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Chicano-Indian American Cultural Center miscellaneous newsletters, 1977-1978
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Is boycotting lettuce such a good idea? (Editor's Note: The following article is by Douglas L. Pinney. "Equal Time" is an attempt by the viewpoint staff to see that all opinions are presented.) The effort to boycott lettuce has brought before the public the tragic life style of the migratory worker. Figures cited in the Daily Iowan pointed to the disgrace of 800,000 children under 16 years old at work, a life expectancy of only 49 years, an average income for a family of four of $2,700 and an infant mortality rate 120 percent higher than the national average. Hardship is experienced here as few who will read this paper have known. Action is called but not for the action of a boycott. Few people stop to think of the way in which a boycott works. First a boycott assumes that the industry operates on and is most sensitive to economic considerations. The boycott then sets out to affect those economic considerations by refusing to purchase the industry's product. If the boycott is successful in persuading a large enough group not to purchase the product, then the unfavorable economic result on the industry will cause it to alter its practices in order to regain the boycotting segment of its market. Here the boycott would force the lettuce industry to allow the formation of unions for its workers. So far the reasoning seems to hold up, but now consider what the industry will do. The boycott of its product, her lettuce, will appear to it as a reduction in demand[?] for its product. This reduction is a [?]nal realization because profits will be greatly reduced and the industry hurt. But since the industry is an economic animal, it will seek to minimize its own loss. How--by a reduction in costs, notably their labor costs or the present income of the [drawing of hourglass] equal time farm workers. The longer and the more effective the boycott the more it hurts the industry and the more the industry reduces its payments to farmworkers who with the reduced product demand are not needed. With an effective boycott we now have an industry which feels the effect of the boycott, but we have a segment of the migrant workers which feels the lack of income on a much more desperate level. A corporation does not need clothes or food for its children--a worker does. You cannot reduce a $2,700 income by much. When we take away, by means of a boycott, the need to harvest lettuce we take money out of the pocket of the worker as well as the industry. Big business in one sense is merely a big payroll. Some would contend that I have missed the point since the workers' current income is so small and unionization would benefit the workers from the time it was installed. Unfortunately people must view things from their own perspective and experience. Try and put yourself in the place of the farm worker. Unionization seems great, but with a boycott and the temporary reduction in the need of your labor you are not sure you can survive--you have no savings account or emergency loan office to fall back on, your children hardly have enough to eat as it is, and above all you have no skills with which to find another job. You can, when you lose your job, apply for unemployment funds provided you know they are available and know the procedure for getting them. The very hardships a boycott sets out to eliminate are heightened. What can be done? We cannot leave the migrant worker to suffer his plight nor can we boycott with a clean conscience. We need to look to the causes of this plight. The industry low wage level is not the result of industry oppression but the result of the low value of the work of a migrant worker. These workers are working at the best job they can get! Tragic as that sounds to us with out many job options it is fact. We need to raise the value of the work done by a migrant worker by: (1) Making his current work worth more, (2) Training him in work that is valued more by society and industry. The first way can be accomplished by consuming more lettuce. The more lettuce that needs to be harvested the more migrant workers are needed. Or we should train the migrant worker in a skill with which he would have more earning power. To hope that eventual unionization will bring relief is wrong not only because the boycott would hurt the worker, but because unionization has several defects. Unionization under the current conditions of the industry would result in more cost to the lettuce industry (this is why it doesn't want unionization in the first place): wage levels would be set, firing procedures standardized, fringe benefits added. These benefits are a tremendous improvement, but only for those who are in the union and who stay employed. What happens to the worker who is discriminated against and not let into the union, or the worker who loses his job because his company cannot afford to operate under the added costs of unionization, or the worker who at the new wage level is now more expensive than a machine which does his function? Unionization benefits those who get and keep jobs under the new situation. The most unskilled, the most unattractive, the most feeble, the workers with the most need are not in that new, smaller group. All these things need to be considered and given their due weight. I have seen no treatment of the problems of a lettuce boycott as presented here. I have only described what would take place in a general sense,but I would need to be convinced that the worker could survive the boycott while the industry could not and that unionization would benefit all and not some new smaller group of migrant workers. only then would I boycott lettuce. Until then I will continue to eat my four salads a day.
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Is boycotting lettuce such a good idea? (Editor's Note: The following article is by Douglas L. Pinney. "Equal Time" is an attempt by the viewpoint staff to see that all opinions are presented.) The effort to boycott lettuce has brought before the public the tragic life style of the migratory worker. Figures cited in the Daily Iowan pointed to the disgrace of 800,000 children under 16 years old at work, a life expectancy of only 49 years, an average income for a family of four of $2,700 and an infant mortality rate 120 percent higher than the national average. Hardship is experienced here as few who will read this paper have known. Action is called but not for the action of a boycott. Few people stop to think of the way in which a boycott works. First a boycott assumes that the industry operates on and is most sensitive to economic considerations. The boycott then sets out to affect those economic considerations by refusing to purchase the industry's product. If the boycott is successful in persuading a large enough group not to purchase the product, then the unfavorable economic result on the industry will cause it to alter its practices in order to regain the boycotting segment of its market. Here the boycott would force the lettuce industry to allow the formation of unions for its workers. So far the reasoning seems to hold up, but now consider what the industry will do. The boycott of its product, her lettuce, will appear to it as a reduction in demand[?] for its product. This reduction is a [?]nal realization because profits will be greatly reduced and the industry hurt. But since the industry is an economic animal, it will seek to minimize its own loss. How--by a reduction in costs, notably their labor costs or the present income of the [drawing of hourglass] equal time farm workers. The longer and the more effective the boycott the more it hurts the industry and the more the industry reduces its payments to farmworkers who with the reduced product demand are not needed. With an effective boycott we now have an industry which feels the effect of the boycott, but we have a segment of the migrant workers which feels the lack of income on a much more desperate level. A corporation does not need clothes or food for its children--a worker does. You cannot reduce a $2,700 income by much. When we take away, by means of a boycott, the need to harvest lettuce we take money out of the pocket of the worker as well as the industry. Big business in one sense is merely a big payroll. Some would contend that I have missed the point since the workers' current income is so small and unionization would benefit the workers from the time it was installed. Unfortunately people must view things from their own perspective and experience. Try and put yourself in the place of the farm worker. Unionization seems great, but with a boycott and the temporary reduction in the need of your labor you are not sure you can survive--you have no savings account or emergency loan office to fall back on, your children hardly have enough to eat as it is, and above all you have no skills with which to find another job. You can, when you lose your job, apply for unemployment funds provided you know they are available and know the procedure for getting them. The very hardships a boycott sets out to eliminate are heightened. What can be done? We cannot leave the migrant worker to suffer his plight nor can we boycott with a clean conscience. We need to look to the causes of this plight. The industry low wage level is not the result of industry oppression but the result of the low value of the work of a migrant worker. These workers are working at the best job they can get! Tragic as that sounds to us with out many job options it is fact. We need to raise the value of the work done by a migrant worker by: (1) Making his current work worth more, (2) Training him in work that is valued more by society and industry. The first way can be accomplished by consuming more lettuce. The more lettuce that needs to be harvested the more migrant workers are needed. Or we should train the migrant worker in a skill with which he would have more earning power. To hope that eventual unionization will bring relief is wrong not only because the boycott would hurt the worker, but because unionization has several defects. Unionization under the current conditions of the industry would result in more cost to the lettuce industry (this is why it doesn't want unionization in the first place): wage levels would be set, firing procedures standardized, fringe benefits added. These benefits are a tremendous improvement, but only for those who are in the union and who stay employed. What happens to the worker who is discriminated against and not let into the union, or the worker who loses his job because his company cannot afford to operate under the added costs of unionization, or the worker who at the new wage level is now more expensive than a machine which does his function? Unionization benefits those who get and keep jobs under the new situation. The most unskilled, the most unattractive, the most feeble, the workers with the most need are not in that new, smaller group. All these things need to be considered and given their due weight. I have seen no treatment of the problems of a lettuce boycott as presented here. I have only described what would take place in a general sense,but I would need to be convinced that the worker could survive the boycott while the industry could not and that unionization would benefit all and not some new smaller group of migrant workers. only then would I boycott lettuce. Until then I will continue to eat my four salads a day.
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