I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
The purpose of this Bill is to enable agreements concerning wages and conditions of employment of agricultural workers to be registered under Part III of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946. For nearly 12 years a substantial number of agricultural employers and agricultural workers have been regulating wages and conditions of employment in agriculture by collective agreements. Many other agricultural employers and the Minister for Agriculture, though not parties to these collective agreements, have not hesitated to recognise and implement the terms of these agreements. The passage of this Bill will enable agricultural employers and workers to have their agreements registered at the Labour Court.
Agricultural workers are not second-class citizens and there is no good reason why the beneficial provisions of Part III of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946 should not be extended to them. It will be understood that this Bill cannot impose industrial conditions on agriculture. Its passage would merely enable agreements between agricultural workers and agricultural employers to be registered at the Labour Court. The effect of registration is to make an "agreed wage" a statutory wage applicable to the parties to the agreement.
The House will recall that when the Industrial Relations Bill, 1946 was introduced, agricultural workers were entirely excluded from its scope. However, following representations made by the Labour Party in this House, Part VI of the Bill—the trade dispute part—was extended to agricultural workers, when the Bill was passed by Dáil Éireann on the 25th July, 1946. Section 66 was inserted in the Final Stages in the Dáil.
Three important facilities were extended to agricultural workers under Part VI of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, namely:—(1) Investigation of trade disputes by the Labour Court; (2) mediation in trade disputes by conciliation officers; (3) reference of trade disputes to arbitration.
This Bill is no more than a logical development of the conciliation provisions of Section 69 (Part VI) of the Industrial Relations Act. In fact, it seems most illogical that agreements reached at conciliation conferences under the auspices of the Labour Court cannot be registered at the court where agricultural workers are concerned. The Bill will remedy this defect in the legislation.
The Bill will facilitate and encourage agricultural workers and agricultural employers to settle their differences concerning wages and conditions of employment by agreement, to the general advantage of those concerned. Special circumstances such as obtain in agriculture can best be catered for by agreement between the parties concerned rather than by statutory order or regulation.
As to the lay out of the Bill, it was considered desirable to follow the pattern of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act, 1955, rather than proposing amendments to the definition section of the Principal Act, the Industrial Relations Act, 1946. As it is intended that as many agricultural workers as possible should be brought within the scope of the Bill, the familiar definitions relating to "agriculture", "agricultural workers" and "agricultural employers" in the Agricultural Wages Act, 1936 have been abandoned in favour of the more descriptive definitions in Section 2 of the Bill. Many employees engaged at agricultural work do not come within the scope of the Agricultural Wages Act, 1936 because their employers are not "Agricultural Employers" for the purpose of that Act. The fact that employees may be engaged at ploughing, sowing, reaping or mowing does not entitle agricultural workers to the benefits of the Agricultural Wages Act because their employers must also carry on the "trade or business of agriculture" (Section 2 of the Act of 1936.)
It is scarcely possible to define in the abstract the terms "trade" and "business". It is clear that they are not synonymous, but that the latter has a wider meaning than the former. A farmer, for instance, does not carry on a trade though in the majority of cases he carries on a business. A person who occupied a residence, where he carried on farming and market gardening for pleasure, and made a profit out of selling the surplus produce, after supplying his household wants, was held not to be carrying on a "trade or business" within the meaning of the Bankruptcy Act of 1883. It is not without significance that the Minister for Agriculture dropped his powers to define "trade or business" (Section 2, (2) of the 1936 Act) when the Amending Bill of 1945 came before Dáil Éireann.
In this Bill the terms "trade" or "business" do not appear. "Agriculture" is more broadly defined than in the Agricultural Wages Act of 1936, which is now obsolete, and the general intention is that a person employed in "agriculture" under a contract of service should be brought within the scope of the Bill irrespective of whether his employer carries on agriculture or horticulture for "business" or for any other purpose.
Deputies will be interested to learn that the definition "agriculture" in the Agricultural Wages Act of 1936, Section 2, was copied from the corresponding definition in Section 17 of the Corn Production Act, 1917 and Section 16 of the British Agricultural Wages Act of 1924. This definition was amended and extended in Great Britain in 1947, 1948 and 1949. The definitions "agriculture" and "consumable produce" in this Bill, Section 2, correspond to the revised definitions in the modern British Agricultural Wages Act of 1948 and the Scottish Act of 1949—Section 17 in each case—with the words "trade or business" deleted.
When drafting this Bill we gave some consideration to the desirability of extending Part VI of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, to agricultural workers employed on the State farms and, if the Government are agreeable, suitable amendments could be introduced on the Committee Stage. There is now no reason why agricultural workers employed by or under the State should be deprived of the "trade disputes" facilities of the 1946 Act which were extended to agricultural workers employed by local authorities by the Amending Act of 1955. Recently the workmen at Grange Farm, County Meath, formerly a State farm, came under the scope of the Labour Court, following the transfer of that farm to the Institute of Agriculture, which is a public authority. Another State farm at Johnstown Castle Estate, County Wexford, will be transferred to the Agricultural Institute when the Johnstown Castle Agricultural College (Amendment) Bill, 1959, has been passed by the Seanad. When the Bill is passed the agricultural workers on the State farm at Johnstown Castle may have their grievances investigated by the Labour Court.
During the past year or so, the Minister for Lands has announced that a tribunal is to be established to investigate forestry workers' grievances and it would now appear that the only agricultural workers who will be excluded from the scope of existing or proposed conciliation machinery are, the agricultural workers employed on the State farms. I wish to avail of this opportunity to suggest to the Minister that when the law in relation to the investigation of trade disputes was being consolidated in 1946, Section 10 of the Industrial Courts Act of 1919 was omitted. This section reads:—
"This Act shall not apply to persons in the Naval, Military or Air Services of the Crown but otherwise shall apply to workmen employed by or under the Crown in the same manner as if they were employed by or under a private person."
I would strongly urge the Minister to avail of the opportunity presented by this Bill to re-enact Section 10 of the Industrial Courts Act of 1919 with suitable modifications. The Act of 1919 was repealed in 1946 and I feel sure that it was not the intention of the Government to deprive agricultural workers employed by the State of any rights they enjoyed before the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, came into operation.
In presenting this Bill to the House I wish to assure the House and the Government that, if the principle of the Bill is accepted, the Labour Party will consider amendments from all sides of the House so that matters of detail may be settled in a manner acceptable to all concerned.