Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 27 Jul 1961

Vol. 191 No. 12

Agricultural Workers (Holidays) (Amendment) Bill, 1961—Second Stage.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

As Deputies are aware the Minister for Industry and Commerce is sponsoring a Bill to provide for increased holidays for non-agricultural workers. An improvement in the holiday conditions of agricultural workers appears to be equally warranted. To enable this improvement to be effected an amendment to the Agricultural Workers (Holidays) Act, 1950, is necessary. This is the purpose of the Bill now before the House.

Under the Agricultural Workers (Holidays) Act, 1950, an agricultural worker is entitled to 6 holidays in each year of continuous employment or to one holiday for every two months of continuous employment. Where a worker is entitled to three or more holidays in any year he is entitled to take them on consecutive days. Sundays and such half-holidays, Church holidays and public holidays as are allowed to the worker by arrangement with his employer are not reckoned as holidays under that Act.

This Bill provides for an increase in the number of holidays to which an agricultural worker is entitled in each year of continuous employment from six holidays to 12 holidays or one holiday for each month of continuous employment, in place of one holiday for every two months of continuous employment. At present, a worker, who is continuously employed for the year, is entitled to take up to 6 holidays consecutively. Under this Bill he will be entitled to take 12 holidays in two separate periods of 6 days each. However, the worker and employer could, as before, make whatever arrangements they wished in regard to the way the holidays should be taken.

It is intended under the provisions of the Bill that holidays would accrue to a worker in the current year at the old rate of one day for every two months of continuous employment up to the date of commencement of the new Act and, thereafter, at the rate of one day per month of continuous employment.

Where it is the practice of an employer to grant his employee a free day or days on full wages to attend sporting or other events—such as race meetings and agricultural shows—held on a day other than a Sunday, Church holiday or public holiday, such special free day or days may be regarded by the employer as an offset against the workers' holidays subject, however, to such offset being limited to six holidays in each year. This provision ensures that the increased holidays would not bear unduly on those employers who had been generous enough in the way of granting free days with pay to their employees. At the same time, it would in effect mean that those workers who previously did not have the advantage of such privileged days and who had to rely on what the law provided, would in future be placed in a better position than they were in relation to their more fortunate fellow workers.

These, in broad outline, are the provisions of this Bill and the principles underlying them. I think the House will agree that this is a desirable measure which will improve the lot of the agricultural worker without being unfair to the interests of the employer.

Mr. Dillon

I should imagine this Bill in fact recognises what is the practice over most of the country, and as such is clearly unobjectionable. So far as I know, in most places agricultural workers enjoy twelve holidays in the year and if any workers in the country are entitled to that certainly they are. I do not know whether by statute it is wise to go into all the details such as: "Where it is the practice of an employer to grant an employee a free day or days on full wages to attend sporting or other events, such as race meetings and agricultural shows, held on a day other than a Sunday, Church holiday or public holiday". I think these arrangements are often best left to the farmer and the man who works for him. If we content ourselves with providing by statute that the farmer shall provide twelve holidays in the year where a man works for twelve months, that is as far as we need go. However, if the Minister thinks there is a very serious necessity for the qualification he has down here in this Bill, I have no objection to it. It is very generally accepted that a minimum of twelve days holidays in a year for agricultural workers is not extravagant and substantially reproduces the situation which operates generally in the country at present.

Mr. Norton

This is a very desirable Bill and marks an effort by the Legislature to keep agricultural workers, so far as holidays are concerned, somewhat in line with industrial workers. We have passed the Second Reading of a Bill to provide for a minimum of twelve days' holidays for industrial workers and this Bill is now doing the same thing on the agricultural front. It is desirable because if there is one thing that cannot be defended it is the very much lower standard of living which is allocated, if I might so describe it, to our agricultural workers as compared with our industrial workers. The main impetus for the emigration of agricultural workers is that their standards of wages and conditions generally are so low that they leave the land and move into the cities where they can get something approaching the conditions of industrial workers with the trade unions backing them to ensure they get these conditions, or they emigrate to Britain where they can get wages substantially higher by more than 50 per cent. than the wages paid to agricultural workers in this country.

Our minimum rate of wages for agricultural workers is appallingly low compared with living costs and while I do not want to develop that on a Bill of this kind I do want to say that unless there is an improvement not only on the holiday front but on the wages front as well and in regard to the decasualisation of employment, there will continue to be an exodus from the land on the part of the agricultural worker.

Agriculture is a first-class industry but many people engaging in activities less desirable nationally and socially than agricultural workers would describe them as agricultural labourers, as if they knew nothing and were just hewers of wood and drawers of water. There is no such thing as an agricultural labourer in any economic sense. There is the agricultural worker who has to deal with the land and the vagaries of the Irish climate, who can produce crops and who has a considerable reservoir of skill and knowledge at his disposal. Not only in the field of holidays but in the field of wages and conditions generally, it should be our aim to improve the conditions of the agricultural workers. If we cannot do that the cities of this country will claim them and, when the cities become overcrowded, they will look for employment with the higher wages and better holidays which are available within sixty miles of the shores of this country.

Mr. Desmond

Naturally we support this Bill and assure the Minister of our utmost co-operation in dealing with it. We wish to table some amendments to it which can be discussed at the appropriate time. This Bill uses the term "employer" and "employee". There are certain persons who under the terms of this Bill, and under the terms of previous Acts, may not be considered as persons whose main interest is in, or whose main earnings are derived from agriculture. That being so, in the past these people have been able to evade their responsibilities to the workers and enjoy advantages which should not be there. We would ask the Minister to consider this aspect of the matter because, while the majority of farmers will be committed to this measure, other people running businesses here in the city of Dublin or maybe getting dividends from large companies abroad can act in the capacity of gentlemen farmers and, because they may be able to show their main earnings do not come from agriculture, can evade the provisions of this Bill.

I take it, on reading the Bill, this point seems quite clear but I would ask the Minister to make certain that it is clear. The Bill mentions that the worker and employer could, as before, make whatever arrangements they wish in regard to the way the holiday should be taken. I am not questioning it except to clarify it. The Bill, right through Section 3, makes it quite clear as far as I can see, that of the twelve days, the worker must get six days consecutively; the others can be broken up, as far as I understand from the Bill. Such being the case, if a farmer and worker by agreement between them decide on having an odd day during different months of the year, that can be taken from the other six.

From my reading of the Bill it seems —and I am very much in favour of it —that the worker must get six consecutive days. All I am asking is that the Minister will have it clarified instead of saying that the worker and employer could, as before, make whatever arrangements they wish. Ultimately this point may be of great importance to all concerned. Beyond that I have nothing to say except that this Bill is getting our full co-operation while, of course, we are making it quite clear that we believe it is essential that there should be certain amendments to try to improve what we consider is a fairly good Bill. If we can make it better, all the better for the people concerned.

Mr. Smith

The position as the law stands is that the worker is entitled to get six holidays in respect of 12 months of continuous employment. This Bill which proposes to amend the existing legislation provides that workers should get on the same conditions, 12 days, and that they can take these 12 days in periods of six and six. If the employer and the employee agree as between themselves on any other basis of distribution there is nothing to prevent their doing so, but the worker has the right here to insist on getting his 12 holidays in the way that I have described. The point made by Deputy Dillon——

Mr. Dillon

Not interrupting the Minister, surely there is a provision that he must get six of the holidays on six consecutive days?

Mr. Smith

Yes, he must get the two periods of six days consecutively if he insists on having it that way.

Mr. Dillon

He can insist on getting one period of six days consecutively?

Mr. Smith

He can get two when this Bill becomes law.

Mr. Dillon

Yes.

Mr. Smith

The point made by Deputy Dillon appears to be concerned with the position of the employer who in the past gave six days as provided for by law and, in addition to that, may have been giving six or more days, that is excluding Sundays, half-holidays, Church holidays and public holidays. If we were to clamp down on an employer who was giving six days to his employee and paying him the usual wage, for the purpose, as I have stated in my opening remarks, of attending functions of one kind or another—maybe a show or race meeting or something of that kind—and say he would have to give twelve days, irrespective of what he was doing in that voluntary way, it would be a hardship I think.

We are not providing that he cannot do that in future but we are providing that if he decides to regard six of these days for the purpose of meeting the requirements of this Bill before the House he can do so. We are not obliging him to do that. For my part I should like to give the greatest possible degree of freedom consistent with having these rights provided by law.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 1st August, 1961.