Sickness Insurance and California Farm Workers

FARM WORKERS, a declining sector of the work force for fifty years or more, are excluded from the protection of most Federal and State labor protective legislation and are covered only in part by the basic social security system. Few have workmen’s compensation protection (except in about a dozen States, including California) 1 and fewer than 25,000 are protected by unemployment insurance.2 Besides their low wages and underemployment-reflecting the fact that there are more jobseekers than year-round jobs-farm workers and their families do not have the same access as nonfarm workers to local community health, welfare, and educational services. In addition, the housing available to seasonal harvest workers has been generally substandard. Only California-one of the four states with temporary disability insurance programs established by law-has extended the program to farm workers. The extension to services in agricultural employment (including wages paid to foreign nationals, since Jan. 1, 1965) is almost universal. In October 1961, California workers began to accrue rights to benefits (first payable in May 1962) under disability insurance on the basis of their earnings in agriculture. These benefits had already been paid to workers in commerce and