ance stipulates 8 days' pay for each year of service, except that those who leave the country are given 3 additional days' pay. Under their noncontributing pension plan, an employee may receive early retirement at the age of 55, and an employee age 45 with 15 years' service who wishes to terminate employment has vested rights to apply between 55 and 65. Incidentally, many workers who retire at an early age and return to the Philippines apply later in writing for their retirement. Those who elect to retire at age 65 receive lump-sum settlements ranging from $800 to a maximum of $13,000, according to length of service. The average daily cash earnings amount to $18.40 and, if you add the fringe benefits of $6.50, this totals $24.90 average earnings per day. The most significant aspect of technological change upon plantation employment has not been in the total but rather in the pattern and wage rates. For although considerably fewer workers are employed on the plantations today, those who are employed enjoy this far higher standard of living and receive the higher wages. And, as mechanization has increased, employer demands have proportionately increased for skilled and trained workers to operate and maintain the tractors and other huge equipment used in the operations, resulting in assignments to the higher classifications which range from the minimum grade I up to grade XI which exceeds $3 an hour ($3.24 for sugar and $3.39 for pineapple). Obviously, the question is how did this all come about. The answer is to be found in the efforts of union organization. Unionization of the Hawaiian plantations has been the prime factor underlying the higher wages and fringe benefits enjoyed by the workers today and, significantly, it has resulted in wiping out a century of benevolent paternalism for Hawaiian plantation workers. The first written agreement in the sugar industry between a plantation and a union was signed in 1941, and an intensive organization drive conducted during the latter part of World War II by the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union brought most of the sugar employees into the organization, making it possible to obtain contracts during the latter part of 1945. The unionization of the pineapple industry is similar to the development of union organization in the sugar industry and was highly successful. Major changes brought about by the signing of the first contracts including ending of the prerequisite system with workers being given an additional hourly increase in place of free housing, and medical care which had formerly been provided by the plantations. Industrywide uniform job classification systems and uniform wage scales were adopted, and the first general hourly wage increases were agreed upon. Although it cannot be denied that unionization of the plantation workers has resulted in substantial benefits and a higher standard of living, it would be a mistake to suppose that all of these changes came by easily. At times negotiators have failed to reach an agreement and strikes have been called. The first hard evidence of labor's influence was in the 1946 sugar strike which lasted about 3 months. It is significant that settlement was a clear union victory, but it cost the industry dearly in lost crop values and loss of wages experienced by the workers at that time. Despite many years of struggle, however, both management and the ILWU have shown marked signs of growing maturity, each with a genuine and sincere respect for the other. I would be indeed remiss were I to omit pointing out the progressive legislation passed in Hawaii which has contributed to the wellbeing and economic security of our agricultural workers. From the time of its inception in 1915, our workmen's compensation law has covered all employers hiring one or more workers, including agricultural workers. Some of its provisions include: Unlimited medical expense; a maximum of $112.50 per week computed at the rate of 662% percent of the average weekly wage; permanent partial disability and death benefits of up to $35,100; lifetime compensation for employees permanently and totally disabled; payment to employees of delinquent employers from a special compensation fund; and death benefits which include $1,000 burial expense, life payments to a widow incapable of self-support, and compensation to dependent children until 18 years of age. Under a special law passed in 1957, we became the first State to provide unemployment insurance coverage to certain agricultural workers. This law has since been repealed and in its stead agricultural workers are now covered under the regular employment security law. Coverage is restricted to employers with 20 or more employees performing agricultural work during a portion of each of 20 different weeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Payments are the same as those under the State employment security law-with a maximum of $62 a week up to a period of 26 weeks. Last year $500,000 was paid in jobless benefits to Hawaiian agricultural workers. It has indeed been a pleasure to have had this opportunity of talking to you about the status and conditions of agricultural workers in Hawaii. We are proud of the progress made in the direction toward improving their wages and their way of living; and because of their progress, all other workers in the State have benefited. Our entire State is all the better for the advances they have gained. Commissioner MALE. I use the word exciting in what you had to tell us, Al, but that was an understatement. The point you raised about the 20 or more, I would assume from the extensive mechanization, that this means nearly all agricultural workers would be included in the 20 or more arrangement? Director LAURETA. Except for the very small family farm. Commissioner MALE. What percentage would you say would be included in the 20? Director LAURETA. I would say about 90 percent. Commissioner MALE. About 90 percent. Sometimes, so many of our mainland laws sound like they are covering people and they leave them out. I wanted to make sure that even your 20 or more is more progressive than our three or four in some of our areas. We have another exciting report. A colleague from California, Ray Roth, from the Department of Employment is going to talk to us about legislation, covering farmers in California, and about some of the other much publicized issues of 1965 and 1966. AGRICULTURAL LABOR IN CALIFORNIA RAYMOND F. ROTH, Chief, Farm Labor Service, Agricultural labor in California is an interesting and complex subject because agriculture in California is a vast and complex industry. Agricultural labor in California is a particularly pertinent subject to people of other States. Whether they are aware of it or not, they consume more California products than Californians do. Our agricultural trends and troubles affect not only these consumers, but the many workers who migrate from other States to job opportunities on California farms. Just how big is California agriculture? It is the largest and most varied in the Nation. Its 1965 agricultural income exceeded $3.6 billion and represented nearly 10 percent of the national total. The crop income, highest of any State, accounted for about 13 percent of the national total. In livestock income, the State ranked second-behind Iowa— and accounted for more than 6 percent of the national total. Commercial production includes more than 200 crops. Production includes more than 40 percent of the national tonnage of friuts and nuts-including 90 percent or more of such specialties as almonds, apricots, dates, figs, grapes, lemons, olives, plums, prunes, and English walnuts. Production includes more than 30 percent of the Nation's vegetables, including about half or more of the tomatoes, lettuce, celery, and asparagus, to name a few big ones. Field crop production includes 11 percent of the Nation's cotton, more than 30 percent of the sugarbeets, and 20 percent of the rice. These and the many other crops as well as ornamentals, cut flowers, and seeds are grown in valleys, foothills, and desert lands scattered throughout the State, which is a thousand miles long. (If superimposed on the Atlantic Seaboard, the map of California would cover up all or part of eight States that lie between New York and Florida.) This industry requires a huge work force. In 1965, estimated employment averaged more than 300,000 and reached a peak of some 380,000 workers. Of the total at peak, nearly 200,000 were seasonal workers. The rest were regular farmhands, farmers, and unpaid family workers. In California, one crop or another is ripening at one place or another throughout the year, so that harvesting is going on all the time. This means that those labor demands which exceed local labor supplies must be met by a mobile work force. At the 1965 peak, nearly 40 percent of the domestic seasonal workers were migrants, and about 37 percent of the migrants were from other States. Part of California's farm labor problem is related to migrancy. Migrant workers and their families need housing, education, health and welfare services, and other assistance to upgrade personal standards and objectives. Thousands of migrants have received these things in California, have put down their roots, and they or their descendants are among our most successful citizens. One reason why some inadequacies and needs persist is that the migrant stream continues to be fed by newcomers, and some former migrants who have settled here are still a disadvantaged segment of our population. Now, about recent and current agricultural labor trends. Farm labor demands and supplies have both diminished. Workers left the farms during World War II, and a good many never returned. Mechanization has reduced labor needs but has never quite caught up to offset the loss of hand labor. Foreign workers, primarily from Mexico, were contracted to fill the shortage during the war and postwar years. Despite stringent safeguards to protect the employment rights of domestic workers, the use of aliens discouraged many citizens from seeking farmwork. Thus, the foreign labor needs were perpetuated until Congress permitted Public Law 78 to expire at the end of 1964. In 1965, some foreign workers were still utilized under Public Law 414, primarily to help out in the tomato harvest. But the average foreign labor use in 1965 was 90 percent below the 1964 average. The 1964 average of 28,000 was cut to 2,800 in 1965. Intensified recruitment efforts and improved wages and working conditions did attract more domestic seasonal workers for farm jobs-about 13 percent more, in average employment, as estimated for 1965. What has been done to improve the lot of the farmworker in California? Actually, a great deal has been done, and we think that the rate of progress has shown considerable speedup in recent years. Federal and State labor laws provide more extensive protections and benefits to agricultural workers in California than elsewhere. Of the 10 major labor laws, identified in the U.S. Department of Labor Bulletin 264, California has nine. Such laws regulate labor contractors, farm labor camps, transportation, wage payments and collections, child labor, minimum wages and working conditions for women and minors, workmen's compensation, and disability insur ance. Farm labor contractors must be licensed by the Division of Labor Law Enforcement in the California Department of Industrial Relations, which has been designated as the California agency also responsible for compliance with the Federal Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act. Applicants for a contractor's license must post a $1,500 bond, pay an annual license fee of $50, and a filing fee of $10. Farm labor contractors and other agricultural employers must carry workmen's compensation insurance, and liability insurance if they transport workers. They must meet stringent requirements for prompt payment of workers and adhere to standards and good practices specified in the California labor code which are aimed to protect the workers against fraud and misrepresentation in the terms and conditions of employment. Migrants employed in California benefit from these and other safeguards afforded workers and the general public. Although migrants are excluded from certain Federal-State public assistance programs having minimum residence requirements, many California counties provide local welfare and health services to migrants with emergency needs. California is the only State with disability insurance coverage of farmworkers for off-job injuries or illnesses. (Not to be confused with workmen's compensation on-job coverage.) One percent of |