Farmworkers march for £16 basic

MORE THAN 2,000 farmworkers — the largest demonstration of farmworkers seen in London since the warmarched to Trafalgar Square (above) on Saturday in support of their claim for a £16 minimum wage and a 40-hour The present minimum is €12 8s. for a working week of Contingents from all over the country brought their elaborate and brightly painted TEACHERS at Holloway School, London, are calling for a one-day national strike

banners on the march, which made a colourful display as the demonstration made its way up Whitehall.

But the obvious militancy of the demonstrators was in sharp contrast to the platform speeches at the rally which followed.

National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers' president Bert Hazell, MP laid great stress on the fact that the claim was in the interests of the 'national economy.

Farmworkers, he claimed, had a much more effective 'method of protest' than strike action-they were leaving the land in droves to go into But he failed to point out that this has gone hand in hand with a massive increase in productivity, so that fewer and fewer men were now required to do the work.

Optimism

Hazell claimed a feeling of 'qualified optimism' about the outcome of tomorrow's meeting of the agricultural wages board which is to consider the claim.

But where is the optimism when similar claims have been treated with contempt year after year in the past? and to Pisse of ce Workers general secretary Tom Jackson, who spoke in support of the to the Mistry of Apretire. the marchers reasPetitions will not solve the wages question on the farms.

Farmworkers must unite with all other sections of workers in struggle for higher wages to press their claims not 'in the national interest', but in the interest of a decent living wage.

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