I do not know if Senator O'Reilly has made a very strong point because, suppose you are employing six men and you get a form to fill up, all you are asked to do is to fill in the total wages paid. That would not prove very much, I am afraid, in the way the Senator has put it. As regards the point raised by Senator O'Donovan, I think that what the section means is quite clear. It is that if a man goes to court to-day he can go back two years, that is, to the 27th July, 1943. If he was employed at that date, he can go ahead and can take action within two years. If he was employed on the 27th July, 1943, then, when this Bill becomes an Act, he can claim for the last two years that he was working with that employer. I would like Senators to keep in mind that we are dealing here with the legal rate that an employer is supposed to pay his employee. We are not dealing with what has been agreed between them. If, for instance, the wage at the moment is 42/- or, as it is in most parts of the country, 40/- a week, and if an employer is paying 37/6 a week, because that is the agreement between him and his employee, this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will not deprive that employee of getting the wages that are due to him for 20 years, if he is being paid less than the 37/6 a week that he agreed to. I think we are not creating any undesirable precedent in that respect because we are not disturbing the existing law as far as it goes between employers and employees. We are changing the law where there is a difference in the agreement made between an employer and an employee and the wage fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board. We say that where there is an agreement to work for less than that wage, then the difference between what has been agreed upon and the minimum wage can only be recovered in respect of a period of two years.
Again, I would like Senators to keep this in mind, that in our experience of the working of the Agricultural Wages Act there has not been very much trouble between the ordinary employer and the ordinary employee. There have been cases where certain farmers, not very many indeed, have paid a bit less than they should have paid, but as a rule these have been discovered within a few months or a year, and things have been made right. The really difficult cases arise, not in ordinary employment of that kind, but, as I pointed out on the Second Reading of the Bill, principally in two classes of cases. The first is where there is a relative working for a relative, and the second class is where an employee is working for a country shopkeeper. Senator Duffy pleaded here that two years, or six years, did not mean a whole lot. I think that on a previous occasion, I quoted certain cases, and would like to quote them again. There was the case of a widower in the County Tipperary who felt a bit lonely after his wife died. He had no one in the house with him, and a cousin of his, who was not a very useful agricultural labourer but was a good companion, came to live with him as an agricultural labourer. At least, that was what he said afterwards. He was paid a certain amount, he was kept well, he got everything that the employer got, he dined at the same table and was paid a certain amount in the way of pocket money. But, after six years, they fell out, and then this relative made a claim for £343 12s. 2½d. The farm was a small one. Luckily he did not succeed—and I say luckily since I do not think he deserved to succeed because the definition of an agricultural worker was against him. The decision might very easily have been in his favour, so that if he had succeeded, and had got a decree for £343 12s. 2½d., the only thing that could have happened was that the employer would have to give the employee the farm and become an employee himself.
I want to put it to Senators that you have cases of that kind. I am sure that if they throw their minds back they will be able to remember cases of the kind themselves, of some rather unfortunate man coming down in the world rather badly. He goes to work with a cousin of his; he does not like to be regarded as an agricultural labourer, but he works on the place. The two live together, they dine together and perhaps even drink together in the evenings. Then they fall out and the employee takes advantage of the Agricultural Wages Act. Therefore, unless we put some limit to this, he could ruin his employer.
The second class of case that I quoted on the Second Reading of the Bill was that of the country shopkeeper. I had observed myself, long before the original Act was passed, that many men in the country are prepared to work at a lower wage for a shopkeeper than for a farmer. But then when the two fall out, the labourer takes advantage of the Agricultural Wages Act. I have a case of that kind here where the arrears claimed over a period of something like five and a half years amounted to £227. These are the kind of cases that the agricultural wages committees, the Agricultural Wages Board and the Department have in mind. Both the wages committees and the Wages Board are quite satisfied that, as far as the ordinary straight case between an ordinary employer and an employee goes, a case in which there is no relationship between the two, and where the employer is not a shopkeeper, even if the employee is getting a few shillings a week less than he should be getting, they will be able to deal with such cases within two years. It is the cases in which relatives and shopkeepers are concerned that give trouble.
Even Senator Duffy has more or less admitted in his amendment that we are not dealing here with a question of principle but rather with one of expediency, as to how many years it should be. I think that two years is quite sufficient. As a matter of fact, I did argue, on a previous occasion, with Senators who were taking the side of the employee, that I felt that if there was a man in their trade unions who was working for less than the wage agreed upon between their trade unions and an employer, they would not take a very kindly view of that employee's action. I think the Agricultural Wages Board feel much the same. They are trying to enforce this Act, and feel that they must have the employee on their side as well as the employer, and that if any employee tries to break the morale of his fellow employees in any area, or does anything to vitiate the working of the Act or the activities of the board, that is going to make the working of the Act much more difficult, and we should not have too much sympathy for him. On the whole if we give him two years's arrears of wages, well, I think we are dealing justly between the two.
