"The big divergence between farm labor and other workers really opened up during the Great Depression and New Deal era. In the urban-industrial core of the nation, a powerful union movement successfully leveraged its political power to win real gains, including the right to bargain collectively through representatives of labor’s own choosing. The Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act also bestowed significant benefits upon American workers during the 1930s.
Farmworkers were excluded from most of these landmark laws. Because of their seniority, Southern Democrats controlled key aspects of the legislative process during the New Deal. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed these Southerners’ support on Capitol Hill in order to pass legislation, and they carved out exemptions for farm labor both to preserve traditional power structures in agriculture and to prevent black and ethnic Mexican workers from improving their bargaining position. This also preserved the racial apartheid systems of the Deep South and the Southwest.
Although the legal standing of farmworkers has improved since the New Deal, farmworkers remain among the most exploited and vulnerable workers in the United States. The roots of that historic inequity reach back to the New Deal from the standpoint of the law."
~ Andrew Hazleton
https://dailyyonder.com/qa-why-are-farmworkers-so-unprotected/2024/08/16/
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