New Petitions

I will read a short statement. I hope that it is short—it sounded short to me earlier.I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to speak to the petition. My statement has been prepared to elaborate on and enrich our union's petition. The petition's sole aim is to gain from this fledgling Government its continued support for the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board. By continuing to support the long-established board, the Government would show its continued support for workers who are employed in the agricultural sector. It would also reinforce the United Kingdom's position and its commitment to the International Labour Organization's convention number 99.About 67,000 workers are directly employed in Scottish agriculture, and 25,000 of them are covered by the board. It is estimated that the employment of a further 250,000 workers depends on the sector. They range from workers in retail and food distribution to those in processing, packaging and the drinks industry. Those people work in an industry whose accident ratio is among the highest in the Scottish economy. Notwithstanding that, they have a proud past as honourable and hard-working individuals.Such honourable behaviour has not always been reciprocated. We have only to look back a couple of generations to see the reasons for providing such workers—the backbone of Scottish industry—with a common pay and conditions framework. Historically, the law of master and servant played a major part in squeezing every ounce of sweat from workers' brows. The threat of losing a tied house left many vulnerable.Members of the Scottish Parliament will appreciate that a return to such a scenario is not impossible. Even in these so-called enlightened times, rogue gangmasters continue to operate outside the law. Without the protection of the wages board and the wages inspectorate, even seemingly law-abiding companies would exploit indigenous and migrant workers in the sector.One recent case tells of an employer who forced mainly migrant workers to work 39 hours over four days under one contract of employment and a further 39 hours over three days under another contract. Using different employer names for each contract, that employer breached not only the agricultural wages order, but working time regulations. Those workers were not paid for the overtime that they clearly worked; they were only ever paid at the plain-time rate, which did not reach the minimum amount that the board sets or even the national minimum wage. They had to pay for compulsory transport to work. The company moved them to another site to avoid paying the rate for workers who have been employed for more than 26 weeks. They were also forced to continue working into the late evening, because when people are forced to take company transport home, they must wait for that transport. The board and its inspectorate ended that blatant exploitation but, without them, such an occurrence might—and likely would—happen again.Colleagues, I ask you to put yourselves in the shoes of those vulnerable people and to think of the protection that you would want for you and yours.Members might have heard of lobbying by the National Farmers Union Scotland to have the wages board abolished. It says that the rates that the board sets are irrelevant and that the majority of employers pay well in excess of them. If that is indeed the case, surely those reasonable minimum rates are realistic and achievable. The NFUS states that it carried out a survey of farmers that clearly showed that a majority felt that non-discriminatory wage rates set by the board would dissuade them from employing young people. It states that 91 per cent of the 441 respondents said that they would not employ 16 and 17-year-olds. Members will agree that we can make statistics say anything, but 441 responses from the 51,249 holdings in Scotland represents only 0.86 per cent of the holdings.Scottish agricultural workers are not comparable with other workers in Scottish industry. Although other sizeable groups can enter into collective bargaining agreements in the workplace or individual company, farm workers cannot meet the thresholds for statutory recognition rights in the vast majority of cases. For example, out of the 6,632 holdings in Scotland that employ full-time employees, only 176 employ seven workers or more; 3,753 employ one full-time employee; 1,608 employ two; 596 employ three; 288 employ four; and 211 employ five or six. Therefore, out of 6,632 holdings, 6,456 employ fewer than seven full-time staff.The Parliament might initially be of the view that the national minimum wage legislation and working time regulations replicate in part the provisions of the Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Act 1949. However, those important legislative measures do not encompass the minimum standards that are contained within the act. Members should recognise that the agricultural sector is heavily subsidised and, therefore, it is important that those statutory provisions remain to ensure that a fair proportion of those subsidies is directed to the dedicated workforce that tills our nation's soil.Unite recognises that the Government proposes to review the board's functions. However, we strongly suggest that, if any such review is deemed to be necessary, rather than consider the board's abolition, the review should seek to widen its scope to all agricultural workers and those in the fish farming sector.

The ILO convention 99 calls for a minimum rate in agriculture and adequate machinery for the creation and enforcement of such minimum standards. The United Kingdom entered into it in 1953 and, in 1978, Ireland became a signatory. Article 1.1 states:"Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention undertakes to create or maintain adequate machinery whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in agricultural undertakings and related occupations."

That is correct. It is my understanding that the consultation is forthcoming. We are waiting to be made aware of its content and format, and we will do our best to consult as many of our members as possible.

Yes.

I do not think that I mentioned construction workers. I talked about retail and distribution—

Those workers would have been mentioned in reference to the scope of the union's operations.The Scottish Agricultural Wages Board is the last of the wages boards—all the others have been replaced. We consider agricultural workers to be a special category, and the ILO convention that we mentioned recognises them to be so. Agricultural workers are also covered by article 2 of the European social charter that was signed by the Council of Europe, which calls for additional holidays and reduced hours for dangerous and unhealthy occupations. As we stated, agricultural labour is among the most dangerous work in the country.To answer your first question, it is difficult to reach a high proportion of our members, not only because of the circumstances that they are in in rural economies, but because a lot of people are afraid to put their head above the parapet when it comes to raising objections to what their employers seek to gain from any such review. However, we will endeavour to reach as many of them as possible regarding the consultation document.

There has been a lot of discussion and debate on the purpose of quangos and what they do with what is assumed to be the vast amount of money that they spend. However, the wages board is completely different. It is made up of independents. It involves employers and trade unions, and it costs approximately £130,000 a year, which is spent on conducting the pay negotiations, running the associated ad hoc committees that might take place as a consequence of those negotiations, and the administration of the inspectorate. That is not a vast sum of money to use in the service of protecting minimum standards for people who are the backbone of Scottish industry.

I like to think that the Scottish Government will make it more secure—not just for workers now, but for workers in the future—in order to prevent the creation of two-tier employment in agriculture. The UK Government has given a commitment to retain the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, and Ireland has recently gained support for its equivalent board. Wages in the countries that border Scotland could be subject to a degree of protection that will not exist in Scotland, which could lead to a race to the bottom in Scotland.

We are still largely in the dark. I have made tentative inquiries about when the consultation phase will commence, but I have not yet had anything concrete back. I understand that it is imminent.

Yes, convener. I am one of the longest-serving members of the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board—you can tell that by looking at me. I have been on the board for a number of years. We have been through many issues and tried to regulate and maintain minimum standards, some of which have been more easily achieved than others. Because of the industry's vastness and remoteness, we need regulation, which needs to be enforced.In the mid-1980s, when we started talking about the determination of pensions with the farmers, employers and owners, we faced all kinds of difficulties; eventually, we had to abandon the idea. Pensions were being introduced in every industry, but we had to abandon the idea because, as far as the employers were concerned, if it was not dictated by the wages board, it was not going to happen. They did not even want to discuss the matter. When we look at the industry and the remoteness of some parts of it, I cannot understand that, but I think that it is one of the quirks of the United Kingdom and not just Scotland.The employers seem to understand the necessity of regulating the welfare of the animals that people look after, but they do not understand the necessity of regulating the welfare of the employees who do that work. There is something vastly wrong with that.As my colleague Scott Foley said, minimum wages and holidays do not lend themselves to agricultural workers who are finely attuned to the jobs that they do. They are part veterinarian, part mechanic, part driver—they are part everything. They are multifaceted and multiskilled and we do not want to lose them to other industries, but that is what will happen if we do not have some form of regulation to protect them.