Sinclair and on wednesday we looked at chicken fat factories and labor production and the chicken industry here in the American South today, were going to be looking at Agricultural Labor. And as i said, those in the room were vegetarians are not off the hook. In fact, we have to of think about the ways in which agriculture, natural labor, has often been exploited and that very difficult conditions under which the vegetables that we eat are often consumed. Theres been a very large rise in the recent years about the importance of eating locally and eating more vegetarian style food and more vegetables. Michael pollan, many of you might have heard of, he wrote the omnivores dilemma as well as food rules. He had sort of a catch phrase that was very popular, which was eat food, not too much, mostly plants. And this is probably pretty good advice for those of us who are concerned about our health. But the idea was that, you know, we should eat less meat. And again, we should eat things that are real food. Alice waters, who is the chef at chez panisse as well as barbara kingsolver, are both writers have written a lot about the value of eating locally. How many of you have heard this like we should eat locally . How many of you have been to a Farmers Market . Almost all of you. This. This idea that we should be eating more locally and that this, in fact, as a moral and ethical resonance. Resonance that makes us closer to our food. Some of you might have done woofing how many of you have had friends whove done this . Does anyone . One or two. This is the idea that you would go to organic farms being involved in lol Sustainable Agriculture culture. This is actually marketed as a Cultural Exchange program as well. But again, there is this sense that theres something that is going to be make us improve ourselves, right . That if we eat locally, we will know more about where our food is coming from. Itll be better for the environment, better for our community, and better for our bodies. And in fact, this is probably in some ways the satirical version of this is from this portlandia episode in 2011. Im sorry that his head is covered by the powerpoint slide, but theres a way in which this is a famous First Episode of portlandia. I see a student shaking her head where they ask, well, what about that chicken . How a local is it . What is the chickens name . Whos taking care of the chicken . It goes on. This ongoing thing about our sort of ongoing interest and how local our food is, but what our author who you read for today, margaret gravely, asks us, is if we locally. Does that actually mean that Labor Conditions are included . And this idea of ethical eating. Who in fact, is growing organic vegetables . What does that mean if we say that it is sort of fair or good farming . What do we expect in our local farming . And she really sort of criticizes and critiques this idea that it is only about the quality of vegetable or animal, and it is not about the working conditions. And so today, i want to be looking at Agricultural Labor and the pollan Michael Pollan has said, look, we should eat more plants. Well, then we should know, well, where do those plants come from as well . Theres actually a very long history of industrial agriculture in america and with very difficult Labor Conditions and also a long history of labor organizing as well. Related to agricultural work. Im going to be looking both at the history of the Bracero Program, which is in califor nia as well as the rise of the united farm workers and cesar chavez in the 1960s. Then were going to turn from just think about agriculture to thinking, well, okay, fine. Professor levin knew it would big scale agriculture. How about those small farms . Isnt that actually still better . And then we will turn to great work and well be looking at new york state and in particular the conditions on smaller farms in the Hudson Valley region. So that is where we are moving today. And im going to begin by talking a little bit about labor law. So one of many questions before we move forward. All right. I want to talk first just about some of the labor law that is governor running this sort of track. I talked a lot about this 1935 National Labor relations act. This is the single largest piece of labor legislation that passed in us history and only followed by one other federal law, the 1938 fair labor standards act that protects workers rights and the National Labor relations act protects the right to organize. It establishes the national National Labor relations board. So as i said, for example, when the cio is organizing in the meatpacking industry in the 1930s, theyre able to have an elected often have majority of people voted for the union. The employer is supposed to recognize that union. And this sets up our federal labor law. But theres a big excess option. Its passed in 1935. And the exception of Agricultural Workers and Domestic Workers. All right. So we talked about this and we talked about meatpacking. We talked about and we talked about the poultry industry. But i didnt think i dont think i actually point out that it doesnt cover Agricultural Workers and Domestic Workers. And so what does why not why do we have a labor law that doesnt cover these two large sectors of american employment . And the reason is really related to american racism and histories of segregation and job discrimination, which is that a large number of southern agriculture in the 1930s is being farmed by sharecroppers and in particular, africanamericans, sharecroppers and white southern democrats who the Democratic Coalition needed to pass this legislation during the new deal were not willing to extend Labor Protections to industries that were largely African American workers. So this means that agriculture will work and Domestic Work to area is predominantly africanamerican or disproportionately so. Were not protected by the right to unionize. And what you should know is this gets up to a majority, its able to pass. But this still stands. So nationally, there is no National Protection for farm workers to this day. This also means that farm workers, unlike other types of work, can work over time and not get paid overtime. So if we think our average work week is must be 40 hours and you get paid more if you work more than 40 hours a week, that is not true. If you were working in agriculture. And most states there are about a dozen states that have individual laws for their states, for agricultural protections. But on the whole, theres still no federal protection. So that is in many ways framing this discussion when we talk about Agricultural Workers, we have to recognize that they are working with fewer protec actions than Industrial Workers in our food system. And this brings me to california, which is really the iconic place. And i just show this image. This is Dorothea Lange, who then goes on to not only she famous for this image and her images of the depression, but she goes on to become an extremely important photographer documenting fm labor in california in the 1930s. So i want to begin by talking about california in particular and farm work. And were going to talk about both the rise of Agricultural Labor in california, as well as what will become known as the brussels era program. So california, to this day, its one of the largest of Agricultural Industries in the country. Many of you are from california. I only have you because many i often have classes. So if you think about the imperial valley, this is still where we have large, large numbers of farm workers. Many, although not all undocumented, still very difficult Labor Conditions. And this is still where those of us i like going to, rather than be able to get strawberries in january right. Im sure most of you do, too. We like being able to get this Fresh Produce here around. Part of this is because of our Agricultural Industry in places like california and florida. California alone accounted for 30 of all large scale farms. The United States in 1929 and in the 1920s. This labor of men and women, because it is women as well who are working in california, is largely migrant workers, disproportionate numbers of mexicans and also, you might be less aware of this filipinos as we have a large immigrant population, the number of mexicans doubles during this decade. To 1. 4 million. And you should know now the changes initially when mexicans would come, they might get a job on an individual farm. And by getting a job on one farm, youd have certain benefits. The paternalism that gray writes about you might have a single boss, you might have a relationship with that individual. And you might get some more benefits, more days off or a little bit more sort of attention. But as the agriculture industry grows, you get more and more migrant labor and farms relying on workers going from farm to farm to farm to farm. This would be make make sure that these mexican and Filipino Workers themselves did not own the land. They would go follow the seasons, cotton and fruit, vegetable crops. They got paid fairly low wages. This is unsteady work that could be easily fired and physically extremely demanding and Dorothea Lange goes and she begins to photograph these workers. In the 1930s, while she herself is working as a photographer for the federal government. What we need to think about here is to really think about the ways in which these workers are then. In fact, as i said, taken out of agriculture, all farming, but out of the labor law. Right. Theyre not protected. There are, in fact, Union Organizing going on in the 1930s. So the cio just like we talked about in the industrial setting, is in fact also in the agricultural setting, but they dont have the same protections. So you have certain organizing of temps, but theyre not particularly successful. So heres another image of an agricultural worker this year. If youre interested in this topic. Carey mcwilliams is an author in the 1930 to write this book called factories in the field. Its one of the first exposes about the discrimination farm workers face. So if we think about Upton Sinclair writing about the meatpacking industry. Carey mcwilliams theres something very similar for the Agricultural Industry. Hes the first one to really write about california from an immigrant lens. He writes about mexican laws and filipinos, and he really is trying to write about this new vision of the United States, one based on immigrants and workers here, too, like sinclair, is a political leftist and an activist and these could be seen as parallel books. But what changes this is up to . About the 19th thirties. Okay. And then in the early 1940s, we have the run up to World War Two. Okay. And in World War Two and war business all of a sudden is having a labor shortage. You begin to have more and more workers. And in the industry, you also have men who are going to fight in World War Two. And this means large Agricultural Industry in california are starting to say, wait a second, whos going to actually pick the crops . Right. Were not having as many workers as were used to. We dont have enough people at the time of the harvest. And so they want the Us Government as well as the Mexican Government to become involved and to help solve their labor programs problems. And they set up this program called the brasileira program. And one of the reasons why i want to spend time on this is because this is essentially the same program gray writes about in the reading for today, which she writes about jamaican guest workers. Right. So brazil era braceros are like means arms, bringing extra physical labor into the United States. But the United States still has guest workers and guest workers still work on american farms. So what is this Guest Worker Program . Why was it important for american agriculture . So as i said, there was sort of a sense theres a labor shortage during World War Two. And you should know it first. And this was the idea to be a program. So you had the u. S. Government and the Mexican Government would get together and they would say, we need this. Many workers in the United States. Well recruit them in mexico and well bring them into the United States. But they can only work for the set of their contract for six months, three months, a year, and then theyre going to go back to mexico. So its not meant to be an immigration program. Its meant to be a labor program. And you you know, at first the u. S. Government was very skeptical of this program. They said a couple of things. First, all the Labor Department the Labor Department was worried. They said, wait a sec, im going to bring in all these workers from mexico. Isnt that going to bring wages down . You know, if were actually bringing in all these workers to come in specifically to do low wage agricultural work, then theyre not competing with American Workers. This means that wages are going down. Second, we i am S Immigration and also worried about this program. Theyre worried that this is going to lead to more undocumented workers. Right. These mexicans are going to come into the United States. Are they really going to go back . Are they going to stay in the United States . So theres definitely skepticism on the point of view of the Us Government or branches of it about the brought zero program and initially its only supposed to be temporary. Its an emergency situation. This is World War Two. We need to get these crops picked. We dont have enough workers. But the program, as you can see, lasts for over 20 years. And it becomes central to american Agricultural Labor practices for the midcentury and essentially the Agricultural Industry has a strong lobby. Theyre able to convince the government that this is in fact, good for the economy, good for the country. And so the press there, a program gets put in place. The idea of the broad sara program and later future Guest Worker Programs is the following. First, you would apply for the job in your home country. So these are mexicans lining up for the jobs in mexico. You apply in mexico for this type of work. You you then go through a screening process in your home country. You come to the United States on a very specific counter draft. Youre told how much youre going to get paid. Youre told how long youre allowed to work for, and youre told who your employer is going to be. And this is really important. This makes it very different from other types of immigrant workers. For example, if we think about someone in a poultry factory and theyre an undocumented worker and they dont like their employer, they can quit. Right. And they can go look for another job. Now, they might not have a lot of options, but they can, in fact, quit and look for another job. Guest workers cannot quit and look for another job and remain legally on their contract. This means its very difficult for guest workers to organize or advocate because theyre not allowed to look for other jobs. If they complain or criticize or try to organize. They can be sent home. That can be a violation of their contract. Also, guest workers are not allowed to stay in the United States past their contract. So the idea is that they come in, they do the labor. They can send their money home and they are able to then go back to their home country at the end. And here we can see some of the brushstrokes. In fact, working in the fields. You should know theres a couple of different consequences to this. First of all, the wages are fairly low. They start around 0. 30 and they go up to about 0. 50. But theyre very hard to enforce these levels. And that the department of labor is concerned that this was going to depress farm workers, labor wages with accurate right for having all these people coming in, working at a set price. Theyre not going to be able to bring up the wages more broadly for American Workers and also the u. S. Government says were not going to discriminate against these individuals, are not going to have to face jim crow like experiences. But this is very hard to monitor. But mexicans take these jobs and large numbers. And why