Struggling to survive on £13 a week Farm pay award means fight ahead

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Many of them were rightly incensed by this derisory answer to their 37-per-cent claim.

Britain's 350,000 agricultural workers are on the march; they are tired of labouring long hours on the land for pay that no factory worker in the country would tolerate.

They are tired of the gruelling hours of unpaid overtime, tired of the stingy paternalism of many farmers, tired of tied cottages and the ever-present threat of homelessness, tired of the handouts and myths about life in the country and tired of the nearfeudal relationship between master and men.

They now want £18 for 40 hours — a modest claim which they say they will strike for if the National Farmers' Union do not pay.

They were on the streets of London last year. In November, 2,000 men women and children rallied at Trafalgar Square for £16 and 40 hours.

Days later back in the country districts they had to swallow their anger and bitter disappointment when the union accepted a paltry 15s bringing their rate to its present level of £13 3s for men and £9 17s for women, both for 43 hours:

WARNING Now they have warned their leaders in the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, that any retreat on the Agricultural Wages Board — whose recommendations have statutory power-will lead to withdrawal of labour and for the first time for over 50 years Britain's farms may be without men and women to bring in the produce.

But the Board, taking advantage of the farm union's refusal to lay concrete, plans for' strike action, has come up with a mere 33s-a-week offer-plus a cut in the working week of one hour.

Life on the farm in 1970 is far from idyllic for women like Mrs Jenny Young, wite of a Warwickshire farm worker.

When she was working they could manage, but now she has brucellosis contracted, she thinks, from drinking untreated milk.

'It's no way to live really. Since I gave up work we can't manage so well. I would say on the wage we get we just about exist. That means hardly ever going out for enjoyment everything goes on the kiddies and food.

'We would leave the land, but you see we have a tied cottage which we would probably loose if Trevor gave up his farm job. Some of the cottages are just hovels, rural slums I would say.

'On the money my husband gets, the building societies just laugh at you when you go for a mortgage—we couldn't afford the interest on one anyway' John Pratt is an older farm worker from Cherington, Warwickshire. He told us of the near feudal conditions that prevail on some farms.

'You often work long hours overtime and get no pay. The farmers are very casual about this they just scribble out the wage slip on a bit of paper it takes you all your time to work it out-tax and insurance are all lumped together.

NO BONUS 'This summer's hay harvest was one of the worst I worked on. I did up to 95 hours overtime and they said they would give me a bonus, but then they forgot that when it came to pay time.

'Often they pay you late, perhaps three or four days after the official pay day.' These are typical of the conditions that Britain's 350,000 farm labour force (180,000 of them full time) must work under.

But NUAAW secretary Reg Bottini's 'disappointment' at the size of the Board's pay award and its refusal to grant a 40-hour week-'we don't think that this is right'-is a far cry from the militant calls for strike action issued by farmworkers' meetings in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

Many farm workers would like to see an end to, the Wages Board-composed of eight representatives of the NUAAW, eight representatives of the NFU and five government appointees.

It can impose settlements without the agreement of the farm workers' side.

Farm workers earn 3s 6d an hour less than the average facKent miners taking part in the pit-head ballot. their strike ballot due ers talk to Workers Press STEPHEN JOE THIRLWELL, Thoresby Colliery (Notts):

IF WE LOSE this, we might as well jack up—we would be giving in to the NCB. We've got to go with the strike, especially for the lower-paid men.

Robens is trying to bribe us with the offer of 50s. That offer is an insult and in my opinion we have bowed down to them long enough.

I'm prepared to stick it out for the full 'f5 - nothing less. We'll stick it out to the finish.

I'm not a political man, but I think the time has come to stand out now.

RANK SCULLION, Thoresy Colliery (Notts) :

CONDITIONS in the pits are bad. Dust conditions are getting no better, especially with the new machines that are being pressed into the collieries.

Also, today they can send you to the shift bottom to seek materials under the PowerLoading Agreement). This is no benefit to the lads in the pit.

The wages in the pit now are an insult, especially to the lower-paid workers. There are men on contract work who have lost as much as £5 a week, because the Power-Loading Agreement finished payments for contract work. The conditions under PLA don't make up for the dangers to health from the dust.

Robens' television interview was nothing new. He was asked about his own rise, and said the miners buy things at the same prices as him. Why should Robens get his huge rise? He's not working in the dust.

Young Socialists and All Trades Unions Allianc GREAT NATIONAL RALLY AGAINST TORYISM ¡ANCE