The Agricultural Workers (Weekly Half-Holidays) Act, 1951, sets out to provide that an agricultural worker will get a half-holiday in each week; that he will not suffer any financial loss as a result of getting the half-holiday and that if he is willing to remain at work instead of taking the half-holiday, he will receive fair compensation. The Act, however, in attempting to secure the attainment of these objects, creates a number of difficulties. I will not go into detail about all these difficulties but I will mention one of them in particular; it is that the Act prescribes minimum rates of half-holiday remuneration both in respect of and in lieu of a half-holiday but it makes no attempt to reconcile these rates with the existing practice in regard to the payment of wages and overtime. Since the Act came into operation, I know that it has caused a lot of confusion in the minds of both workers and employers as to what exactly their rights and obligations are under it. I propose, therefore, to introduce very soon a new Bill which will, I hope, remove the confusion and the difficulties. I also intend to make the Agricultural Wages Board responsible for the administration of the Act. The present Act. I might mention, confers no power on the board in regard to its enforcement beyond the dubious power of prescribing rates of half-holiday remuneration, dubious because one section of the Act itself sets about doing the same thing in Section 2, sub-section (2).
I might remark that when this Bill was introduced on an earlier occasion there was nobody to take responsibility for it. The Minister who should have taken responsibility ran away from it.
