FERRARA'S REPLY

In reply to Mr. Carlip's letter, the California Department of Agriculture reports that the average lettuce worker in 1972 earned from $5.70 to $7.41 an hour. The Washington Post reported on August 14, 1972 that "lettuce workers make as much as $12,000 a year rarely less than $5000 or $6000." Richard McGinnity, research assistant to Professor Ray A. Goldburg, Harvard Business School, confirmed as reliable a figure given in a recent study done by him of $8500 in annual earnings for Coachella valley grape workers. Payroll records also show that full-time Gallo winery farmworkers earned $7785 last year.

These studies and the ones given in my article are the original sources, not yours; most are made from the actual payroll records. Secondly, my studies are specifically for the grape and lettuce workers in California, your studies are national averages of all farmworkers. About your $10.90 figure, the study does not make it clear whether it does include piece rates. But in the particular chart to which you refer, the greatest number of farmworkers, 38 per cent, are in the last column marked simply "over 13.00" which would not contradict my figures, especially since $10.90 is the median and not the average. These 38 per cent would be in the west where payment is made mostly in cash and farm earnings are much higher than the rest of the country. But in many other places payment includes housing, room and board and the study states explicitly that these are not included. Only an empty NAM mind would believe that when the study says 11 per cent [not 25 per cent] earn less than $5 per day, it means they get just 60 cents an hour.

Also, your definition of full-time. What you are admitting is that farmworkers who work more than 5 months will earn over $4000. And this figure does not include housing, room, and board but does include the rural areas of the south and elsewhere, which I referred to in my article, where poverty among farmworkers does exist. Now compare this to the figure of $1400 for a whole year's work given by the UFW. My contention was that the UFW was distorting the facts to gain public support. You seem to have proven my point, especially since grape and lettuce workers earn much more than your national median figures. And it's not just income that they have distorted, but migrancy, farmer's incomes, UFW support among farmworkers, UFW's record on violence, Teamster contracts, the nature of the UFW hiring hall, Chavez's record on secret ballot elections and a number of other issues.

Moreover, the glee with which you report your belief that all farmworkers suffer from extreme poverty leads me to question your motives. It seems you sincerely hope that it is true and you would rather have it that way so you could have something to crusade over.

To Mr. Cornett, the labor contractor system to which you refer was in declining use among the grape and lettuce workers until Chavez brought it back in the form of the hiring hall which is really the same thing, except in monopolized form. For example, Gallo company has never used labor contractors.