same rights as those in California?

PAT SMITH: Well, we`ve said all along that the first problem in meeting the farm labor problem is to tell the truth about it, and the proponents of this farm labor bill say that they need it to give farm workers the rights of organization and collective bargaining. But this is not so. And all the marching in Texas won`t make it so. The fact is, no law in Texas or in any other state in this nation, for that matter, excludes farm workers from bargaining and organizing; and farm workers have used that right in California, Florida, Arizona, Hawaii and New Jersey, just as they can use it in Texas. Now, we say that proponents of this bill simply want the legislature to do what they haven`t been able to do for themselves with the workers in the fields, and that is to organize the Texas farm workers.

MacNEIL: Does your Texas Farm Bureau believe that the pay and working conditions of the Texas farm workers need improving?

SMITH: Oh, yes. The plight, as Representative Gonzalo Barrientos said, of the workers in the lower Rio Grande Valley or in the lower part of Texas is a sad situation. The economic area that is covered by the region proves that we are, in three of the areas, the lowest in the nation. And this is not a problem of the farmers nor the farm workers. The farmers are providing all the jobs they can. It is the economic situation in the region that is creating the problem.

MacNEIL: What does the Farm Bureau want to do about it or plan to do about it if it does not approve of this legislation, which I gather it doesn`t?

SMITH: We are doing everything we can to provide jobs for the people who work for us. We`re providing thousands of jobs for the farm workers. Were it not for the farmers and the use of farm labor, there would be no jobs available for those citizens who live in the area, because they are not qualified educationally or otherwise to get jobs in the area. So we are of benefit rather than of detriment to them.

MacNEIL: Representative Barrientos, what do you say to Mr. Smith`s point that they don`t need a special state law in order to be able to organize and they`re just trying to get the legislature to do what they haven`t been able to do themselves?

BARRIENTOS: With all due respect, I think that Mr. Smith perhaps is misunderstanding the situation. I think that the people of Texas also need to clarify their thinking on this. They say that there`s no law that excludes farm workers from collective bargaining in Texas. That is not exactly true. If the landowner, if the grower wants to sit down with a group of farm workers he can; but he doesn`t have to, therefore he does not. All we`re simply trying to do is say, just like the National Labor Relations Act, "Treat these workers just like everybody else. Sit down and bargain in good faith." That`s all.

MaCNEIL: Cesar Chavezin California is said to have abandoned this struggle here, which he was involved in formerly, because he regards Texas as absolutely the toughest nut to crack. Is there something unique about Texas, and the farm workers will never be unionized here, do you think?

SMITH: The overwhelming majority of Texas farmers and farm employers operate small to medium-sized farms. Along with the farmers in other states they may well comprise the last great family enterprise in this nation. They feed and clothe millions of Americans and provide much to sustain the hungry nations of this world. Their character, their honesty, their compassion, their sense of service to mankind is no less noble than any in our society. We don`t feel, in Texas, that we need to do what the California legislature did -- placed the burden on those farmers and ranchers in their state.

MacNEIL: Is your prediction, then, Mr.-Smith, never -- unions never on the farms because the farms are so different than they are in California?

SMITH: There is no need to unionize farm labor, not in this state.

MacNEIL: What`s your opinion on it? Why is Texas unique, in your view, in this area?

BARRIENTOS: I don`t think Texas is unique. I think Texas is very much like many other states. We`re not talking here about the small farmer, let me make that clear. Certainly the small farmers probably don`t need to have unionized laborers. We`re talking about the very large growers, and we have farms in Texas that are just as large as the ones in California. We`re talking about the Di Giorgios, the Gallos, and all of these large corporations. We do need that help for the farm worker here in Texas.

MacNEIL: But presumably, if this bill passes, then if the organizers could get thirty percent of any farmer`s employees to vote for a union election and recognition, no matter what the size of the farm a family farmer would be confronted with that during harvest time, wouldn`t he?

BARRIENTOS: Technically you are correct. However, it is going to be obvious, if it`s not already, that it`s the large growers where most of the farm workers are, not the small farms. Secondly, you spoke about a strike...

MacNEIL: I misspoke about a strike.

BARRIENTOS: Okay. There will be no strikes during the time of the contract. Only when the contract ends, if they find something that they`re not going to be able to negotiate on, they can strike if they want to, but all of the opportunities to work things out are there.

MacNEIL: Do you have something to add to that, Mr. Smith?

SMITH: Of course, the legislation that`s proposed by Representative Gonzalo Barrientos does track the language of the California bill, and that California bill provides for striking workers. So when we talk about striking at harvest time, we don`t want legislation passed in this state that would put us in the position that California is in today because the legislation was passed when it was. The statistics will bear out that approximately one billion dollars` worth of perishable agricultural commodities were totally lost to society because the legislation provided for strikes at harvest time.

MacNEIL: I see. When they marched eleven years ago what they wanted then was access to the state minimum wage, and five years after that march -- although that march appeared unsuccessful at the time; they were turned back -- five years after that they got the state minimum wage. What`s going to happen now? Now they want the right to collective bargaining and unions and so on. Are they going to get it eventually?

BARRIENTOS: If the plight of the farm worker does not change, if their salaries are not increased, if they cannot get out of poverty, this law will come into effect in Texas; and it`s only a right that every other worker in this whole country has. We talked a while ago about the unions in California. Let me tell you, the State of Hawaii and a couple or three others have had farm worker unions for thirty years. Thirty years. They haven`t ruined agriculture in those states. John Connelly here, when they stopped the Bracero program, said, "That`s the end of agriculture in Texas; it`s going to destroy us." It`s doing pretty good. So I don`t think that this is the big, terrible thing that people believe it`s going to be.

MacNEIL: Do you feel it`s never going to happen, Mr. Smith? Let me add another thought to that: the Chicanos and the Mexican-Americans are becoming a much more influential political force in states like Texas and nationally. Is that not going to have something to do with this, since most of these farm workers are of Mexican origin?

SMITH: Oh, of course. We`re very happy that the Mexican-American people are becoming better educated. And they are, in fact, in the four counties in the lower Rio Grande Valley where the marchers actually came from -- they really and truly didn`t live there; they came from out of state, some of them. The sixteen people who marched do not represent the farm workers.

MacNEIL: I`m awfully sorry, but I`m afraid we`re out of time and we have to leave it there. Thank you, Representative Barrientos, Mr. Smith. Thanks, Jim. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.