This Bill is a proposal that agricultural workers be given an extra week's holidays the same as given to every other type of worker in the country. I only hope the interest displayed in it is not typical of the interest taken by Deputies in agriculture and the way agricultural workers are treated. As far as I remember, one Deputy from Fine Gael and the Minister for the Government were the only Members outside the Labour Party who took any part in the debate. It would appear as if the agricultural worker is still considered the Cinderella of our workers. It is just too bad that it should be so. If that is the way the House intends to treat them, I suppose they can hope for very little from this Dáil.
Replying to my Second Stage introductory speech, the Minister agreed that the wages of agricultural workers were not princely but said that the agricultural community could not afford to pay decent wages. That was a shocking admission from a Minister for Agriculture. If he really believes that statement to be correct, the Minister should take immediate steps to subsidise the wages of agricultural workers directly from the State. There does not seem to be any other answer to it. I am not prepared to agree that all farmers are unable to pay decent wages. As a matter of fact, I am glad to be able to say that a number of them do pay quite decent wages and give decent conditions and holidays. I suppose I may include the Minister himself amongst them. If some people pay decent wages, that is no reason why others who can afford to do so should get away with paying as little as they can and giving whatever conditions they can get away with.
The Minister said many employers give Church and bank holidays. Of course, they do; but many who could afford to do so do not. There is no reason in the world—and certainly the Minister gave no reason—why agricultural workers should not be entitled to a minimum of 18 days holidays in the year, the same as workers in any other industry. I do not know if the arrangement in regard to paid holidays is generally known. There are only two, St. Patrick's Day and Christmas Day and 12 annual holidays. But if it was the custom in an area to give Church holidays before the Holidays Act came into operation in 1961, then everybody in that area still has to pay for Church holidays and allow workers off with pay. However, under a peculiar arrangment, in a week in which such a holiday occurs, the ordinary half-holiday is cancelled. It does not have to fall on the same day as the Church holiday. If it is on a Saturday, it does not mean the Church holiday must fall on a Saturday. This practice is carried on and in fact cancels out a certain number of the holidays they get. That is undesirable. It does not apply anywhere else. The Minister should see to it that the necessary regulations are made to have that situation remedied.
The Minister said there was a close relationship between the farmers and the farm workers and he did not want to break it up. I thought that old story was killed a long time ago. It was killed as long ago as it was found necessary to introduce a minimum wages order. If that close relationship had been there, it would never have been necessary to bring in a minimum wages order for farm workers. But they were so badly paid and the farmers, who were supposed to be so close to them, thought so little of them that it was necessary to bring in a wages order guaranteeing them 24/- a week at that time. It has improved substantially since but that does not alter the fact that, if the minimum wages order was not there, quite a number of farmers would still be paying as close to that 24/- as they could.
The Minister must be aware that he has inspectors whose sole job it is to check on farmers who do not pay the legal minimum. I am quite sure they do not catch them all. There are still people who believe they should be able to get away with scandalous wages. In view of that, I do not see how the Minister can talk about a close relationship between farmers and farm workers. The people farmers employ are doing a good job. The farmer does not keep them because he likes their curly hair or blue eyes but because they are doing the job better than anybody else. He pays them the legal minimum and, as I say, some of them pay more. But there is no reason why the State should not insist that those people who work on farms, work longer hours than any other type of worker, should be forced to work in worse conditions than operate in any other type of employment. Why they should have to do with a minimum of 12 days, plus two days, making a possible 14 days—if we take away the two halfdays, it makes 13 days—while everyone else is guaranteed a minimum 18 days, and more in some cases, I cannot understand.
The Minister said that, if he thought that new legislation on holidays was necessary, he would introduce it. I think the evidence is quite strong enough to convince even the Minister that new legislation is necessary. In fact, that legislation has been introduced for him and all he has to say is that he accepts it on behalf of the Government. The Minister's attitude sums up the Government's attitude towards this matter.
The Minister referred to the fact that special conditions of employment, such as operate in other spheres, are not possible in relation to farms. I am not quite clear what he means by that. The Minister is, I know, Minister for Agriculture but I do not think his experience of practical farming could have led him to believe it is not possible to lay down certain conditions. Anybody who works for hire requires minimum conditions. These conditions include hours of work, rates of wages, overtime rates and holidays with pay. I see nothing at all wrong with laying down conditions which stipulate these things and, as the law stands at present, it does all except one of these. I refer to holidays. It lays down that the holiday period is 12 plus 2 which, by a peculiar twist under a previous Act, makes not 14 but 13.
The administration of the Agricultural Wages Board falls for discussion on this Bill. The Minister made the point—he thought it a good one—that overtime is in fact being paid at present to farm workers. Of course overtime is being paid and the board have laid down overtime at time and one-third for working days and time and two-thirds for Sundays for eight months of the year for over 50 hours and something else has been laid down for four months of the year starting next Monday.
I do not know whether the Minister got the point, but let me repeat it: the legal adviser to the Agricultural Wages Board has informed the board that they were not legally entitled to reduce the number of hours and could not, therefore, stipulate the amount which should be paid for overtime for hours over and above 50 hours. All I ask in the Bill is that that situation should be regularised. I am quite sure that nothing can be done about it from the point of view of declaring it illegal and attempting to recover the overtime paid because already eight Orders have been laid before this House and passed and I am not aware of any way in which those Orders can now be rescinded. But I still think it is irregular and it is not a very good way of doing things to have a legal adviser saying that something is done in the wrong way. We have an opportunity now of changing it but apparently it is not intended to take that opportunity.
The board, as I mentioned last Wednesday, has quite a number of conditions laid down governing its operation, conditions which would not be accepted in any other type of employment. Nominations are made by the Minister for Agriculture and nominees are very often not attached to agriculture at all. I am prepared to give all the evidence at my disposal, inside or outside this House, proving that people who never spent an hour in agriculture have time and again represented agricultural workers on the board. There is the case of a man who spent two years as a builder's labourer in Birmingham officially representing agricultural workers in Cavan on the Agricultural Wages Board. County council road gangers and workers and factory workers—by a coincidence, most of them happen to be secretaries of local Fianna Fáil cumainn—have been appointed to represent the interests of agricultural workers. I do not think that is right. The farming community have an organisation. There is an organisation representing the farm workers. Both these bodies should have representation on the board. If that were done, the whole matter could be dealt with fairly. The present system is anything but fair.
Deputy Treacy spoke last Wednesday about the system whereby the Chairman constitutes a quorum. The Chairman can himself give a decision. I do not know of any board here or elsewhere in which such a system operates. If a regional board fails to make a recommendation when asked to do so by the central board, the whole matter is held up for two months until a majority recommendation is made.
The Agricultural Wages Board did a good job in setting a floor to wages, but it is now an outmoded body. If the Minister is not prepared to accept this Bill, he should take the earliest opportunity to introduce a Bill designed to treat agricultural workers as human beings and in the same way as workers in other spheres are treated. He should take from them the slur of being second-class citizens to be dealt with differently from all other sections of the community.
When the Holidays Act was introduced, every type of worker was included within its scope, except the agricultural worker. For him, a special Bill was brought in, a Bill designed to ensure he would work longer hours than his fellows employed in other industries in order to qualify for holidays and he would get only 12 days as against a minimum 18 days for other employees. These may be harsh statements but it is only right they should be made, particularly in view of the fact that it is no longer possible to put any Tom, Dick or Harry out on the farm. Most agricultural workers today are a cross between an engineer and an agricultural instructor. They must know how to keep machinery running and they must know all about the rotation of crops. They are still the lowest paid workers in the country, working longer hours and getting fewer holidays than any other employee in the State. This is the industry which is consistently referred to as the primary industry.
I believe this matter has been allowed to drag on too long. The Government have brought in a great many amending Bills over the past few years and, God knows, it is time they decided to consider the agricultural worker and give him something more than the very poor treatment he has got up to the present for the work he has been doing.
Again let me refer to something which makes me very surprised at the Minister's attitude. A Bill proposing the extension of paid holidays, including public holidays, to farm workers, was debated in this House on 29th March, 1946. The Minister of the day expressed the view that the Agricultural Wages Board had power to make provision for holidays with pay and it was suggested by him that the question of holidays should be brought before one of the board's area committees for eventual discussion by the board. Let me quote what the Minister said at column 901, Volume 100, of the Official Debates of 29th March, 1946:
If the Agricultural Wages Board makes any decision with regard to holidays, it will certainly have my co-operation, if that is necessary. There are certain decisions that I do not come into, but, if it is necessary to give legal effect to any decision come to, I will certainly co-operate as far as I can to bring the matter before the Dáil. I expect the Dáil will be sympathetic.
He concluded at column 904 of the same volume by saying:
All I can say is that whatever the board may decide will have my co-operation, and if any legal action is necessary, I am prepared to bring the matter before the Dáil.
Following that, the legal adviser to the board states that the board have not got such power. I bring the matter before the House on behalf of the Labour Party and the Minister, Deputy Haughey, stands up and says on behalf of the Government:- "I oppose the Bill." After the 20 years that have elapsed since the matter was before the House, the Fianna Fáil Party do not seem to have developed any greater love for the men who work on the land than they had then.
I cannot see why the Minister should have adopted the attitude that what was good enough for those who went before us should be good enough for us. I had thought the Paddy-go-easy system had disappeared. Certainly I did not think the bright young men of Fianna Fáil who were going to sweep all the cobwebs away would be falling for cliché in order to hold on to the very bad old customs which were introduced so many years ago. It is sometimes suggested that the Agricultural Wages Board with its minimum wages regulation was born out of the brain of Fianna Fáil in 1936. That is not true. It was introduced here during the early World War I years under the corn laws and, I believe, it was borrowed from legislation which had been passed in Australia 30 or 40 years earlier. The same regulation as was then in operation is considered to be quite good enough for farm workers now, and there does not seem to be much point in trying to persuade the Minister or his Government to change their minds if they have not already decided to do so.
If they had even accepted some sections of the Bill, I could understand it. What I cannot understand is that the Minister should say he was not prepared to accept any sections of the Bill, that all of them were wrong. I went into great detail the last evening explaining to him what had happened when one of the area committees had had an even vote at one of their meetings on whether or not wages should be increased. The board did not send out the decision on the evening of the central meeting when it was decided to increase wages but held it up for over a week. Because the regional board did not reach a majority decision, the payment of an increase which had been decided by the central board was held up for nine weeks. I have asked that the regulation be altered to ensure that sort of thing cannot happen again. Apparently the Minister had his mind made up or his mind was made up for him, and he refused to accept even that amendment of the law.
Before I conclude, could I ask the Minister two questions. In section 6, I ask that:
Subsection (3) of section 5 of the Agricultural Wages Act, 1936, shall have effect as if the words "at least" were inserted immediately before "twelve members", "eleven members" and "four members" where those words respectively occur.
I gave the reason for this the last day. I believe it should be possible to have greater representation on the wages board of both farmers and workers. I made the point that on occasions nominees of the Minister who were on the board as workers' representatives did not turn up to meetings. The result was that those who were present, even though they had a very strong case, were outvoted. If nominations were made through the trade union, as I have suggested, it would be the trade union's job to ensure that these people attended, that the necessary provision was made for their attendance so that they would not lose anything as a result of their attendance. I suggested that the Minister should allow the nominations to be made directly through the trade union and through the employers' organisation, and even if he could not concede that, that he should increase the number from four to six, so that at least there would be more than one or two people on the workers' side when vital decisions are being taken.
The second question I wish to ask him is in relation to the matter I raised last night as to whether he would investigate the board with a view to modernising it and bringing it into line with modern conditions and, secondly, if he would consider, if necessary, removing the board completely and replacing it by something like the Joint Labour Committees operating under the Labour Court. If he is not prepared to do that, he could examine the weaknesses in the board, and I am sure the officials will be just as anxious to give him the facts as I am giving them to him tonight. Possibly they will give them to him in a different way but I believe in calling a spade a spade.
I believe if the Minister makes these investigations, he will satisfy himself that the workers who are carrying on under the provisions laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board are not getting a fair deal. He will also realise that, if he does not do this, both wages and conditions will improve for one reason only, that is, that people will not stay at farm work as long as they can get better conditions elsewhere. It is happening in certain areas at the present time. Deputy Sweetman commented on the difficulty farmers are experiencing in certain areas in getting farm workers. That will become much more widespread, unless the Minister can make conditions a little more tolerable on the farm. If the Minister goes to the trouble of checking, he will find it is not a question of ten or one hundred farm workers being affected; literally thousands of farm workers have their lives regulated by the operations of the Agricultural Wages Board and it is therefore vitally important that they should have better conditions and better wages than they have at present.
If the Minister is prepared to do that, he will be doing a good job towards helping the ordinary agricultural worker. If he is not prepared to do that, then there will have to be a fight made by the agricultural worker in a different way. We have reached the stage now where everybody else seems to be getting the good things of life to a greater extent than the agricultural worker. He cannot be blamed if he insists on getting a bigger share out of the small national cake which is at present being distributed.