Unite will stage two protests this weekend - one outside London-based hotel the Savoy and another in the Somerset constituency of farming minister David Heath – to increase pressure on the government to save the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB).
With the Savoy hosting the Fresh Produce Consortium - whose members include supermarkets who support the abolition of the AWB - and its annual dinner on Saturday 2 February, Unite is hoping the protest can make an impact.
Minister David Heath is responsible for driving through the proposed abolition of the AWB and Unite members will protest outside his surgery based in Frome, Somerset at 9.45am before departing to the Savoy in London later in the day.
Earlier this month, Unite successfully lobbied peers to delay the vote on the AWB's vote, while this week the Welsh Assembly's move to reject a legislative motion that would have set the foundation to abolish the scheme, which protects the incomes of 150,000 agricultural workers in both England and Wales, continued to preserve its future.
Unite national officer for agriculture Julia Long said: “The campaign has gained great momentum recently and this weekend’s protests are aimed at driving home the message that agricultural workers won’t have their incomes reduced to poverty-levels.
Long is angry at Heath's change of heart on the scheme and says he is now in the pockets of the UK's major retailers.
She added: “David Heath has reneged on his previous position of supporting the AWB to do the bidding of the major supermarkets, whose executives will be living it up at the Savoy, as they discuss how to impoverish those working on the land in all weathers.”
Unite has said that 60 per cent of responses to the government’s recent consultation were in favour of retention, but the NFU remains firmly against it.
She explained: 'There are over 1.8 million businesses in England, yet the 37,000 farms that employ workers remain alone in having a government-run board that determines wage rates.
'There remains no justification for agriculture to continue to be subject to a different and more burdensome set of employment rules than all other sectors of the economy.'