GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1115 



Statement on Parity Price Sipports for Farm Products by Russ Nixon 

 ON Behalf of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers 

 OP America (Affiliated With the CIO) 



My name is Russ Nixon, Washington Representative of the United Electrical, 

 Radio and Machine \\ orkers of America, CIO. My purpose in appearing before 

 this committee is to express the deep concern of our members over what is hap- 

 pening to prices received by farmers, and to urge the restoration of Federal price 

 supports for farm products at 100 percent of parity. 



I'jrst of all, you ntay be interested to know whj' the UE, an organization repre- 

 senting nearly 600,000 of the electrical, radio, and machinery workers of our 

 Nation, comes before your committee to testify on farm product price supports. 



interdependence of farmers' and workers' welfare 



We are acutely aware of the close interconnection and interdependence between 

 the welfare of the farming population and the industrial worker*; of our Nation. 

 In spite of all efforts to set the farmers and industrial workers at odds, ^\e are 

 unshakably convinced that our interests are mtitiial. Nothing is more definitely 

 established bv the experience of our country than the fact that the incomes and 

 the welfare of farm people and industrial workers go hand in hand. lor example. 

 Senator Clinton Anderson, when he was Secretary of Agriculture, told the Hotise 

 Appropriations Committee in 1947 it was a chicken and egg proposition. He 

 said: 



"I don't know whether it is because the farmer has prosperity that there is 

 industrial prosperity, or whether it is because the indtistry has it that the farmer 

 has it. I don't think it is important. I think the important thing is that they 

 have to go together. I think the farmer is just as interested in seeing high wages 

 in the city as the man in the city, and 1 think that the people in the city are just 

 as much interested in seeing that the farmer has a high level of return for his 

 products. I don't think you can separate them. I don't believe either one is 

 safe without the other one." (Hearings on Department of Agriculture appro- 

 priation bill for 1948, p. 6'>.) 



In our large union this interest in farmers arises also because many of our 

 plants and large sections of otir membership are located in small to\Ans and rural 

 areas in intimale daily relationship v\-ith the farming people. .\ significant number 

 of otir membership either engages in farming themseiAes on a part-time basis, or 

 are members of farming families who come into the city or town to work in the 

 factory. 



Our workers are directiv concerned \\ith the welfare of farmers because, as we 

 pointed out to the House Appropriations Committee 2 years ago, people on 

 farms constitute one-fit h of the American people and provide an even more im- 

 portant market for such manufactures as radios, refrigeiators, vacuum cleaners, 

 and other prodticts of our indtistry. .According to the farm editor of Fortune 

 magazine, farmers do more than 45 percent of the retail buying of these products. 



Right now we are extremely concerned about that market for the things we 

 make. Falling prices for farm products mean lower income for farmers, and that 

 means a shrinking in the markets for electrical products. The ^^ all Street 

 Journal has pointed otit that, with ttimliling farm product prices, "'in one farm 

 community after another, local merchants report farmers are putting a brake on 

 their buying. And the loca.l retailers are passing the slow-down back up the line 

 to jobbers and manufacturers" (Febrtiary. 14, 1949"). Our members are feeling 

 the effect of curtailed consumer purchases in large-scale lay-offs. By March 1949, 

 over 100,000 workers who had worked in the electrical machinery industry during 

 1948 had been laid off because of lack of orders. 



I think it is clear that our industrial workers have a vital stake in the welfare 

 of the people on farms. But what about farm product prices? Don't workers 

 want cheaper food and lower living costs? 



Indeed thej^ do. But that does not mean we want to see a decline in farm 

 incomes. To say that citj' workers can enjoy lower living costs only if farmers 

 accept a cut in their prices, incomes and living standards, is to pose completely 

 false alternatives. 



