من تاريخ تنظيمات العمل في القطاع الزراعي في الولايات المتحدة

يعتبر التقرير الضخم الذي أعده مكتب احصائيات العمل في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية في عام 1945، تقريراً مهماً للباحثين والمهتمين بتاريخ وحاضر الحركة النقابية العمالية في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، وخاصة في القطاع الزراعي، والذي يعتبر وبكل المقاييس من اضخم القطاعات الزراعية الناجحة في العالم. وما زال.

لدينا، في موقع الإقتصادي السوداني، برنامج كامل للعرض فيه لنشاطات مختلفة أخرى في القطاع الزراعي في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية. وذلك لأهمية التجربة الزراعية الأمريكية والتي تصنف بالتجربة الناجحة الأولى عالمياً بشكل عام، إذا كان ذلك على مستوى الموارد الضخمة المستثمرة فيها أو على مستوى الإهتمام غير المسبوق الذي توليه الإدارات الأمريكية المختلفة بالقطاع الزراعي بشكلٍ أساس.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////.

ما يلي هو مقتطف مختصر من أحد ابواب التقرير/

Agricultural Worker and Labor Unionism

The Family Farm and the Farm Hand

“ Q. * * * Do many agricultural laborers belong to organizations in which they undertake to regulate the hours of labor ?”

“ A. No, sir. Of course, farmers usually work for themselves; they go to the field, take hold and labor; they are on very good terms with their help. Very many of these laborers are members of the farmers’ organizations.” 1

The above picture of labor relationships on the land is traditional. In popular social theory, farm workers have occupied a special position that differentiated them sharply from other occupational groups. With few exceptions, labor problems and “ class conflict” have not been perceived to be part of the rural scene.

This conception derives from the nature of farming itself. Traditionally a “ way of life” as well as an economic undertaking, the farm in theory has been operated upon principles quite different from those governing other industrial and commercial enterprises. The conviction has long been prevalent that the farm owner-operator, together with his family, is or should be the one who performs most of the labor involved. The traditional “ American dream” envisaged a pattern of land settlement in which the “ family farm” would be the basic unit of the Nation’s agriculture. In Congressional debate at the time the Homestead Act was being passed, a Representative from Indiana declared:

Instead of baronial possessions, let us facilitate the increase of independent homesteads. Let us keep the plow in the hands of the owner. Every new home that is established, an independent possessor of which cultivates his own freehold, is establishing a new republic within the old, and adding a new and strong pillar to the edifice of the state.2

The use of hired laborers evolved as a common adjunct where family farms became less diversified, with the growing of crops for sale in urban markets as well as for use by the operator’s family. “ By the outbreak of the American Revolution,” according to Dr. Paul S. Taylor, “ the institu[1]tion of the farm wage worker who lived with the family and was paid by the month had appeared, and by 1800 had become general.” The number grew as farms themselves multiplied in the process of western expansion

للإطلاع على كامل التقرير تابع الرابط أدناه/

labor Unionism in American Agriculture