Migrant Mother, 1936; credit: Library of Congress

Senator Mondale was appointed to the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare in 1968, filling Senator Robert Kennedy's (D-NY) seat after his assassination. He was named Chair of the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor in 1969 and continued the work Kennedy had started in trying to improve the living and working conditions of migrant workers. As a teenager, Mondale worked alongside migrant workers in a canning factory and on farms and saw first-hand the horrible conditions and pay the workers were forced to endure. He even went so far as to try to organize the workers to ask for better pay, and quickly learned how powerless they were when they were, as he described, "packed up and shipped South, like so much bad merchandise."

Powerlessness became the topic of several months of hearings over which Senator Mondale presided as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. After meeting with César Chávez and visiting migrant labor camps, Senator Mondale said in an interview, "I have tried to find out for myself how migrants live, and I want to help them—really help them, not urge band-aids for the deep wounds they have."

He organized the hearings in seven parts, each part focusing on a specific aspect of the life of migrant and seasonal farm workers. Instead of only hearing from experts and outsiders who had visited migrant labor camps, he insisted that the workers themselves have a voice and testify in the hearings. Many of them testified about the unsanitary conditions in which they were forced to live and the powerlessness they experienced in trying to affect any positive change. They described the sporadic education their children received and they talked about how they often ended up being in debt to the crew leaders after weeks of work due to being underpaid and overcharged for transportation. Rudolfo Juarez, a migrant worker from Florida stated, "Gentlemen, bad working conditions and low wages for generations have maintained a slave labor system which ensures that the migrant farm worker's children will have to live the same way he did and will continue to be slaves to agriculture and business."After hearing reports from doctors who had investigated the health and living conditions of migrant workers, Mondale returned to the Senate floor to say, "I wish that all of my colleagues could have been in the hearing room as these doctors testified, for it is impossible to recount to you the hushed silence as they enumerated their findings. It is impossible to capture today their rage at having to recount their own experiences. There were few men and women that could sit through the testimony with dry eyes, insensitive to the realities of how we are daily destroying human beings."

Due to the political climate after the election of President Nixon, Mondale did not attempt to introduce new legislation to help migrant workers, but rather tried to work to strengthen existing laws. His attempts to extend unemployment compensation and Social Security coverage to migrants and to obtain increased funding for migrant health, education and legal service programs were defeated in Congress. He did succeed, however, in extending occupational hazards to farm workers.

Farm Worker Housing; credit: United Farm Workers

"I have tried to find out for myself how migrants live, and I want to help them—really help them, not urge band-aids for the deep wounds they have. It's easy to disguise the problem and talk about increased benefits for them. Sure they need medical care and schools that even half take notice of their children; but the real problem is that migrants (and maybe a lot of other people, too) are powerless, which means they have no real say in what happens to them. They don't get the protection of a whole group of laws we enacted in the thirties to protect the working man, to guarantee him collective bargaining rights and a minimum wage and unemployment compensation and all the rest." 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 118 (January 24, 1972) at 872.

César Chávez and the UFW, 1965; credit: United Farm Workers

"I condemn this resort to violence. It would be unconscionable if farm workers are denied their right to choose a union of their own because of resort to physical brutality, and varied forms of threats and reprisals. The intimidation, harassment, and interference with legitimate organizing efforts in the Salinas Valley cannot be justified nor tolerated, and is a total anathema . . . to the principles of nonviolence to which Cesar Chavez and UFWOC are dedicated." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (September 24, 1970) at 33563.

Mexican American migrant farm workers harvesting asparagus
near Owatonna, ca. 1955; credit: Minnesota Historical Society

"I wish that all of my colleagues could have been in the hearing room as these doctors testified, for it is impossible to recount to you the hushed silence as they enumerated their findings. It is impossible to capture today their rage at having to recount their own experiences. There were few men and women that could sit through the testimony with dry eyes, insensitive to the realities of how we are daily destroying human beings." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (October 1, 1970) at 34546.

Migrant Workers

Speeches & Publications Submitted



Migrant Workers


• Senator Mondale expresses concern over the situation where "growers were not offering farm workers an opportunity to choose through democratic election procedures a genuine representative of farm worker interests, but instead they insisted on a company union that growers themselves organized and financed." 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (May 20, 1969): 13041-13045.

• Senator Mondale introduces S. 2568, a bill that would "make it an unfair labor practice for an employer to employ any alien unlawfully present in the United States;" he argues that hiring illegal aliens depresses the living and economic conditions along the U.S.-Mexican border. The bill is referred to the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (July 8, 1969): 18573-18574.

• Senator Mondale submits Amendment No. 160 to S. 1809 (introduced in April by Senator Nelson, D-WI), increasing the appropriation authorization for programs for migrant and seasonal farm workers to $54 million for each of the next three years, a 60% increase over the levels proposed in S. 1809. The bill is referred to the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (September 12, 1969): 25249.

• Senator Mondale submits Amendment No. 402 to S. 2660, adding language to the bill that would ensure that migrant workers have input in the development and implementation of the programs. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (December 8, 1969): 37569.

• Senator Mondale submits Amendment No. 676 to S. 3867, the Employment and Training Opportunities Act of 1970; in submitting his amendment, Mondale states, "For a variety of reasons including their economic and political powerlessness, farm workers have been excluded . . . from major social and worker benefit programs, and my amendment should lead the way toward correcting this injustice." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (June 3, 1970): 18025-18027.

• Senator Mondale introduces S. 4067, a bill that would provide increased housing for migrant and seasonal farm workers. The bill is referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (July 8, 1970): 23202-23203.

• Senator Mondale opposes the conference report on H.R. 14705, the Employment Security Amendments of 1970 (reported in March from the Committee on Finance), because coverage of unemployment compensation to farm workers was abandoned in conference; he states, "[by] adopting this report we will be repeating what is virtually an ancient and tragic mistake of completely forgetting about the migrant and seasonal farm workers in America for they have been excluded from coverage." The conference report is agreed to. The bill later becomes Public Law 91-651. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (August 4, 1970): 27305-27323. (Mondale at 27310)

• Senator Mondale voices his support for S. 3867: "The bill will assure an opportunity for migrant and seasonal farm workers to obtain their fair share of our Nation's efforts to permit and encourage the maximum development of our human resources." The bill passes both houses and is then vetoed by President Nixon. Only the Senate sustains the Presidential veto. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (September 17, 1970): 32440-32487. (Mondale at 32456)

• Senator Mondale expresses his outrage at the violence against striking farm workers in the Salinas Valley of California; he argues that the farm workers have a right to select the union of their choice. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (September 24, 1970): 33563-33564.

• Senator Mondale submits statements made before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor from several doctors who had investigated the general health and living conditions of migrant and seasonal farm workers: "I wish that all my colleagues could have been in the hearing room as these doctors testified, for it is impossible to recount the hushed silence as they enumerated their findings. . . . There were few men and women who could sit through the testimony with dry eyes, insensitive to the realities of how we are daily destroying human beings." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (October 1, 1970): 34546-34552.

• Senator Mondale proposes Amendment No. 1146 to H.R. 17550, the Social Security Amendments of 1970 (introduced in May by Representatives Mills, D-AK, and Byrnes, R-WI); the amendment provides Social Security coverage for farm workers by eliminating restrictive wage and work period qualifications and by eliminating the law that made the crew leader an employer. The bill passes the Senate which then insists on its amendments and asks for a conference. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (December 17, 1970): 42163-42164.


Speeches & Publications Submitted


• Senator Mondale submits an article from The New Yorker detailing "the shocking realities of pesticide poisoning" and its effects on farm workers. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 116 (February 9, 1970): 2853-2856.

• Senator Mondale submits Senator Cranston's keynote address at the Mid-Continent Migrant Health Conference; he agrees with Senator Cranston that health care for migrant workers needs immediate attention and that health care should made available "as a matter of right to every American citizen." 90th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 115 (April 22, 1969): 9889-9891.

• Senator Mondale submits a Miami Herald article on the migrant legal services program; he expresses concern over the Florida Bar Association's attempt to be given the funds presently granted to the South Florida Migrant Legal Services; he states "We must not turn programs intended for the poor into a mere facade in order to obtain the support of a local power structure." 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (April 25, 1969):10358-10359.

• Senator Mondale submits his letter to the editor of The Washington Star in which he defends C'sar Ch'vez and the boycott on grapes. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (May 5, 1969): 11322.

• Senator Mondale submits an article from The New York Times which provides "a vivid description of the reality of a new militancy to which Mexican-Americans are being forced to turn." 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (May 5, 1969): 11328-11331.

• Senator Mondale submits a five-part series of articles from The St. Paul Pioneer Press that address the living and working conditions of migrant workers in Minnesota. 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (August 12, 1969): 23540-23544.

• Senator Mondale submits a series of eight articles from The Palm Beach Post-Times that are some of "the most vivid descriptions of the realities of the migrant and seasonal farm worker problem that I have read." 91st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 115 (November 4, 1969): 32820-32828.

• Senator Mondale submits a Washington Post article on Rudy Juarez, a witness before Senator Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor: "We must be aware that every day that we perpetuate the second class citizenship of farm workers, the greater the strain we place on the commitment to nonviolence to which the members of OMICA [Organized Migrants in Community Action] have dedicated themselves." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (May 12, 1970): 15103-15105.

• Senator Mondale submits an editorial from The Washington Post urging immediate House and Senate action on the Conference Report on H.R. 14705 despite the fact that farm workers are not included in the unemployment coverage; Senator Mondale uses the editorial as "yet another example of how the farm worker is expendable in the minds of some." 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (July 23, 1970): 25540-25541.

• Senator Mondale submits a letter from a teacher describing the living conditions of migrant children in Colorado's Poudre Valley. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (August 21, 1970): 29706-29707.

• Senator Harris (D-OK) praises Mondale's work as a senator and submits an article about Mondale from The New Republic. 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 118 (January 24, 1972): 871-873. (From The New Republic)

• Economic Opportunity Amendments of 1969: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, 91st Cong. (1969)

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pt. 1: Who Are the Migrants?, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pt. 2: The Migrant Subculture, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 3A and 3B: Efforts to Organize, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Agricultural Labor Legislation: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Labor, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 4A and 4B: Farm Worker Legal Problems, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 5A and 5B: Border Commuter Labor Problem, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 6A, 6B, and 6C: Pestices and the Farm Worker, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Problems of Migrant Workers: Hearing Before the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Migrant Health Services: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Health, 91st Cong. (1969).

• Manpower Development and Training Legislation, 1970, pt. 1: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, 91st Cong. (1969, 1970).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 7A and 7B: Manpower and Economic Problems, 91st Cong. (1970).

• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, pts. 8A, 8B, and 8C: Who is Responsible?, 91st Cong. (1970).

• National Nutrition Policy Study-1974: Nutrition and Special Groups: Hearings Before the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, pt. 3, 93rd Cong. (1974).

Committee Prints

• Staff of the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, 92nd Cong., Federal and State Statutes Relating to Farmworkers: A Compilation (Comm. Print 1972).

Committee Reports

• Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Employment and Training Opportunities Act of 1970, S. Rep. No. 91-1136 (1970).

• Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Domestic and Seasonal Farm Worker Health Act of 1972, S. Rep. No. 92-1063 (1972).
• Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act Amendments of 1974, S. Rep. No. 93-1295 (1974).

Congressional Research Service Reports

• Linda Breedon and Marsha Rotunda, Cong. Research Serv., Federal and State Statutes Relating to Farmworkers: A Compilation (1972).

1. Robert Coles, "Champion of Powerless People - Mondale of Minnesota," The New Republic, December 25, 1971.
   
2. Ibid.
   
3. Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Powerlessness: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, 91st Cong. 92 (1969)(statement of Rudolfo Juarez, migrant farm laborer).
   
4. 91st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 116 (October 1, 1970) at 34546.
   
5. Finlay Lewis, Mondale: Portrait of an American Politician, (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1980), 190-194.