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)