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Press Release

'Back the Apple' - campaign to support rural workers

26 September 2011

To raise the awareness of the plight of over 150,000 agricultural workers, hundreds of apples will be handed out to delegates at the Labour Party conference tomorrow (Tuesday, 27 September) as part of the “Back the Apple” campaign - which has one objective - to maintain the Agricultural Wages Board.

Rural workers are extremely concerned that should this governments' plans to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board go ahead, they will face diminishing pay and conditions. Unite believes that this goes to show that the Tory-led government is completely out of touch with the countryside.

In a joint-campaign with the Labour Party, Unite has been working to stop the plans to abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) for England and Wales, which was set up in 1923 specifically to protect the pay and conditions of these vulnerable rural workers.

Unite national officer, Cath Speight, said: “Unite fully supports this fight back to defend these rural workers and their communities. We have many thousands of rural members who face a serious attack on their livelihoods if the AWB is abolished.

“Our members are struggling to survive in the face of rising costs and higher food prices and our main concern is that if the AWB is abolished, they will see their pay-packets diminish and will only increase their problems. We must not allow this to happen.”

The AWB not only sets the pay rates for over 150,000 rural workers in England and Wales, but it also covers their holiday and sick pay entitlements and overtime premiums.



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Unite

Unite

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