FERRARA'S REPLY

Space does not permit me to reply to all these letters completely but three points can be made. First, supervised elections have never been held for farmworkers. On Feb. 24, 1974, the California Conciliation Service stated it had never held elections and the UFW had rejected its offers to do so. While the Teamsters and growers have always demanded elections, Chavez has consistently prevented them. Chavez testified against a California legistlature bill in 1971 that guaranteed secret ballot elections, saying elections were too sophisticated for farmworkers. Dolores Huerta, UFW vice president, testified, "Farmworkers don't understand democracy, they don't know what an election is."

Secondly, I would like to reply to Mr. Torres. In my article I attempted to show that Chavez and his supporters have deliberately misrepresented the facts to gain public support. As former National Legislative director for the UFW, you are one of the people I am talking about. You have continually quoted only the base rate pay, leaving out the piece rates, for your hourly wage statistics as you have done in this letter. Even these are incorrect. The UFW has also quoted your health statistics for years, but no one has been able to find where you got them and the USDA isn't claiming them. On the farm income figures in the letter from Mr. Carlip this $10.90 figure includes only base rates. You can really only get an accurate picture of farmworkers' wages with piece rates if you inspect the payroll records on file at the IRS and the Federal Wage and Hour Commission, as the studies I quoted have done.