Although animal rights protestors gathered outside the NFU Conference in Birmingham this week, activists demonstrating against the proposed closure of the Agricultural Wages Board were absent. Instead the farming union, which has staunchly backed the dissolution, arguing it will cut 'red tape' and lead to "competitive forces driving pay rates across the country", invited delegates to suggest areas of information the NFU Employment Service team should focus on delivering to farmers in the post-AWB sector.   

The board could be dissolved as early as October this year, if it proceeds unhindered through parliament.

The Agricultural Wages Board was set up in the early 20th century to negotiate pay and work conditions for agricultural workers. The board sets wages in a banded structure, in which workers in the lowest band category receive wages marginally higher than the minimum wage; this banding would disappear with the board's closure, along with other employment benefits secured under the terms of AWB negotiation.

The enterprise and regulatory affairs bill, to which the AWB bill is currently attached, reached the report stage in the House of Lords this week. The bill was delayed by peers who disapproved of closure at a reading earlier this year.

Government and industry officials in Wales have been extremely critical of Whitehall's decision to add AWB legislation to the bill just hours before Parliament closed for Christmas, claiming this was done to sidestep consultation with the Welsh government, which opposes closure.

However, although they did not appear in Birmingham this week, farm workers and their supporters campaigning to save the AWB have said they will return to protest at the Frome surgery of Liberal Democrat agriculture minister David Heath on Saturday (2nd March). The announcement follows demonstrations at the farming minister's surgery earlier this month.    

The demonstration is being backed by Unite, the trade union representing many agricultural workers. The union accuses Mr Heath of conducting an about turn on AWB closure, by pursuing the coalition government policy, despite having signed an Early Day Motion in 2000 in support of the board.

Unite claims that the abolition of the AWB will inflict losses of up to £25 million a year on farm workers, and that it amounts to a transference of wealth from poorly paid workers to their employers. Farm worker Steve Leniec, who chairs Unite's rural and agricultural committee, said on Thursday that "Mr Heath should also come clean over coalition government plans to water down protection for gangworkers under the guise of 'simplifying' the Gangmasters Licensing Authority."

Mr Leniec continued, "David Heath has recently called the AWB 'a costly relic of a previous age'. That’s not what he was calling it in 2000. He has since claimed he made this commitment to the EDM before there was a national minimum wage. But the national minimum wage was in force months beforehand. And if he knew anything about the industry and its workers, he would be honest enough to admit that the AWB is about far more than a minimum wage.

"A clear majority of those responding to the government’s consultation in the autumn on the abolition of the AWB, including farmers and farm workers, disagree with him and the government. He's not listening to the industry and he's not listening to his constituents. "