CALLS from farmers and landowners to abolish the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board have been slammed by trade union Unite, which called on them to respect the 2015 parliamentary decision to keep the board.
In a joint statement released this week, NFU Scotland and Scottish Land and Estates said that the SAWB was no longer needed, because agricultural workers were already covered by laws on the national minimum wage.
This call came in response to the SAWB’s decision to delay its annual wage negotiations until later in the year in order to align it with the new timeframe for the national minimum wage and national living wage changes.
The SAWB normally meets in June each year to negotiate the minimum agricultural wage and other minimum terms of conditions to take effect from October 1. The change means that no new agricultural wages order will be published until April 1, 2017.
In their joint statement, SLaE senior policy officer Katy Dickson and NFUS chief executive Scott Walker said: “Our members welcome this common sense approach which avoids six monthly changes each and every year to the agricultural wage rates.
“However, we believe this situation once again is an indication that, while the SAWB used to serve a valuable purpose, it is now no longer required. It is an unnecessary extra layer of bureaucracy, which can lead to confusion for both employers and employees.
“SLaE and NFUS fully support employees being well paid and offered good working conditions. With the introduction of the new National Living Wage there is no longer a need for agriculture to be singled out as the only industry with a Board that sets minimum rates of pay.
“Discussions on rates of pay are best left to individual employers and the employees that work for them,” said the statement. 
“These talks can then properly take into account the differing conditions which operate in different farming enterprises and different businesses.”
However, trade union Unite re-affirmed its support for the SAWB, and noted that the Scottish Government had already looked at the issue and opted to keep the Board in place as a protection for agricultural workers.
Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said: “We are astonished at this statement from NFUS and SLaE. The future of the Board was examined thoroughly by the Scottish Parliament as recently as 2015  and MSPs and ministers agreed with us that it was vital to the protection of the interests of agricultural workers.
“The Board acts as a vehicle for us to continually push for better pay for low-paid agricultural workers. We can understand why employers might want to abolish it – because they could then easily get away with just paying the National Minimum Wage.
“But we don’t believe that’s good enough. Good employers realise the value of their workers and pay a fair rate for the job. That’s good for them, and it’s good for our members. We also have to remember that the Board is not just about pay – it is also about holiday entitlement and other conditions of employment. Without the Board, there would be no mechanism to work with employers to improve the conditions of their workers.
“The SAWB plays an important role and employers should work with it, instead of trying to undermine it.”