PM warned speedy Agricultural Wages Board consultation process could be ‘unlawful’
Prime minister David Cameron has been told that the government
could be acting unlawfully in its unseemly haste to abolish the
Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) on which more than 150,000 workers
rely for a decent income.
Unite, the agricultural workers union, is calling on the prime
minister to extend the four week consultation period - due to close
next Monday (12 November) - until 21 January 2013, so that all
interested organisations can have a proper opportunity to make the
case for the AWB’s retention. At stake is some £140 million in
workers' wages which will, should the AWB be abolished, be retained
by the employers, which include some of the biggest farm and retail
outfits in the UK.
In a letter to the prime minister Unite general secretary Len
McCluskey said: “Our legal advisers are reviewing the extent to
which the government’s approach to this consultation has been
lawful.”
While the government’s support for the living wage is to be
welcomed, it cannot be that while Number 10 promotes action to
improve incomes, Defra is rushing through consultation on proposals
that will destroy rural wages.
Unite believes that the coalition is failing in its duty of care
to the historic agricultural workforce, which has created one of
the most efficient agricultural economies in the developed world
and that if the AWB is abolished, this will accelerate the slide
into rural poverty.
Len McCluskey added: “What is happening with the consultation on
the future of the AWB is anti-democratic; hundreds of thousands of
rural workers and stakeholder organisations are being locked out of
the consultation to the certain detriment of the people most
impacted by any abolition.
“There is concern within the National Farmers Union (NFU)*, as
well as Unite and other consultees, about the potential scale of
the internal consultation they need, set against the deadline
imposed by government.
“Concerns have been expressed to Unite by some civil society
groups that their views have not been sought and that the
consultees draw heavily from the large employers and retailers. For
instance, why are the views of the agricultural colleges not being
sought?”
Len McCluskey said that the new consultation principles included
the principle of ‘digital by default’, but for rural workers this
was a “wholly inadequate” process.
He said: “Internet services in rural areas are notoriously poor
due to historic government under-investment, and mobile reception
being notoriously unreliable.
“The imposition of ‘digital by default’ on this consultation, in
particular, is being seen as a deliberate attempt to evade the
views of those seeking to defend the AWB.”
Unite has pointed out that while the Westminster government
wanted to abolish the AWB in England and Wales, the devolved
governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland were keeping their
AWBs and there was a commitment by the Welsh government to retain
its AWB.
Unite is not against the modernisation of the AWB, but that
rural communities are economically fragile where low wages are the
norm - and to afford some protection against rural poverty was the
reason that the AWB, which has it origins in the World War One,
came into being in the first place.
SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS
YOU CAN HELP
Email Defra NOW ! (Before deadline of 12th Novemebr) and demand that the Government retain the Agricultural Wages Board to ensure a Living Wage in Agriculture
awbconsultation@defra.gsi.gov.uk
