WPA REPLIES TO FARM CRITICS

Says Men Will Be Released From Rolls for Seasonal
Work but Not in Glut Numbers

By CORRINGTON GILL
Assistant Administrator, WPA

URING the past four months the

WPA has dropped about 750,000
people from its rolls, A large pro-
portion of this reduction has taken
place in agricultural areas in response
to the need for seasonal farm labor.

The WPA and local agencies co-
operate in planning progressive re-
ductions of the rolls to supply farm
labor. The mechanism in operation
for the release of relief clients for
seasonal labor is in effect this: The
needs of the growers in a given
area are reported in advance to the
regional WPA offices through the
various local employment services.
The WPA releases from the rolls a
sufficient number of workers to meet
the demand.

This mechanism must obviously be
kept flexible enough to accommodate
itself to the tensions and problems
of particular areas. It is clear that
the efficiency of the process depends
upon the efficiency of the local
agencies in coordinating and syn-
chronizing the demand with the need.

Shortage Held ‘‘Absurd”

With millions of people still un-
employed, a shortage of farm labor
is an absurdity, Nevertheless, com-
plaints of such shortage have re-
peatedly been made. Many of these
complaints have charged that WPA

has created the shortage. They

allege that relief clients have re-
fused to accept private seasonal
employment.

Beginning with the statement that
any able-bodied adult who refuses
a reasonable offer of. private em-
ployment is immediately dropped from
the relief rolls, I shall attempt to
clear the air of some of the fog on
this subject.

The cry of farm labor shortage
is no new thing. Every Summer it
is heard afresh. Conflicts over
agricultural wage rates and work-
ing conditions have punctuated the

history of our agricultural areas
from the beginning of the century.
The difference between the old

complaints and the present ones is
that the relief and works programs
now offer a convenient place to
lay the blame.

Investigations Made

During the last two years a series
of careful investigations of such
charges has been conducted by the
Social Research Division of the
WPA and the Federal, State and
local Emergency Relief Administra-
tions and employment _ services,
The results of these investigations
clarify the picture and reveal the
many problems involved.


have been too drastic a cut. In
only one-third of the closed house-
holds interviewed had a member
succeeded in getting a harvest-field
job. For those who had got some
work the average length of job was
put seventeen days and the average
earnings for the season were $33,75
a person, Spotty crop conditions
and numerous demands on _ the
"crop dollar" had made it finan-
cially impossible for many farmers
to hire workers. The cry of “labor
shortage" and "shirkers on relief"
had come from farmers who had
expected farm hands to work for $1
a day and keep themselves, and
who, unable to find workers under
those conditions, issued loud and
outraged protests.

Present Policy to Continue

The function of the works program
is to offer a means of support to
needy workers for whom there are no
private jobs, and to free them for
private employment as it becomes
available. In fulfillment of this
function the administration will
continue its policy of reducing WPA
employment to assure an ample labor
supply, at the same time avoiding
the creation of glutted labor markets.
Its present rigorous policy of imme-
diate dismissal from WPA employment
of any worker found to be unjustifiably
refusing a job will be continued, but
the local WPA authorities will also
continue to uphold workers in refusal to
accept jobs at sub-standard wages or
with unreasonable working condition.

Childrens bureau of U. 8. Department Labor
DUGOUT HOME OF BEET WORKERS FAMILY OF TEN PERSONS



In response to numerous com-
plaints of labor shortage in the
Wallace strawberry area near Wil-
mington, N. C., last year, the New
Hanover County Relief Administra-
tion investigated the field. Ona
day when the morning paper car-
ried an advertisement calling for
1,000 workers in the strawberry
fields, only two growers could be
found who needed help, and their
total demand was for eleven pickers.

In 1935 the FERA investigated a
reported labor shortage in the rasp-
berry fields of Hammonton, N. J.
Published accounts of the shortage
were so distorted that the number
of pickers reported as necessary
was greater than the total number
of seasonal workers in the area.
The actual period over which more
workers could have been used in the
berry fields lasted only for eight or
nine days of peak activity. All
able-bodied single men and about
ninety families containing expe-
rienced adult berry pickers had pre-
viously been removed from the re-
lief rolls.

In an effort to aid growers, the
Atlantic County Relief Administra-
tion had offered to recruit adult
pickers from outlying parts of the
county if transportation to the
fields were provided; the offer was

not accepted. Likewise, the Relief
Administration’s offer to provide
transportation was rejected. The

Relief Administration was unwill-
ing to recruit families, since that
would mean forcing child labor into
the berry fields. Investigation
could not discover a single relief
client who had refused a_ berry-
picking job,

The latest charges made against
WPA workers are typical. Recent
press reports stated that nine out
of every ten sugar-beet workers
were refusing work in the beet fields

of Colorado, the assumption being
that these people preferred working
on WPA projects to taking beet-
field employment. Investigation re-
veals a different story.

At least seven weeks before the
opening of the beet-work season
in Colorado, 1,200 workers consid-
ered likely to obtain seasonal em-
ployment were separated from the
WPA to provide an adequate sup-
ply of beet labor. Other dismissals
followed, and by May 15 about
3,000 beet-worker families had been
dropped. Workers usually employed
in the beet fields obviously could
not be refusing beet-field jobs in
order to remain on WPA for the
simple reason that they were no
longer on WPA jobs.

Other Complaints

Complaints that farmers could
not obtain farm labor because of
the WPA program came this Spring
from the "green vegetable" area of
Costilla County, Colorado. Yet not
a sirigle farmer could be discovered
who was unable to obtain all the
labor that he could use.

Reports that a farm labor short-
age existed in Minnesota because
of WPA and CCC employment prompted
an investigation this Spring by the
National Employment Service and the
United States Employment Service
in the State, This report shows that
no shortage existed and that the
lively demand for farm labor had
been met without difficulty.

In the cases cited it was evident
that the labor supply had been
understated and the need for labor
exaggerated. Obviously, the greater
the supply of labor is in excess of
real needs, the lower the wage that
it is able to get.

Given the present situation, a
false inflation of demand tends to
enlarge the supply of labor in two


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ways: (1) Unemployed workers con-
centrate in the area of the reported
demand, and (2) relief agencies re-
duce their rolls, since jobs are ap-
parently available. The large supply
gives the employer more bargaining
power than he would have if the
supply exactly fitted or fell below
his needs. Although not all growers
distort their needs, some unquestion-
ably do.

Inflated stories of demand for
farm labor do not constitute the
whole story. Poor housing, long
hours, child labor and low wages
for back-breaking labor are not es-
pecially enticing. The astounding
thing is not that an occasional
worker might prefer to stay on re-
lief but that, even in most instances
where working conditions are sub-
standard, relief clients are found to
be eager to take private jobs. As a
result of the stigma of laziness at-
tached to relief persons, they often
are forced to take employment
when it is available, regardless of
the job, the pay or the conditions.
Such a condition, created by a
falsely stimulated public opinion, is
grossly unfair.

Pickers’ Wages

In the Wallace strawberry area of
North Carolina, for example, wages
had been said to amount to $1.50 or
$2 a day, but investigation among
the pickers at work showed the aver-
age wage to be about 35 cents for an
eight or ten hour day. Living accom-
modations were so limited on some
farms that in one case twelve white
workers slept in a one-room shanty
near a pigpen.

In Hammonton many raspberry
pickers reported that they had pre-
viously experienced difficulty in
collecting their wages; insome cases
they had not been paid at all or had
received only county scrip.

Certainly, it is not the place of
the works program to force WPA
workers to take private employment
under unreasonable living conditions
or wages. It is the admin-
istration’s policy that employers
who are paying standard and going
rates of wages be fully protected
and that our organization not be
used as a means of forcing workers
to accept substandard wages from
anybody. As Administrator Hop-
kins put it in a recent radio broad-
cast: "Nobody is to have a Works
Progress Administration job who
has refused private employment at
a fair wage. You can be equally
sure that we are not going to kick
anybody out of these low-paid jobs

just so some bird can get a lot of
cheap labor."
“Labor Supply Ample”

Reports from the agricultural

States indicate that, with slight
variations incertain localities, the
supply of farm workers is being
kept ample to meet the demand
through planned reductions of WPA
rolls.

Increased need for farm workers
is expected to arise as harvesting
begins. By dropping workers who
refuse farm jobs at the going rate
of pay and cutting from the WPA
rolls a sufficient number of work-
ers of the type needed, an adequate
labor supply will be made available
without throwing onto local relief
workers for whom there is no farm
employment.

In the past, general relief clos-
ings made in response to demands
for farm labor have not resulted in
sufficient farm employment to war-
rant the general scope of the clos-
ings. Last Summer all relief was
cut off in the South Dakota area
so that labor would be available.
It appeared upon investigation to


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