{"id":7226,"date":"2015-12-23T11:29:08","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T11:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7226"},"modified":"2015-12-23T11:29:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T11:29:08","slug":"bulwark-against-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7226","title":{"rendered":"Bulwark against exploitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Unite has yesterday (December 22) welcomed the Scottish government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098sensible\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 decision to retain the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (SAWB) following a prolonged campaign to protect the minimum standards it affords to rural workers across the country.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A periodic review set by the Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead MSP resurrected fears for the board\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future and the potential impact of downgrading or abolishing a model of best practice for rural employment relations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite urged the Scottish government to reject the National Farmers Union (NFU) call for the board to be scrapped to avoid a damaging decline across the rural economy already blighted by low-pay and precarious employment practices \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a fact acknowledged in the Scottish government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) data which accompanied today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Scottish government has made the sensible choice today and as long-standing advocates for the SAWB we are relieved for Scotland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rural workforce,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhile our agricultural sector contributes significantly to our economy it is also known for low pay, precarious employment practices and hazardous working conditions &#8211; the SAWB is a bulwark against the type of exploitations that could prevail in its absence,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we cannot do now is rest on our laurels because as the PIA shows there are significant economic, employment and social barriers we need to tackle across rural Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need to strengthen standards within the board and in particular the pursuit of a living wage rate of pay for workers, so we can begin building sustainable growth in local economies across rural Scotland,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Rafferty went on to say.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The SAWB has established minimum levels for the wages, terms and conditions of agricultural workers since 1949 and its scope covers upwards of 20,000 agricultural- related jobs across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unite has yesterday (December 22) welcomed the Scottish government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098sensible\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 decision to retain the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (SAWB) following a prolonged campaign to protect the minimum standards it affords to rural workers across the country. &nbsp; &nbsp; A periodic review set by the Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead MSP resurrected fears for the board\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[42,40],"wps_subtitle":"Unite applauds decision to keep SAWB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7227,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions\/7227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}