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The film you are about to see is one of 65 titles in the biography Siri's, which Koron TV Channel four has leased for broadcast use in the San Francisco area. We felt the historical and educational value of these films should not be left to those individuals

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or groups whose daily schedule did not permit them to witness the original broadcast. Andi. Therefore, we secured the additional non broadcast exhibition rights, which permits the station to make this presentation to you. As a public service, we hope you enjoy the film. Comments upon the public

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service activities of k r o N T. V are always appreciated. Yeah, thes air said to be the most productive fields in America, perhaps in the world. From them comes a rich bounty. One quarter of the entire nations food almost half of all the vegetables eaten

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in the United States. It takes 290,000 people to grow and harvest the crops on thousands more to see that they're packed, processed, warehoused, distributed and sold. This is California's $3.5 billion industry, the biggest industry in the nation's biggest steaks. From the fields comes the produce, which

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makes Americans the best Fed people in the world that is most Americans. But not all these people are not on a picnic. They have no house to live in, and this is their regular evening meal for them, and thousands like them. There's no abundant table tonight,

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nor in any future they can see. These are the families of California fieldworkers, the people whose labor helps feed the rest of us so well and barely keeps them eating. Assignment for the award winning weekly report to the West. Produced in the community Interest by the

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News and documentary department of K. R. O. N. T. V. Tonight. Ferment in the Fields, a documentary report on the men and women who harvest California crops, who they are, how they survive and their prospects as people of poverty In a land of plenty, our story

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begins in a moment. The summer dawn breaks early and warm on the rich valleys of California. The Salinas, the Napa and Sonoma, the Imperial, the Sacramento Santa Clara and the San Joaquin son has not yet burned away the cool air that's settled here by night. But

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before this day is over, it will be 106 108 110 degrees in the shade and there will be no shade in the harvest. Feels the water jug is cool and full in the dawn. By sundown, it will be empty and hot men and women to labor

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in these fields. The work is hard. Much of it requires that you labor all day, crouched or stooped over in the dust. The men who owned these fields claimed that most American workers won't do it or can't do it. Avellino Saldivar did eight hours of this

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work today when he returned to the $60 a month, three room house he rents in Stockton. He brought home $10.68 for his labor. At this rate, if he works seven days a week, he can take home $320 a month to support his wife, Dome, Attila and

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their seven Children. The Saldivar family is eligible for more than that upto $40 a month more by going on county welfare. What's more on welfare, the doctor, dentist and other medical bills would be paid. But Avellino Saldivar is a proud man. He would rather earn his

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own way when he can. He can't get work every day, though. When he finishes a job for one grower, it's inevitably a day or two before he locates another job. And from November to April, there's no work at all. During those months, he must turn to

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the welfare agencies and to the church. Last year, Avellino Saldivar earned less than $1300. He hopes this will be a better year for it. In the past, he says, he has been out of work and searching for a job when braceros were working in the Fields

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Brasileiros, or Mexican nationals who in the past have been allowed to enter this country for contract work during the peak harvest season. By law, they were to be hired only when there was no qualified domestic worker willing to take the job. Saldivar and others like him

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say this part of the law was grossly abused. The domestic workers were forced to compete with Mexican poverty. The growers claim domestic workers simply wouldn't take the job. Last year, the law that allowed growers to hire Mexican nationals expired as the bracero has left American field

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workers saw their departure is the end of a period of exploitation and the dawn of an era of new opportunity, better wages and improved working conditions. The growers saw the braceros departure is the beginning of a labor crisis, predicted that it could spell the ruin of

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California agriculture and said that they would have to bring in automation or grow crops that did not require stoop labor or would move their operations to Mexico. The departing Mexicans, they said, with the only labor force they could rely on for the hardest work in the

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harvest. When spring came to the valleys of California, it was the American laborer who was working the crops. They found the pay and working conditions had not changed much. The peak harvest season, the time when in years past the first braceros had arrived was still a

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few weeks off. But it was already apparent that a crisis of some sort was beginning to ferment in the fields. Associations of growers had been predicting for months that they would not be able to get all the workers they would need and had mounted a massive

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campaign to get their braceros back. Newsman politicians and labor experts all went into the fields to try to get the facts. Growers said their crops would soon be rotting if they weren't allowed to hire Mexican nationals. Labor said there would be plenty of workers if it

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was recruited and if wages and conditions were improved. On March 23rd, another man joined those searching for the fax the United States Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz. It would be up to him to determine if, when and how many Mexican brasileiros would be allowed to return

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to California Field. We are here to see to it that there is the fullest possible development of California agriculture. We are here to see to it that there is the fullest possible use of U. S workers in connection with the development of that maximum California agriculture.

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And we're here to see to it that there is the fullest possible improvement of the wages and working conditions under which this work is done. We take account of the fact that at the root have a good many of the difficulties we have is the fact

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that agricultural wages are for one reason or another, less than half of what manufacturing wages are in this country for the next four days, the secretary of labor was on a marathon tour of the farm areas of California, Sacramento, Stockton, Salinas, Mercer said. Fresno, Visalia, Farmersville,

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Oxnard, Ventura, Riverside, Indio, El Centro Words talked to field workers and farmers to labor organizers and bankers and representatives for growers associations. Each day, from dawn until midnight, he traveled by plane and helicopter by bus and car and on foot. He saw the living conditions in

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farm labor camps and said, It makes me ashamed that anything of this kind exists in this country. In a field where laborers were working at the harvest Works, asked a grower where the toilets for his workers were on. The grower answered What toilet? The Council of

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California growers commented responsible. California agriculture has been clobbered by the black sheep and reprimanded some of its own members. Those who, in the words of the Growers association, where the operators of filthy, disgraceful farm labor camps and growers who incredibly enough did not have toilet facilities

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in their fields. The secretary of labor asked many questions. But mostly he listened to growers who reiterated their pleas for the imported Mexican labor, which held the key to what they considered a desperate need and toe workers who maintain that importation of the Mexicans would undercut

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their hope for better pay and working conditions were not going to be able to go out and reach out. And yet the labor that's needed in the field today is that we're going to have to have something from the schools and to these people, are gonna

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have to go into being farm workers. But you're not going to be able to take the thousands of people who are unemployed today and put them out here regardless of what a way to pay that. You give them to do some of these jobs. I'm a

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ex farmworker. I'm not a farm worker. I'm ex farm working. I'll get to do anything. Why the last time I was on it cost me 50 cents a day to drive to work at the end of the Whitman. I dropped my paycheck after driving out there

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seven days a week. Mind you, at 50 cents a day, I got I put out of my pocket $3.50 drive to work. My paycheck was exactly $3.50 minus uh, 1% that I had to pay for disability insurance. So out of my pocket, I was paying seven

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cents for the privilege of being a farm worker in the state of California. And I've got starts here to prove. When Willard Wirtz left California, the growers organization said they had tried to bring him, in their words, the people and the facts, which could accurately and

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honestly enable him to better understand the many ramifications of our growing crisis. But, they added, the overall impression gained by the secretary and the public was not good. By early May, the first of the strawberry crop was beginning to mature, and strawberry growers were announcing what

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they had long predicted. A shortage of workers to pick the ripening Berries. By now, the secretary of labor had decided that he might allow a few braceros into the country if growers could show it was impossible to attract enough Americans to the harvest. By offering $1.40

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an hour. The press was full of reports of a vast farm labor shortage, and a massive recruitment program was begun in areas as far from the fields of San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. Some growers offered not only the dollar 40 for our minimum but 15

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cents a crate bonus. Even as workers were being signed up in the cities, a Southern California farmer plowed under an acre of strawberries in a widely publicized demonstration to the situation. But much of the Department of Employments effort netted unemployed city workers, many of them men

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who had never done farm work before, some of them incapable of hard physical labor. On the other hand, there were others recruiting farm labor on a more grassroots level, among them less. Grube, manager of the community Recruitment project in San Jose, jointly supported by the Department

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of Employment, the Mexican American Unity Council and a large Salinas strawberry grower. The kind of people that were sending out on these jobs are reliable people who need the work and want the work and are capable of performing the work. Some of them are are ex

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farm workers who have been discouraged for many reasons the low pay and poor conditions and the fact that our sorrows had many of the jobs in the past. Uh, they just tried to get into some other field, which was more stable, but according to the growers,

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there still were not enough good workers available. By mid May, Mike Calcagno and his fellow farmers were looking at fields of unpicked and in some cases, unweighted Berries. Calcagno and his two brothers farm in the San Joaquin Valley and here outside Salinas. This year they were

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offering pickers a dollar 40 an hour. But we're beginning to think perhaps they should go into other crops or move their operations to Mexico. Well, we might take the easy way out and try to go into crops that are subsidized by the government of which, now,

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at the present time, I think the government has pays probably around $2 million a day and in interests under warehouses and whatever. And we might join that group and take the easy way out. This farming with a lot of labor is just to toughen us farmers.

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We've got enough other things to contend with. Today we have approximately 140 total in the harvest force, and we could use at least 250 qualified people. We've recruited as much as we could possibly do, and we've fallen short. We've had a lot of people that are

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really not capable. Agriculture workers. We've had a few that are capable, but they the turnover has been tremendous. I've never witnessed anything like this in all the years I've been farming. They just haven't been capable of doing their job even with training, period. And they just

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don't seem like they have any desire to accumulate enough ambition. Toe. Give us a honest day's work. Well, my brothers both have gone down south into Mexico, and I'm sure right now it looks like that's about the only answer. Either go down to Mexico or or

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have them come up here. And right now it looks like we can't get him up here. So the next move may be going down there. Meanwhile, there were others who said experienced and qualified field hands were available, but we're not being hired. One is Frank Valenzuela,

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the former mayor of Hollister and a member of the City Council. As a labor contractor, Valenzuela had a 30 man crew of experienced men who had been out of work for several days. He says he had trying to get work for his men in the strawberry

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fields through the California Department of Employment in Salinas, but have been told that they knew of no openings. Meanwhile, Valenzuela had been reading the growers claims that they were short of men for the harvest. So one morning he loaded his crew on his bus and headed

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for Selena's. So we drove over to Salinas on board. We went to the Department of Employment at eight Oclock and I went into the office and I asked him again if they had any calls for a crew. They said no, that everything seemed to be in

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pretty good shape, that they would call me when they needed me. And I told him, Well, look, I have a little over 30 men out here in my bus. Now we've been reading in the papers. We've been listening on, hearing on the radio and watching on

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TV where these growers from Salinas are. It's it's bad shape because of the lack of local workers. No, if we're not needed, then we'll go home and way won't mind it, but we want the public to know that we're not needed. Frank Valenzuela claims this is

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only one example of continued trouble. He had finding work, he says he was finally forced to give up his labor contractors license, and today he works as a foreman for another contractor. If these Berries did go unpicked because of a shortage of labor, perhaps some answers

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might be found in the role of the field worker in California agricultural society. As one drives into the Valley towns of California, there's no question as to the source of their existence. The growing processing and selling of crops is the backbone of their economy, so it's

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the agricultural industry that wields the power. One such town is Gilroy, between Salinas and San Jose. It's Main Street reflects the general prosperity and well being shared by most Californians. Banking is solid. Retail business is brisk. 80% of the income here comes from agriculture and its

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allied industries. Residential streets are broad, tree shaded and lined with homes that speak of stability and a secure middle class. People who live here eat well, dress well, send their Children to school and are proud of their community. On the outskirts of Gilroy are the places

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the fieldworkers live. Most of the shacks are owned by growers. The people who live in them are considered lucky to live under a roof of any kind, even one with holes in it. The last year, some 150 families who came to Gilroy toe work in the

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harvest were turned away because there was no place for them to live, not even a place like this. Until this spring, Evan Littlejohn worked in the oil fields of Long Beach, but he had done farm labor before, and he says he was good at it. So

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when his job in the oil fields was over, he thought he'd spend the summer in the harvest. When he came to the San Joaquin Valley, he could find no place to live but this old County labor camp. So this is what he and his neighbors come

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home to. Corrugated iron walls and roof hot during the day, cold at night, water comes from a single spigot shared by several families. There is no heat, and there's no glass in the windows, only a screen. The rent is $22.50 a month. Sanitary facilities, dilapidated out

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houses built behind the shacks, again shared by several families. The little John family isn't used to living like this. So although he says he likes farm work, he's going back to the oil fields. Some recent arrivals air Not so lucky. This is the bank of a

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slew near the community of Lyndon outside Stockton. The time is late. May. When the day is over, the women get together to chat, as women do everywhere. But here, there's no back fence to gossip over. We used to work in the potatoes all time till they

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started using Baugher's. And then we had these four kids. And so we just decided then that we'd pick Cherries and apples and stuff like that way come to Lyndon last year and had to live out under a tree. So we come back this year the same

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thing. I e sure need houses for the people, but where they'll ever get in, you're not. Yesterday morning, we were all that yesterday pick Cherries and we started about 6 30. Then we picked or two in the two of us, made almost $9 and then see

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from two until nighttime, where we spend threat that part looking for place to spend the night we went to the worst. I believe it was the worst place in Stockton. And that man told us that he'd been booked up for six months tomorrow. Even we're gonna

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look again. And C, I've been tryingto event us the place even for two days. You know, make sure we had a place for two days, but they feel that you can't find place. Put your mattress little. We bought a symmetric. The owner of the Archerd way

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was gonna spend the night there, and we got all situation with our blankets in the in the front seat in the back. And they said, Well, you can stay here and was, well, three different ones that told us that already. So we come down here on

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this Riverbank Creek Bank, which everyone and I think it's just terrible. Pretty nice. I've been sleeping in the car without a bath of them going in the service station, and well, I imagine the service station don't appreciate that, but you've got to get clean. But maybe

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this is gonna cost me about $75 to get back to Houston. So when I was saved up my $75 but I might come again if they have a little bit better Situation on the housing problem, I think is just terrible where these poor people have come

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out here, you know, thinking they're gonna work and then you work all day and sleep on grand. Unless what they do is figure out some kind of way of people living here. I ain't gonna come back a little bit more because I just can't do it.

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I mean, wayto no way to live, especially with my kids. That's why you can't do it. Meanwhile, these people knew that the Mexican nationals had begun to arrive back in this country in answer to growers pleased that much of their crops would go unharvested. The secretary

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of labor gave his permission in the first, braceros were unloaded on May 18th. American workers who had been unable to find a place for their own families to sleep are bitterly aware that housing is provided for the braceros and Mauris Standing empty waiting, say the American

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workers for the day Growers could get more Mexican nationals for their fields. They got counts open now all over the country got Busses where they hauled in the work don't cost them nothing. Got places from the lay of nice places on. They even got places empty.

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Now they won't let us how waiting to see if they could get them, you know, Punished in place left, the braceros are guaranteed at least $1.40 an hour. Adequate housing. Three meals a day for a dollar, 75 free transportation, injury insurance and written labor contracts. They

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were brought up directly from Mexicali to California labor camps, given a few hours, rest and truck to the field. After 10 minutes of instruction on how to pick strawberries, the first bracero cruise went toe work. California growers see them as the only way to save the

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investment in their crops. Yet the Council of California Growers states responsible. California agriculture recognizes that the days of large scale importation of foreign workers are over. It further believes that agriculture is presently in a great period of transition. During this transitional period, it has felt some

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supplementary foreign workers will be needed at peak harvest period. However, the emphasis is on domestic labor and on the wages being paid, the housing available and other factors to help attract and build a more stable, more qualified domestic labor force the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee of

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the A F L C i O Fields. Growers have had 14 years to attract a domestic workforce and have failed. The director of the committee, Al Green, says if Americans will work in sewers, the agriculture industry confined, Americans toe work in fields. This industry, it seems

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to me, should be able to compete with other industries. A Sfar His labor is concerned. Now they say, the domestic workers won't do stoop labor. That's not true by American workers. Work in the sores for 20 years, and that's a filthy job. Why do they work

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there? Because they have security. Who? Social Security, unemployed insurance, welfare, pension plans. There's never a shortage of American workers, and in this industry that we are talking about today the farming industry there is a shortage of pay. The growers who owned these fields claim their problem

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is a desperate one, not enough hands to bring in the harvest. No one argues over the agricultural workers problem. The story of the deprivation of millions of farm laborers is an old and harsh one in America. The solution to these problems, Agriculture says it needs more

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time and more help. Labor says too much time has already passed higher wages and better conditions of the answer. Either way, bringing these Americans above the poverty level will cost someone money, and it seems certain that it will be the American consumer. It must also be

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said that the American taxpayer has long been making up in welfare costs, if not in conscience, what these people have been unable to earn each year in the fields. Whatever the future may hold for them, the majority of farm workers today find themselves with a life

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no one would wish on themselves or on their Children. People wonder why people like us don't get steady jobs, but you can't get them. There's just not, but what I mean, We don't have the education to do to too many steady jobs, and somebody has to

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do this kind of work anyhow. Has to be us or somebody else, and we just don't have education. And then, especially after you get to be about 35 or 40 while they hurry it, nothing. Hardly unless you do have a good college education experiencing all these

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things, so that lets us out. That's one thing. Our kids have got to try toe, get a better education we've got so they won't have to live like this. This is the condition of the farm laborer in 1965 in the richest state off the richest country

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in the world. Assignment four is produced in the community Interest by the News and Documentary department of K R O N. T. V. Be with us again next week for another report to the West on assignment for.