Farm workers demand 15% pay rise
15 March 2000
Farm workers demand 15% pay rise
By FWi staff
FARM workers have demanded a pay rise of almost 15%, arguing that a minimum wage of £5 an hour is essential to avert a labour crisis in farming.
The Transport and General Workers Union will formalise their claim at next weeks annual Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) negotiations in London.
The union wants a minimum rate of £5 an hour for farm employees, reduction in the working week to 35 hours, and a contributory pension scheme.
Currently, farm workers earn a basic wage of £4.36 an hour for a 39-hour week. Few employees have any pension plans when they reach retirement.
Barry Leathwood, the unions national representative for rural workers, said that farmers could afford the three-point claim on pay, hours and pensions.
“Indeed, agriculture cannot afford not to meet this claim if it is to have a skilled workforce in the future,” he added.
Chronic low pay, long hours and rising pay levels in other industries meant workers are being attracted away from farming, said Mr Leathwood.
Although farm incomes have declined, an analysis by the union shows that labour intensive sectors, such as cereals and mushrooms, are still profitable.
Union representatives also argue that farm workers pay only kept pace with inflation while subsidy-fuelled farm incomes trebled during the mid-1990s.
Mr Leathwood said: “Farm workers must have a decent basic standard of living to keep them in farming.”
In its arguments for casual workers as well as full and part-timers, the union highlights what it claims is widespread abuse of the lower casual workers rate.
As many as 50,000 farm workers a year are not paid enough because their employers classify and pay them as casual workers, it argues.
Nearly 75% of workers paid as casuals were wrongly classified and only 25% of workers said to be casuals were genuinely employed by the hour or by the day.