Wages board axe is good news for farmers
Published August 2010
Midland farmers are well pleased that the Agricultural Wages Board is being axed by the Government, according to Sally Morris, partner and head of employment law at MFG Solicitors.
And she denied that low paid farm labourers would suffer.
The Board was established in 1945 as an independent body with a statutory obligation to fix minimum wages for agricultural workers in England and Wales.
And it has continued to do so.
Now Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has announced that as part of the Government’s wider ‘quango bonfire’ the AWB is getting the chop along with the 15 Agricultural Wages Committees, the 16 Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committees and the Committee on Agricultural Valuation.
Now, the only protection for agricultural workers will be the National Minimum Wages Act.
Reaction has been mixed.
The National Farmers Union and the Horticultural Trades Association have welcomed the abolition but the trade union Unite is angry.
Ms Morris said many of MFG Solicitors' rural and agricultural clients were happy at the decision.
“The provisions of the Board are complicated and gave agricultural workers entitlements to benefits that were far in excess of comparable employees in other industries,” she cautioned.
And, she insists, concerns that employees will suffer as a result are unfounded.
“Good employers will continue to pay competitive rates in order to retain qualified and experienced workers.
“In the event someone unscrupulous seeks to pay less, those concerned will be protected by the National Minimum Wages Act in the same way that all other workers are.
“The detailed and lengthy provisions set out in the Agricultural Wages Orders were onerous and unnecessary in a climate where all other workers are protected by other appropriate legislation.”
