INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE
STUDIES
AND
REPORTS
Series K (Agriculture) N o . 11
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS
IN
AGRICULTURE
GENEVA
1933
Published in the United Kingdom
For
the
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR O F F I C E ( L E A G U E OF NATLOT^TI •-. '<~,7V.V.
By P . S. K I N G & SON, Ltd.
,r,^\-•Lt~¿X'N
Orchard House, 14 Great Smith Street, Westminster, Londwi/^SVW.l
'S>
IMPRIMERIE
ANNEMASSE
A.
GRANCHAMP
(HAUTE-SAVOIE)
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION
5
CHAPTER
I
ORGANISATION, HISTORY AND SCOPE OF COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING IN AGRICULTURE
I.
II.
Organisation
1. Parties to Agreements
2. Forms of Collective Regulation in A g r i c u l t u r e . . . .
3. Stability of Collective Bargaining in Agriculture..
History and Scope
Austria
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Germany
Great Britain : Scotland
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Sweden
CHAPTER
9
9
13
19
25
27
29
31
34
45
46
49
51
54
II
CONTENTS OF AGRICULTURAL COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS
I. Scope of the Contents of Agricultural Collective Agreements
58
II. Items in the Contents of Agricultural Collective Agreements
64
1. Hours of Work
64
Economic Importance of the Regulation of Hours
of Work
64
Ways of Regulating Hours of Work
68
Methods of Calculation; Journey Time
79
Special Regulations for Certain Types of Undertakings and Certain Categories of W o r k e r s . .
82
Agricultural Collective Agreements and the
Statutory Eight-Hour Day
84
2. Holidays
89
3. Housing
92
4. Work of Women and Children
94
5. Social Insurance
96
III.
Permanent Character of Items
97
CHAPTER
III
CONCLUSIONS
104
A P P E N D I X A : Principal Agricultural W o r k e r s ' O r g a n i s a t i o n s . . . .
APPENDIX B : Annual Hours of Work according to Collective
Agreements in Germany in the years 1920 to 1931
A P P E N D I X C : Some Articles in the "International Labour Review"
on Agriculture
119
120
121
INTRODUCTION
The following Resolution was adopted at the Eleventh Session
of the International Labour Conference on 13 July 1928 :
Whereas the Labour Part of the Treaties of Peace provides not only
for the protection of industrial workers, but also for the protection of
agricultural workers, and whereas the International Court of Justice
has confirmed this intention of the Treaties ;
Whereas social legislation on behalf of agricultural workers appears
in many countries to lag behind social legislation on behalf of industrial
and other workers ; and
Whereas no differences in processes of production can justify such an
inferiority of rights for agricultural workers ; and
Whereas, until an improved social legislation for agricultural workers
can be enacted, collective bargaining may be employed as a preparatory
means for regulating labour conditions in a manner conforming to
modern principles of the social protection of workers ;
The Conference requests the International Labour Office to increase
its information on existing systems of collective bargaining in agriculture,
to form the basis of a discussion at an early Session of the Conference,
and with a view to the rapid acceleration in as many countries as possible
of this means of improving the conditions of agricultural labour.
This Resolution was submitted by Mr. Hermann Müller,
German workers' delegate, in terms identical with those of a
motion recently passed by the Executive Committee of the
International Landworkers' Federation ; and, with certain
textual amendments, itwas unanimously adopted by the Plenary
Session of the Conference without preliminary discussion.
The Resolution rests on the fact that in many States the
social protection accorded to agricultural workers is inferior
both in quantity and in quality to that enjoyed by industrial
workers. It is not necessary to look beyond international
legislation to see that this is so. Although a series of questions
concerning agricultural workers was dealt with at the Third
Session of the International Labour Conference in 1921, with
the result that three Draft Conventions and seven Recommendations were adopted, and although questions of importance for
all workers, which means of importance for agricultural workers
also, have been regularly raised at the Sessions of the Conference
since 1927, nevertheless international legislation on labour
conditions in agriculture is less advanced than that affecting
— 6 —
other groups of workers. Suffice it to point out that there is
as yet no international regulation of hours of work in agriculture,
that the Recommendation concerning the prevention of
industrial accidents adopted in 1929 is limited in its application
to agriculture by the words "taking into consideration the
special conditions of agricultural work ", and that the Conventions
dealing with agricultural questions are among those with
the smallest number of ratifications (two similar Conventions,
concerning sickness insurance for workers in industry and
commerce and domestic servants and concerning sickness
insurance for agricultural workers, were adopted in 1927 ;
the former has been ratified by twelve States, the latter only
by seven).
On the other hand, in many States conditions of life on the
land have improved considerably since the war, and for this
the introduction of collective bargaining into agriculture is
apparently partly responsible. The organised landworkers
had by 1928 succeeded in many cases in using collective bargaining not only to raise the level of wages, but also to obtain other
improvements in conditions of employment — and this they
did, it is particularly important to note, at a time when little
was being achieved by means of legislation ; in other words,
pending better social legislation the collective agreement
appeared, for agricultural as for other workers, to be a suitable
temporary expedient for the regulation of conditions of employment in conformity with modern principles of labour protection.
If this view is right, the obvious conclusion is that the
spread of collective bargaining in agriculture should be encouraged by appropriate means. From this it is but a short step to
the idea of calling on the support of the International Labour
Organisation to secure such an end ; and the International
Labour Conference gave its consent in principle by adopting
the Resolution quoted above.
* * *
A study of collective bargaining in agriculture must, of
course, be based on the conditions in the individual States.
The general structure of the agricultural industry and of
agricultural labour, labour legislation, and the point of view
adopted by each State on collective agreements in general,
— 7 —
all these set the bounds within which collective bargaining may
develop in agriculture.
A detailed study, on the other hand, of the collective
agreement system in agriculture in each of the countries
considered would overload this report, and a discussion on this
basis will not be attempted. A further disadvantage would be
the easily made assumption of fundamental differences, for
instance between Denmark or Sweden, with their single national
collective agreements on the one hand, and Germany with its
countless collective agreements on the other ; in actual fact
Germany has homogeneous regulation of conditions of employment in agriculture in certain districts comprising quite as
many agricultural workers and undertakings as the whole
of Denmark. As far as possible, therefore, national boundaries
will, be ignored and the subject treated as a whole ; but a
conspectus of the history and facts in each country is given in
Section II of Chapter I. The extent of collective bargaining,
the contents of agreements, and their relation to legislation
will be examined. As in a former report on the labour contract
in agriculture 1 , which the present study aims at supplementing,
an attempt will be made to throw light on labour problems in
agriculture, on their many-sidedness and on the opportunities
which are open for improvement, and to show to what extent
it has been possible, in the present circumstances, to use collective
bargaining in order to obtain uniformity in conditions of
employment.
The report will be limited to those countries in which
collective bargaining in agriculture is sufficiently advanced to
permit the study of what such a system offers agriculture.
The number of such countries is rather small, but this does not
mean that in agricultural labour conditions elsewhere are settled
only by means of individual bargaining and individual contracts.
Other forms of action or regulation on something more than
the individual basis can be found ; for example, in the wage
board system in agriculture in England and Wales, in the
fixation of minimum wages in Hungarian agriculture, in the
industrial arbitration systems in Australia and New Zealand,
in the working conditions established by local custom on the
labour market in many districts in France, in the official
regulation of working conditions of national or alien migrant
1
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR O F F I C E : The Law on the Conlracl of
of Agricultural Workers in Austria, Germany and Hungary.
Series K (Agriculture), No. 10. Geneva, 1930. 63 pp.
Employment
Studies and Reports,
— 8 —
agricultural labour in Czechoslovakia and other countries.
In several cases these systems m a y bring certain advantages
t o the workers. They fall, however, outside t h e scope of the
present report 1 , the principal purpose of which is to provide
t h e International Labour Conference with practical bases for
its discussion of t h e question of collective agreements in agricultura in conformity with the Resolution of 1928 2 .
The report was submitted in proof to the Sixteenth Session
of the International Labour Conference for its information.
The Conference adopted the following Resolution :
At its Eleventh Session the International Labour Conference
requested the International Labour Office to increase its informtaion
on existing systems of collective bargaining in agriculture, to form the
basis of a discussion at an early Session of the Conference, and with
a view to the rapid acceleration in as many countries as possible of this
means of improving the conditions of agricultural labour.
A draft report on this matter was accordingly communicated to the
present Session of the Conference by the International Labour Office,
but it was not distributed in time to allow of a formal discussion for
the purposes mentioned above.
The Conference re-emphasises the value of collective agreements for
improving the conditions of agricultural labour. At the same time the
Conference recalls the importance to be attributed to the rights of association and combination of agricultural workers as a condition for the
development of collective agreements in agriculture.
As the report on the application of the Convention adopted by the
Third Session of the Conference concerning the rights of association and
combination of agricultural workers is due, in accordance with Article 8
of this Convention, to be laid before the Session of the Conference to be
held next year, the Conference considers it desirable that the examination
of the report on collective agreements in agriculture should take place
at that same Session.
The Conference accordingly invites the Governing Body to instruct
the International Labour Office to submit to next year's Session of the
Conference the final report on this question, account being taken of the
observations which may be made by the organisations concerned.
In conformity with this decision, the draft report was sent
to the Governments and all agricultural employers' and
workers' organisations in all States covered by the report for
their examination. During its Sixtieth Session in October
1932 the Governing Body approved t h e report and decided
to p u t it before the Seventeenth Session of the International
L a b o u r Conference.
1
Appendix G includes a list of articles published by the International Labour
Office on labour conditions in agriculture not controlled by collective bargaining.
2
The report is based on documentary and other material which the Office
has received by the kind co-operation of organisations of agricultural employers
and workers and by the taking of first-hand evidence from time to time. In the
case of Poland, a detailed memorandum on collective bargaining in agriculture
by Mr. GNOINSK!, Chief of Department a t the Ministry of Labour and Social
Assistance a t Warsaw, has also been at the disposal of the Office.
CHAPTER I
ORGANISATION, HISTORY AND SCOPE OF COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING IN AGRICULTURE
I
Organisation
1.
PARTIES TO AGREEMENTS
The first pre-requisite for collective settlement of conditions
of employment in agriculture is the existence of agricultural
trade unions of a certain size ; the spread of collective bargaining
in agriculture is therefore limited to those countries in which
the landworkers have combined in associations for the protection
of their occupational interests. In a previous report 1 the
International Labour Office described the representation and
organisation of agricultural workers all over the world and
discussed the circumstances which condition the formation of
agricultural trade unions. The report showed that there is much
greater difficulty in organising agricultural than in organising
industrial workers. The trade union movement in agriculture
is now passing through a stage which industry has long since left
behind, and it has also more technical obstacles to encounter.
Agricultural undertakings are scattered and the workers therefore isolated ; really large-scale farming is rare, while there are
large numbers of peasant farms, each with a few wage-paid
workers ; the line of division between employer and employed
is not sharply marked, for the mass of the rural population is
engaged in manual work, and members of the farmer's family
work side by side with the wage-paid workers, who are treated
as members of the household ; finally, a large number of workers
1
INTERNATIONAL
of Agricultural Workers.
Geneva, 1928. 210 pp.
LABOUR
O F F I C E : The
Bepresenlalion
and
Organisation
Studies and Reports, Series K (Agriculture), No 8.
— 10 —
are not permanently in wage-paid employment, but are small
proprietors or the sons of small cultivators who take service
for limited periods only and whose interests do not and cannot
coincide with those of the permanent wage-earning workers.
On the other hand, it is typical of the unions of agricultural
workers that they are all in principle organised on a national basis
and that their executive is strongly centralised, the central committee being as a rule represented at all local negotiations of any
importance. But while this centralisation aims at the greatest
uniformity possible in the regulation of conditions of employment
within a country, it is to a certain extent prejudiced by the existence in most countries of several unions, each on a national
basis but representing different tendencies in opinion ; and as
these opinions have no uniform hold in the different parts of
the country, each of the unions inevitably acquires its own
local centres of gravity. This combination of different movements of opinion and different degrees of local representation
on occasion prevents a complete uniformity in the aims of the
unions.
However, the report referred to also shows that the agricultural
trade union movement has by no means yet reached its widest
extension. Even in those countries in which it is furthest
advanced, only a fraction of the agricultural workers belong to
unions 1 . The membership of an agricultural trade union has an
enormous turnover ; large numbers join, but nearly as many
leave either because they change their occupation or because
they find work in another district where it is hard to keep up
relations with the union. The existence everywhere of a large
number of formerly organised agricultural workers is not without
considerable effect on the spread and importance of collective
bargaining. The influence of the unions thus extends far
beyond their actual membership, though it does not entail a
corresponding increase of financial resources.
The influence of the landworkers' organisations is also far
from uniform over a given country owing to the nature of their
membership. Membership of the unions is practically confined
to married workers or unmarried day labourers ; farm servants
are nearly everywhere quite unorganised, and the number of
women landworkers 2 who join unions is also very small. The
1
Married women and also other members of an agricultural worker's family
employed on the land regard themselves as organised if the head of the family
belongs to a union.
2
Cf., however, for Italy, p. 46.
— 11 —
composition of their membership governs the degree of the
unions' influence and limits it largely to districts where the nature
of the undertakings permits the employment of a permanent
staff of married workers, i.e. where large-scale farming predominates ; in districts where farming of a peasant type, whether
on an important or a smaller scale, is found, the unions have
little voice in the regulation of conditions of employment even
where intensive cultivation necessitates the employment of
large numbers of wage earners. It is not easy to distinguish
here between cause and effect. There are, of course, greater
opportunities of organisation among the workers employed
in big agricultural undertakings, but one of the reasons why it
is easier for the unions to influence conditions of employment
on large estates than on peasant farms is just that on the former
some general regulation of labour operations is essential, while
on the latter each case may be decided as it arises. And then
the mere fact of succeeding comparatively easily makes the
union more attractive to the workers.
All agricultural trade unions 1 are affiliated to the central
federations of workers' organisations of their own political
tendency, and both the Social-Democratic and the Christian
agricultural unions are organised in international landworkers'
federations which were founded soon after the war and before
long had a considerable membership. A table showing the
changes in the membership of these two federations and of the
chief national agricultural unions since 1920 will be found
in Appendix A. As will be shown, the landworkers' organisations as a whole have made but little headway since the
period of rapid growth which followed the war ; an advance
in one quarter has been counterbalanced by a falling off elsewhere. The present agricultural depression appears to have
encouraged organisation in some countries, but in others the
unions have been hard hit, especially where it is the practice to
pay the workers mostly in kind, so that they have to sell
agricultural produce if they wish to pay their contributions.
The organisation of agricultural employers, unlike that
of the workers, is not essential to the conclusion of collective
agreements. Although farmers in their capacity of employers
have long had common interests, which were safeguarded by
the ordinary agricultural associations, they acted together
1
exist.
However, in Italy no central organisations either of employers or of workers
— 12 —
not with an eye to the workers, but to the administrative and
legislative authorities. In many cases these associations have
now also undertaken negotiations with the workers' unions
concerning conditions of employment. But it was not until
collective bargaining was introduced into agriculture in the
form of contracts between individual employers and organised
workers that the former found it necessary to protect their
interests in this direction by founding real agricultural employers'
organisations. The two possible means of protecting these
interests — through general agricultural associations or through
bodies confined to employers of labour, and through institutions
intermediate between these two — have entailed a degree of
variety among the different employers' associations which
contrasts sharply with the organic uniformity of the workers'
unions ; indeed, it is almost impossible to find a formula which
will cover all the employers' organisations. There is naturally
a wide difference between the cases in which the workers'
unions negotiate with an organisation of employers as such,
and those in which they have to do with an agricultural
association which includes farmers who do not employ outside
labour. In the former, it is usually easier to arrive at a true and
complete collective agreement, instead of having to be content
with the establishment of certain principles. On the other
hand, an agreement made with a general agricultural association
will usually cover far more enterprises, for the small farmers who
do not employ much labour are comparatively seldom members
of organisations confined to employers.
The membership of the employers' organisations is often
extremely low when compared with the large number of
agricultural undertakings which employ outside labour. Only
the heads of really large estates feel bound, in their own interest,
to join such organisations. Many other employers consider
it sufficient to make collective agreements on their own estates
but are not willing to pay contributions to employers' organisations, and to run the risk of being involved in labour disputes ;
they forget that they are thus inevitably and from the outset putting their own — the employers' —- interests in a weaker
position.
Another characteristic of the employers' organisations is
great decentralisation. They are mostly local and often do not
even cover a whole economic area. If they are federated at all,
the central body does not as a rule do more than undertake
— 13 —
the business management and watch common interests ; it
has no decisive influence on the policy of the affiliated organisations. I t has sometimes happened that collective bargaining
in a large area has been simplified by the introduction of a
uniform agreement, but that the decentralisation of the
employers' organisations has made it impossible to continue
this practice and necessitated a return to several agreements.
The relations between employers' organisations in agriculture
and in industry vary 1 . In Denmark and Germany, for instance,
the central agricultural employers' organisations maintain
that, in order to be able to safeguard their interests directly
and without hindrance, they must remain independent of the
industrial employers ; in Sweden the Federation of Agricultural
Employers is represented on a joint committee set up by the
Swedish Employers' Federation with the employers' organisations
not affiliated to it ; on the other hand, the Czechoslovak
organisations
of agricultural employers
are affiliated
to the central employers' federations. No international
organisation of agricultural employers so far created has shown
signs of real vitality. In 1921 an International Farmers'
Union was founded with the sole object of representing the
interests of agricultural employers in connection with the
International Labour Organisation, but this was dissolved in
19302.
2.
FORMS OF COLLECTIVE REGULATION IN AGRICULTURE
The simplest method by which an employers' or workers'
organisation may influence conditions of employment with
a view to increasing uniformity is the establishment of " guiding
principles " issued without negotiation with the other party
and indicating the conditions under which, in the opinion
of the organisation, work should be offered or accepted. Such
guiding principles have no legal force, and can at the most be
cited before a court in case of dispute as evidence of the custom
of the country. When issued by a workers' organisation they
lay down the least favourable conditions on which a worker —
organised or not — should accept employment ; if he can secure
better terms, the organisation fully agrees. When issued by
1
2
See footnote p. 11.
Cf.
INTERNATIONAL
Labour Organisation,
LABOUR
OFFICE :
p . 352. Geneva, 1931.
Ten
Years
of the
1 niernational
— 14 —
an employers' organisation, their character as guiding principles
is more precise ; they are meant to be regarded both as maxima
and minima. They lay down the wages and conditions of
employment which the organisation considers should be offered,
but it is not always in its interest for members to regard them
only as maxima and to offer the workers such less favourable
conditions as they think fit. By so doing they may encourage
the trade union movement and thus ultimately have to accept
a binding collective agreement instead of having only to observe
guiding principles.
Guiding principles may be used during a period when no
collective agreement is in force, or permanently for districts
or groups of workers whose conditions are not regulated by
collective bargaining. The wages rates published twice a year
by the Danish Agricultural Workers' Union round about the
two dates at which it is customary for farm servants to make
any change in their employment are an example. It is a
particularly interesting one for two reasons : (i) because the
collective agreement already contains minimum wage rates
for male farm servants, which are well under the rates usually
paid, and (ii) because the workers' organisation, in publishing
its rates, has in mind chiefly the unorganised farm servants,
who form the majority. The Union has of course no means
of enforcing these rates.
The following table shows the
difference between the rates mentioned in the guiding principles
and those of the collective agreement (autumn 1931) :
Summer wages
Winter wages
Guiding Collective Guiding Collect! ve
principles agreement principles agreement
Farm servants over 20 years
Farm servants from 18 to
20 years
Kr.
Kr.
Kr.
Kr.
500
390
275
210
430
320
235
180
Joint guiding principles may also be laid down by negotiation
between employers' and workers' organisations, but do not
necessarily thereby take on the nature of a contract. The
organisations simply bind themselves to recommend their members
to respect the terms of the arrangement made. This is the
— 15 —
commonest form taken by the collective bargaining principle in
Czechoslovak and Scottish agriculture 1 .
The collective agreement, the terms of which are binding
on the members of the signatory parties, is a document of a very
different nature. Yet the difference in value between guiding
principles and a collective agreement in practice is not always
large, particularly if contracting out of an agreement is not
prohibited by statute or legal decision. In countries where
contracting out of an agricultural collective agreement is
permitted, as for instance in Czechoslovakia, a contract of
employment made with an organised employer on less favourable
conditions for the worker than those laid down in the collective
agreement is nevertheless valid in law. In Austria Federal
legislation has protected collective agreements by prohibiting
contracting out ; the law in question does not apply to
agriculture, but in five of the provinces there is corresponding
local legislation2. In the other countries dealt with in this
report the principle which forbids contracting out of a collective
agreement is recognised without restriction as to occupation.
Collective agreements are of different types, and these
different types occur with varying frequency in agriculture.
While one of the parties to any collective agreement must
be an organisation of workers, the other may be either an
organisation of employers or the head of a single estate. In
the early days of agricultural trade unionism estate agreements
played an important part, but their very existence induced
employers to organise in order not to allow the workers the
advantage of being the only organised party. At present
the estate agreement is of minor importance, the workers whose
conditions of employment are thus regulated being few in
comparison with those affected by agreements between two
organisations 3 . In Denmark, however, estate agreements have
recovered some of their importance since the dissolution of the
Federation of Employers in Agriculture and Forestry, which
included employers over a large part of the country. This
1
By arrangement collective agreements are sometimes treated as guiding
principles only in reference to certain groups of workers, or undertakings of a certain
size.
2
Section 2 of the Agricultural Labour Code of Salzburg, the prescriptions
of which are binding, states that the collective agreement may form the basis of
an individual contract. Though the contracting out of a collective agreement is
not expressly forbidden by the Code, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry holds the view that this is in fact the case.
3
In Italy even agreements for specific undertakings are concluded by
organisations on both sides.
— 16 —
state of affairs is particularly remarkable in that it has occurred
in a State where the industrial workers are organised to a man,
and shows plainly that collective bargaining has reached a far
less advanced stage in agriculture than in industry. In other
countries estate agreements are as a rule only found in districts
where big estates are rare and isolated, or where the agricultural
workers are organised on a purely local basis. Further occasions
for estate agreements are provided by public undertakings —
land in the hands of local authorities, etc. — in cases where the
authorities do not consider it advisable for various reasons to be
organised as employers on the same footing as private persons,
and by agricultural estates owned by industrial undertakings.
When such estate agreements occur in districts in which
collective agreements between organisations of employers and
workers are also in force, the estate agreements often contain
more favourable conditions of employment than the current
collective agreements.
Mention may be made of isolated cases of transition from
estate agreements to agreements between organisations —
agreements for instance in which one of the parties is a workers'
organisation and the other a number of economically independent
undertakings which have not formed an organisation on their
side. A list of these undertakings is given in the agreement,
which is then good as regards each of them for the period of its
validity ; there is no possibility of employers evading such an
agreement by resigning from such a group or of entering into it
by joining one. In two districts in Pomerania agreements are
in force to which on the employers' side a given number of undertakings are party ; as these two agreements came into existence
as the result of an arbitration award being declared binding,
the employers may be described as compulsorily associated for a
certain purpose. By this means conditions of employment
are uniformly regulated in thirteen and six undertakings
respectively.
The most important form of collective agreement, that in
which both the parties are organisations, becomes possible as
soon as the employers organise. This type of agreement, i.e.
between two organisations, may again appear in several forms.
The simplest is that in which all items are dealt with in one
text. This is the usual form in Austria, Denmark, Poland,
Italy and the Netherlands, and is also most frequently found in
Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Pomerania, and the Free
— 17 —
State of Saxony. In other cases the clauses concerning wagerates form a separate part of the agreement ; this is then
described as a wage bargain, to distinguish it from the covering
agreement which regulates the other conditions of employment
(in Baden and Wurtemberg, for instance). The practical
advantages of this form of agreement are that under it the two
parts may run for different periods of validity and may
terminate with different periods of notice. Further, wage
rates and other conditions of employment not definitely fixed
by the covering agreement — such as hours of work and related
questions — may be regulated independently for smaller districts
within the area of validity of the whole. agreement. This
combination of a covering agreement with several subsidiary
agreements makes it possible to introduce collective regulation
of conditions of employment for the whole of a large area,
yet simultaneously respect local conditions on various heads.
An ordinary collective agreement may of course also fix special
conditions for certain districts, and once such an arrangement
has been made there is no practical difference between it and an
agreement on the " covering " system ; but the latter is easier
to conclude because the main agreement is not dependent on the
settlement of every local detail. The comparative importance
of the covering and subsidiary agreements naturally depends
on what questions are regulated by each. Usually only wage
rates are subject to local variation ; but of course other details
can be decided locally within limits laid down by the main
agreement.
The covering agreement for agricultural workers in East
Prussia provides that district agreements may be concluded
between the parties to the covering agreement, and that these
may in particular regulate wage rates ; nevertheless the covering
agreement is supplemented by a general wage bargain, which
fixes uniform rates for all districts and special rates only for
Königsberg. The agricultural collective agreement in Silesia
lays down that organisations affiliated to the signatory parties
may only make local arrangements in so far as is explicitly
permitted in the general agreement, that is, for the detailed
distribution of the 2,856 hours to be worked in the year. At
first frequent use was made of this right, and in 1920 as many as
sixty-two district agreements were concluded in Silesia ; nowadays they are of rare occurrence. In Bavaria, on the other
hand, the subsidiary agreements are a necessary complement to
— 18 —
the covering agreement because they fix the wage-rates.
Further, they repeat all the positive terms of the covering agreement, sometimes adding to them ; some of the district agreements
for instance, contain more detailed provisions concerning
hours of work than the covering agreement. Anhalt and the
Province of Saxony provide perhaps the most highly developed
form of covering agreement. Its terms provide that the joint
district and regional labour associations shall constitute a
central labour association. A collective agreement must be
made for every district, and submitted to the Collective
Agreements Board at Halle for examination and expert opinion.
The Board is required to examine the form and content of agreements and to call attention to any inadequacies. Agreements
not in accordance with the terms of the covering agreement are
invalid. Where an agreement is outstanding, the Board
undertakes to draw up a text. The covering agreement fixes
total hours of work for the year for each district, distribution
over the separate months being settled by subsidiary agreements.
The covering agreement also regulates journey time ; only the
urban districts may settle this question, and that of payment
in kind, independently.
The Swedish national collective agreement for agriculture
is also a covering agreement, but is only valid when supplemented
by a local agreement. The national agreement is however
often concluded for a period of two or three years, while local
agreements are valid for one year only. Local agreements
contain only stipulations on wages to be taken in conjunction
with certain national arrangements concerning payment in
kind. The guiding principles laid down for the regulations of
conditions of employment in agriculture in Czechoslovakia
may also be regarded as a sort of covering agreement within
which the local collective agreements may be made.
Covering agreements are obviously more important than
subsidiary agreements. This does not mean that covering
agreements outrank in importance single collective agreements
made in districts where a division into covering and subsidiary
arrangements does not exist. The area over which a covering
agreement is valid is, as its name implies, always considerable,
but there are several instances of the conditions of employment
of quite as many workers in quite as large an area being regulated
by single collective agreements.
— 19 —
3.
STABILITY
OF COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING
IN
AGRICULTURE
The history of collective bargaining in agriculture shows that,
despite their sudden and simultaneous appearance in many
countries, agreements have since been consistently renewed
or prolonged whenever supported by strong and stable workers'
organisations, nor has there been any considerable reduction
in their sphere of influence. Initial difficulties in the way of
introducing the collective settlement of conditions of employment into agriculture were overcome with comparative ease
by reason of the early strength of the agricultural trade union
movement and by the fact that the moment was favourable.
Collective bargaining is to all appearance now permanently
entrenched in agriculture ; this is all the more remarkable in
that it has on the whole spread peacefully and caused but few
conflicts of any dimensions between the opposing organisations.
Apart from the first few years of collective bargaining in
the different countries, the negotiations for the renewal and
prolongation of agreements have, despite most fluctuating
economic conditions, run an extremely peaceful course. True,
it has frequently been necessary to call on existing conciliation
institutions, and agreements have often only been concluded
after an arbitration award. The importance of this should not
be over-estimated, for the appeal to such institutions is often
nothing but a tactical move. For various reasons agriculture
seems to afford fewer occasions for labour conflicts than do other
occupations. " Strikes or threats of a strike in agriculture are
regarded by the public — including sections which sympathise
with us — with feelings different from those exhibited towards
strikes in other occupations ; they are to some extent regarded
as the most dangerous to the economic health of the nation,
and this is an attitude which we have to accept " 1 . Moreover,
in agriculture the advantage accruing out of such action to
one of the two parties is usually so overwhelming that the other
tries to avoid a conflict until the last moment. • The workers
have the upper hand in the spring, the employers in the autumn.
But in either case the favoured party also is in danger of suffering
most heavily through a conflict. Agricultural operations must
be done at definite seasons, and days lost through strike or
1
Bericht des Verbandsvorslandes über die Verbandsarbeil in den Jahren 19201922, p. 14. Schriften des Deutschen Landarbeiterverbandes, No. J6. Berlin, 1926.
— 20 —
lock-out are lost for always. If, for instance, the conditions
of employment for beet cultivation are not settled in good time,
the fields have to be planted with summer barley or some other
crop, and excellent employment opportunities are lost. The
employer, for his part, cannot call a lock-out against all his
workers, because his animals must be regularly tended ; by
calling a lock-out of any sort he runs the risk of so embittering
the workers that they may take their revenge by refusing even
to perform such essential duties.
Another obstacle to strikes and lock-outs is the long contract.
These are the rule in agriculture, and they usually expire
together on a given day in the spring or autumn, which is thus
the only day on which a strike or lock-out can be begun without
breach of contract. These hiring days thus also govern the
dates of renewal of collective agreements. In Sweden hiring
day was 24 October under the old Servants Order of 1833.
This Order was repealed in 1926, but had been in existence
long enough to influence the newer method of settling employment conditions — by collective agreement. In MecklenburgSchwerin hiring day is also in the autumn, and notice of termination
of agreements may be given by either party not earlier than
1 September, to come into force on 1 November. A large
number of German collective agreements expire with the
calendar year, as do the guiding principles for agriculture
in Czechoslovakia ; in these countries the negotiations for
renewal often run on a month or two into the new year, and
work then continues under the old conditions, differences being
made good later if the wage rates are altered. A local leader
of the German Landworkers' Federation has expressly declared
that the unsatisfactory moment chosen for expiration has made
it impossible in recent years to conclude new agreements before
March. In Poland agreements run from 1 April to 31 March,
their period of validity thus corresponding with that of individual
contracts of employment ; originally collective agreements were
made for the calendar year. The negotiations take place in
the last quarter of the year, so that employers may know the
conditions fixed for the next season before expiration of the
three months' notice which has to be given to workers engaged
by the year. In Denmark agreements run from 1 May to 30
April, with three months' notice of termination, and the Landworkers' Union insists that this should not be altered. In
Austria agreements run from the beginning of March to the end
— 21 —
of February, and in East Prussia, Pomerania and SchleswigHolstein until 1 April. In the Netherlands, too, agreements
are concluded in the spring, from March to the beginning of May,
with the exception of those for dairy-farming, which are made
during May. Agreements are thus in the large majority of
cases renewed either at the beginning of the year or in the
spring, that is, at times favourable to the workers ; the reason
is probably to be found less in the superior strength of the
workers' unions than in the fact that the need for a settlement
of employment conditions does not make itself felt until the
season of sowing and cultivation.
The stability of collective bargaining in agriculture only
proves that the agricultural workers have been able to exert
such pressure on the employers as to compel them to conclude
collective agreements without however approving of such a
policy in principle. This is undoubtedly the situation in many
cases. Employers have a preference for settling employment
conditions as far as possible with individual workers. In recent
years an influential party in Danish agriculture, not particularly
connected with employers, has engaged in a vigorous campaign
against all collective bargaining, even in industry.
There are, however, many examples of a positive recognition
of the principle of collective bargaining to be found in the
agreements themselves. These occur in the form of provisions
for prolongation and notice of termination. In most cases it
is regarded as sufficient to provide that if notice has not been
given within a certain period — usually three months, but
sometimes more (up to six months) or less (up to six weeks)
— before expiration, the agreement is valid in its original
form for a further year. Other agreements go further and provide that a new agreement shall be concluded. In Austria
collective agreements do not provide for actual notice of
termination, but lay down that if no amendment is proposed
by one of the parties within a certain period the agreement
shall be valid for a further year. The first Swedish national
agreement provided that a proposal for a new agreement should
be submitted simultaneously with notice of termination of the
old ; otherwise such notice was to be invalid. This provision
was altered at the first renewal of the agreement, and it is now
laid down that if a new agreement is desired notice of termination,
to be valid, must be accompanied by a complete draft. Many
German agreements define a period within which new negotiations
— 22 —
must be opened, or require new proposals to be submitted
together with notièe of termination. In the Randow district
of Pomerania notice of termination must be followed within a
month by a new draft agreement or proposal of amendment.
In Mecklenburg-Schwerin both parties undertake to negotiate
in such a way that the new agreement may if possible be
concluded before the notice expires. In Schleswig-Holstein
the parties are required to open negotiations for a new agreement
within a fortnight after notice. In some districts of central
Germany a party giving notice of termination is obliged to
submit new proposals within three weeks, while in Baden such
proposals must accompany notice. In Bavaria negotiations
have to begin in the first half of the period of notice. In
Rheinhessen the old agreement is valid during the negotiations
but not beyond 31 March. In the Free State of Saxony new
negotiations must be opened within four weeks of notice of
termination, the old agreement remaining valid until the
conclusion of a new one, but only until the available conciliation
and arbitration machinery has proved unable to adjust the
matter.
The recognition of the principle of collective bargaining or
of the right of the workers to have a voice in the settlement
of employment conditions, which is implied in the above provisions, may also be expressed in special agreements or lead
to the establishment of special bodies, such as the joint labour
associations encountered in .the early history of agricultural
collective bargaining in Germany ; but it has yet to be proved
that such bodies are in practice necessary as a preliminary to
the conclusion of collective agreements. Collective bargaining
appears to be just as stable in the other parts of Germany as in
the centre, where the Central German Joint Labour Association
and a corresponding body for Anhalt and the province of
Saxony are still in existence. It must, on the other hand, be
admitted that the explicit recognition accorded to the joint
labour associations gives collective bargaining more selfsufficiency than it has, for instance, in Silesia, where it is regularly necessary to call in the conciliation authorities in order to
secure renewal of agreements. As long as the convention of
1926 concerning the Central German Joint Labour Association
remains in force, negotiations between employers and workers
can only relate to the contents of agreements, and not to their
existence. The existence of agreements is assured in so far
— 23 —
as this is possible in view of the fact that the consent of two
independent parties is required.
The stability of collective bargaining in agriculture is also
bound to depend very largely on any difference in the attitude
of the State to collective bargaining in general industry and to
collective bargaining in agriculture. It has already been pointed
out that only in two countries (Austria and Czechoslovakia) is
contracting out from collective agreements permitted in agriculture ; in other countries there is a prohibition against
contracting out which applies to agreements concluded in all
occupations, inclusive of agriculture. Agricultural workers
further enjoy the same rights as other workers to bring disputes
before the courts, except that in Poland their disputes do not
come before the ordinary labour tribunals but are confided to
arbitration boards established by special legislation.
The simple formal recognition that agricultural collective
agreements have the same legal validity as those concluded in
industry has apparently not always an equal practical effect in
these two branches of production. In many doubtful cases,
where the tribunal must rely on the nature of the facts, the custom
of the trade, etc., the settlement of disputes in agriculture does
not bring the same results as the settlement of those in industry.
Collective bargaining is less highly developed in agriculture,
and therefore has less influence on labour law in that occupation,
so that old individualistic theories, which have not been able
to survive elsewhere, still carry weight. Similarly, though in
most cases agricultural workers have the same nominal right
as industrial workers to use official conciliation machinery
for the furtherance of collective bargaining, it is perhaps of
less use to them, for an appeal to those institutions can hardly
be made unless the dispute is of a certain size and has a certain
general economic importance. As a rule, the conclusion of
collective agreements is a responsibility of the agricultural
organisations and depends mainly on their decisions. The
State provides conciliation machinery and interferes on occasions
to facilitate agreement, but cannot itself ensure that a collective
settlement is made. In Austria, Denmark, Germany and the
Netherlands it is the general rule that agreements are only
concluded as a result of negotiations between the parties, and
the extent and stability of collective bargaining in agriculture
depends on the size and comparative strength of the employers'
and workers' organisations.
— 24 —
On the other hand, statutory provisions governing collective
agreements and collective labour disputes which directly
promote collective bargaining, are probably of .more value
to agricultural than to industrial workers. The possibility
provided for in German labour law of declaring an arbitration
award binding is an instance of this, for though such a step is
usually taken on application by the party which accepts the
award, the declaration may also be made on the initiative of the
conciliation authority if the public interest requires it. An award
may be declared binding if, after impartial evaluation of the
interests of both parties, it appears that the settlement made is
just and its execution for economic and social reasons desirable1.
But still more noticeable advantage accrues to agricultural
workers out of the provisions which enable a collective agreement to be declared " generally binding ". This is a possible
procedure in Germany and the rule in Poland, where it is customary to settle collective agreements by the use of all the available
statutory machinery. The importance of such declarations
is naturally in inverse ratio to the percentage of organised
employers and workers in the occupation affected.
Italian legislation gives the most thoroughgoing encouragement to collective bargaining, for the recognised organisations
represent all persons employed in the occupations concerned,
though collective agreements are not explicitly made obligatory
by any Act ; but the Charter of Labour states that the professional organisations have to regulate labour conditions by collective
bargaining between the categories of employers and workers
they represent, and the agreements are without exception
generally binding.
Finally, those State measures which deal with agricultural
collective bargaining in particular must be considered. It
should here be borne in mind that all the countries referred
to in this report have ratified the Convention concerning the
rights of association and combination of agricultural workers
which was adopted at the Third Session of the International
Labour Conference in 1921. Although the Convention only
ensures that agricultural workers shall have the same association
and combination rights as workers employed in industry, this
explicit recognition of the right to combine has probably a value
of its own. In the dispute in Sweden concerning the introduction
1
Gf. the Conciliation Order of 30 November 1923, section 1, subsection 6,
and the Order of 29 December 1923 for the administration of the Conciliation
Order, section 23.
— 25 —
of collective agreements in Södra More, of which mention is
made below, the agricultural workers expressly took their
stand on the fact that this Convention had been ratified.
In Czechoslovakia the practical assistance of the labour
exchange authorities simplifies negotiations concerning the
guiding principles for employment conditions in agriculture.
Polish legislation is also of quite special importance, for
it not only provides, as already stated, that collective agreements
may be declared generally binding, but also causes representatives of employers and workers to be elected failing sufficient
representation through existing organisations. In such cases
the proceedings lose part of their character as collective bargaining and resemble the system in force in England, where agricultural wage rates are fixed by joint committees. But neither
general legislation on collective bargaining nor particular
measures dealing with collective bargaining in agriculture can
advance collective settlement if the organisations of agricultural
workers do not possess a minimum of strength. Where this
is not the case, such legislation is a substitute for collective
bargaining rather than an aid to its achievement.
II
History and Scope
It may be said that on the whole collective bargaining in
agriculture is a post-war phenomenon. Barring Italy, where
the system had entrenched itself in agriculture before 1914,
agricultural workers' collective agreements in pre-war days
occurred only as isolated cases, of historical interest indeed,
but of no final significance because of the absence of agricultural
workers' unions of sufficient strength to exert a permanent
influence on conditions of employment. It is true that small
organisations of agricultural workers existed in the years preceding the war in most of the States where agricultural workers'
unions are now to be found ; but it was not until the social
unrest of 1919 and 1920 that the membership of these bodies
rose to a point which suddenly made them powerful and influential. The development reached its peak with the foundation of the two International Landworkers' Federations (SocialDemocratic and Christian) with 2,100,000 and 1,100,000 members
respectively, and was so markedly simultaneous in the different
— 26 —
countries t h a t there can be no suggestion of imitation. The
movement began at the end of the war and, by the time the
international federations had been founded, collective bargaining
in agriculture was a fait accompli.
The process was everywhere so sudden and so rapid t h a t a
powerful reaction was inevitable. This reaction was in m a n y
cases so strong t h a t the agricultural trade unions either disappeared or shrank to negligible proportions ; but in the countries
where the agricultural workers have been able to maintain their
organisations and to continue their struggle more slowly,
collective bargaining, though so young, has attained p e r m a n e n t
importance. In these countries it has been possible t o preserve
what the spontaneous vigour of the early days so rapidly achieved, and if there has since been little progress it is probable t h a t
steady evolution would not have brought the workers t h e
same success in the same period as their one burst of activity
gave them. I t is amazing t h a t they should have been able, in
such haste, to create collective agreements whose contents have
defied economic complications and remained practically unaltered until to-day.
But conditions of employment are not collectively regulated
in every country where agricultural unions are in existence.
In many cases the latter are too small and weak to insist on t h e
conclusion of collective agreements, though they m a y be of value
to their members in other respects. This applies, for instance,
to sundry organisations in t h e Baltic States and to Hungary,
Yugoslavia and France ; in the last-named country local agricultural workers' organisations have from time to time succeeded
in bringing collective agreements into existence, but these have
lapsed, and conditions of employment in agriculture in the
countries mentioned are still quite unaffected by collective
bargaining. One of the most authoritative writers on French
agriculture describes t h e position as follows :
In several regions collective agreements have been drawn up between
groups of employers and trade unions. A considerable number were
concluded after strikes in the vine-growing district of the South and
in the Paris district ; there are also agreements among the share farmers
of Allier and the share-farming resin collectors of the Landes. The
present writer does not think that great importance should be attached
to these collective agreements. The parties who discuss and sign them
know quite well that they have no real powers and that their signature
binds no one ; for that reason they generally prefer to conclude the
agreement in the presence of an administrative official, such as the
prefect or his deputy, so as to make it appear that his authority is behind
the document. But the prefect's chief aim is to restore public order
— 27 —
as quickly as possible. He has no right and no power to enforce the
observance of agreements signed in his presence. Neither the trade
union, which often dates only from the first day of the strike, nor the
group of employers, which may be merely a group ad hoc of well-known
individuals with no real powers, is able to appeal to penalties in case of
non-observance. As soon as the economic conditions which gave rise
to the dispute have changed, the provisions of the so-called collective
agreement are also altered. . . . The utmost value of collective
agreements is that they may influence local customs, which serve as a
guide for individual arrangements1.
In England and Wales, where there are comparatively
large agricultural workers' organisations, no collective agreements are made, there being s t a t u t o r y committees charged
with the d u t y of fixing minimum rates of wages of agricultural
workers. The committees consist primarily of representatives
of employers and workers in agriculture, nominated entirely
by the respective organisations, b u t comprising also independent
members. The S t a t u t e under which t h e committees function
is determined by the Ministry of Agriculture, which is also
charged with the d u t y of enforcing the observance of t h e
minimum rate of wages as fixed by the committees.
The National Union of Agricultural Workers itself estimates
t h a t to secure voluntary collective agreements has proved to
be waste of effort, and considers t h a t the Central Agricultural
Wages Board t h a t will legally enforce decisions and the action
of a strong trade union are the only safe methods of arranging
wages and conditions of employment in English agriculture on
a satisfactory basis 2 .
AUSTRIA
There was in Austria before the war a small Social-Democratic
agricultural workers' union, but it was unable to exercise more than
a local influence on wages. A Christian agricultural workers' union
was founded in 1919. The Social-Democratic union found itself reduced
at the end of the war to one-third of its former membership, but within
little more than two years 40,000 agricultural, forestry and sawmill
workers had joined it. The movement among the workers compelled
the agricultural employers to organise on their side ; their principal
association is the Central Employers' Association for Agriculture and
Forestry (Vienna) ; nearly all its members are to be found in Lower
Austria and Burgenland, the only States where large agricultural
undertakings are of any importance. Both parties came to recognise
1
M. AUGE LARIBÉ : " Labour Conditions in French Agriculture ", in International
Labour Review, Vol. XXV, No. 1.
2
The practice of collective bargaining in Australia and New Zealand, as
incorporated in the industrial arbitration systems of these two countries, is
governed by special legal principles, the application of which to agriculture is not
examined here.
— 28 —
that it would be more effective to conclude only agreements for large
districts or groups of estates instead of for individual undertakings ;
and the above-mentioned employers' association was a party to the
first wages and employment agreement for estates in Lower Austria,
which was signed in July 1919.
Burgenland, which was Hungarian territory until the war, was allotted
to Austria in 1919, and thus its adaptation to Austrian agricultural
conditions took place at the same time as collective bargaining was
being introduced into agriculture all over the country. During the
first years the workers in the new State imagined that they could
immediately obtain the better conditions of employment in force in
Lower Austria, and repeated strikes were the result. In July 1922
they succeeded in concluding a State agreement which contained most
of the terms of that made three years before in Lower Austria. This
result was achieved because several of the Burgenland agricultural
employers joined the Central Employers' Association for Lower Austria,
and the collective agreement for Burgenland was concluded with this
body. The first State agreement in Sty ria was concluded in 1921,
but was renewed four times only. It survives, however, with certain
alterations, in the estate agreements for various large or medium-sized
undertakings.
Such agreements occur also in Lower Austria and
Burgenland, where they concur on the'whole with the State agreements,
and further in Upper Austria and Carinlhia, where there have never been
single collective agreements covering all the workers of the State.
Upper Austria is the only State where the peasants' organisations
and the agricultural workers' union have concluded agreements for farm
servants, and of these only one is still in existence : in July 1922 these
agreements led to a strike in the district of Steyr which lasted for three
weeks. In the Tyrol collective bargaining in agriculture has made less
progress than in any other State in Austria.
The Lower Austrian agreement, which has been regularly renewed
up to date, was valid for all the big estates of Lower Austria with but
few exceptions until January 1923 ; but in that year a number of large
undertakings, including most of the sugar factories near the Czechoslovak
frontier which employed cheap foreign labour, denounced the agreement,
founded a new association known as the " Sechs and Laa League ",
and succeeded in concluding another agreement less favourable to the
workers. This unsatisfactory situation lasted until 1927, when it was
ended by a dispute leading in certain undertakings to a strike ; and the
agreement between the workers and the new body now coincides with the
terms of the State agreement. Since 1926 another agreement has
been in force in Lower Austria between the workers' organisation and
an agricultural and forestry company running twenty estates ; it provides
for payment in cash only. The greatest strike in the history of collective
bargaining in Austrian agriculture occurred in 1923 in connection with
the renewal of agreements for Lower Austria and Burgenland ; 8,000
workers took part. Since that time strikes have been rare and of small
importance.
The Social-Democratic Land and Forestry Workers' Union has so
far been the only workers' organisation to conclude agreements. The
Central Union of Christian Landworkers' simply notifies the employers'
association that it proposes to accept as a standard for its members
the conditions agreed to with the Social-Democratic union. Uniform
regulation, by way of agreement, of conditions of employment over the
whole of agriculture has never been attempted in Austria ; but the
executive committee of the Land and Forestry Workers' Union in
— 29 —
Vienna always co-operates in the conclusion of collective agreements,
and those in force in Lower Austria and Burgenland are taken into
consideration when estate agreements are made. Nevertheless, the
members of the Union work under very varied conditions. Agricultural
labour law is not uniform in Austria, for each Federal State has its own
agricultural labour code, and the differences between these are sometimes
substantial just in1 the matters with which collective agreements also
deal. These codes , which have taken the place of the earlier domestic
and farm servants' codes, were introduced in the years immediately
following the war ; they betray the unmistakeable influence of the
agricultural trade union movement. Where the codes and the collective
agreements still do not directly correspond, the reason is that the former
deal principally with conditions on small farms and the latter with those
on large estates.
In 1928, 8,288 male and 829 female agricultural workers employed
on agricultural estates in Lower Austria were organised ; the corresponding figures for Burgenland were 4,772 men and 430 women. Of the
organised workers, 75 per cent, in Lower Austria and 80 per cent, in
Burgenland were employed by organised employers, but the total number
of workers employed in these undertakings cannot be given exactly.
In general it may be said that the conditions of employment of nearly
all the 34,000 members at present in the Social-Democratic agricultural
workers union (40 per cent, of whom are forestry or sawmill workers)
are specified in collective agreements, and that at least in Lower Austria
and Burgenland the terms of the collective agreements govern conditions
of employment also on the big estates where the employer does not
belong to an organisation. But estates cultivating more than 100
hectares (about 250 acres) represent only some 6 per cent, of the total
arable land of Austria, so that the large majority of the 450,000
agricultural workers are employed on peasant farms where the conditions
of employment depend on local circumstances and where all efforts at
regulation by collective bargaining have so far been in vain. The
influence of collective bargaining among the unorganised employers
in Austria is limited to a great extent by the fact that the big estates are
crowded together in certain parts of the country and are not to be
found at all in some of the States.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
In Czechoslovakia there are a number of agricultural workers'
unions of different tendencies — National-Socialist, Social-Democratic,
Communist and Christian. There is also a " yellow " workers' organisation. The Social-Democratic and Christian movements are further
subdivided into Czech and German unions. The interests of agricultural
employers are also represented by several bodies, but these are not
organisations of employers as such. They are general agricultural
associations, for which labour questions are but one small sphere of
activity among many. The Agricultural Union has a special employers'
committee on which other agricultural organisations are represented ;
in addition, they are all directly or indirectly affiliated to the Confederation of Czechoslovak Employers' Associations.
The decisive factor in the regulation of conditions of employment in
agriculture in Czechoslovakia is not so much the actual collective
1
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE : Legislative Series, 1921, Aus. 2 (Lower
Austria) ; 1921, Aus. 3 (Upper Austria and Carinthia) ; 1926, Aus. 5 (Burgenland).
— 30 —
agreements made between the local branches of these employers' and
workers' organisations as the " guiding principles " for agriculture laid
down by the central federations in collaboration with the public
authorities.
As early as J a n u a r y 1919 negotiations took place between the
organisations of agricultural workers and employers of Bohemia in the
presence of representatives of the Bohemian Labour Office, and the
first guiding principles or conditions of employment in agriculture were
agreed upon. Not long after, similar negotiations were opened under
the auspices of the Provincial Labour Offices in Moravia and Slovakia,
and since t h a t time the initiative in respect of negotiations concerning
these guiding principles has been in the hands of the labour exchange
authorities — t h a t is, not of the Labour Offices themselves but of the
provincial councils attached to each Labour Office to deal with matters
relating to agricultural workers. The guiding principles are signed not
only by the employers' and workers' organisations concerned, but also
by the representatives of other bodies on the council — the Ministries
of Social Welfare, Agriculture, and Food Supplies, and the Czech and
German Sections of the National Educational Council.
The fact t h a t the Labour Offices collaborate in the establishment
of these guiding principles is explained by the particular labour conditions
in Czechoslovak agriculture. The western part of the country, where
the land is worked most intensively, is also highly industrialised.
Industry attracts the workers, and agriculture therefore suffers from
a serious shortage of labour. In the east, on the other hand, and
particularly in Slovakia, there is a large surplus agricultural population,
and the Bohemian and Moravian farmers therefore draw on these districts
for part of their labour, making use of the official labour exchanges for
the purpose. The latter are thus directly interested in the settlement
of conditions of employment in agriculture.
Despite the regular collaboration of the authorities in the establishment of guiding principles, there is no statutory foundation for such
a proceeding, and the Government has no means of bringing guiding
principles into existence if the employers and workers cannot agree.
The guiding principles are an indication and nothing more ; the
employers explicitly object to the term " collective agreement ",
and the expression " covering agreement " is used in Slovakia only.
The workers have no legal guarantee t h a t the conditions laid down
in the guiding principles will be applied, but in practice their acceptance
by the central federations on both sides means t h a t they will be widely
adopted and t h a t unorganised employers and workers will be bound
largely to respect them when giving or accepting employment.
The guiding principles have been regularly renewed since 1920,
though sometimes the period of validity has been exceeded and an
interregnum has occurred. They are either used as a basis for the
conclusion of contracts with individual workers, or incorporated in the
text of local collective agreements. Generally each individual undertaking concludes with its workers or the competent trade union a
collective agreement in harmony with the guiding principles. Since
the first renewal of the guiding principles, it has gradually become the
practice simply to incorporate their text in the district agreements.
In the guiding principles for Bohemia all the organisations represented
at the negotiations undertake to ensure as far as possible that the
terms are accepted and respected by both parties. Parties concluding
individual contracts are recommended to record their acceptance of the
terms of the guiding principles by signing on the last page of the latter.
— 31 —
The guiding principles for Moravia provide that all the workers' and
employers' representatives on the provincial council for agricultural
labour shall, in the name of their organisations, with a view to peaceful
national progress and the orderly conduct of national business, do all
in their power to ensure t h a t the terms arrived at by mutual consent
are respected and unconditionally applied in agreements concluded
with individual proprietors. It is true t h a t actual agricultural collective
agreements are also concluded in Slovakia, though no figures concerning
them are available ; but the guiding principles laid down with official
assistance may be described as the typical method of collectively
regulating conditions of labour in Czechoslovak agriculture.
DENMARK
The first local attempts at collective bargaining in agriculture in
Denmark were made during the war. In 1915, the Danish Union of
Agricultural Workers was founded, and during the same year it concluded
the first local collective agreement with a large undertaking ; in the
following years two similar agreements were signed. It was, however,
not until 1918 t h a t the Union acquired any great importance. The
membership was more than quadrupled in t h a t year and large numbers
of agreements were entered into with individual undertakings, although
often only after recourse to strikes. The Union as such concluded
234 agreements in 1918, and in 239 other cases its local branches made
arrangements with employers.
This development was the immediate cause of the formation of the
National Federation of Employers in Agriculture and Forestry. Its
membership was variously given as lying between 1,400 and 3,000, but
in any case most of the large Danish agricultural undertakings were
included in it. In the spring of 1919 this body and the agricultural
workers' unions concluded an agreement which will be referred to as
the " national agreement ". In the same year agreements based on
the national agreement were made with the independent employers'
organisations on the islands of Langeland and Bornholm, and shortly
afterwards the Bornholm organisation became affiliated to the National
Federation of Employers. Agreements were concluded for casual
labourers and head milkers, as well as for permanent workers, and in
1921 these three were amalgamated in a single agreement, the form and
basic contents of which have since remained unaltered.
This rapid development was followed by some years of comparatively
slow progress, chiefly as a result of the generally unfavourable state of
agriculture. In 1921, the renewal of the agreement met with great
difficulties. The agricultural workers' union declined to accept the
proposal made by the Government conciliator, both sides had recourse
to direct action — strikes and lock-outs — and the agreement, which
contained a few slight concessions for the workers, was only signed after
a conflict lasting eighteen days. These events were responsible for
considerable discontent among the members of the employers' federation;
many resigned, and the Laaland and Falster organisation became
independent, thereby depriving the central Federation of ' some 800
members. In 1922 the depression of the sugar market induced the
employers to propose a new method of payment for sugar-beet work ;
for the future a fraction of the wage was to vary with the price received
by the farmers from the sugar factories, and this fraction could not
therefore be paid until the following spring. The agricultural workers'
— 32 —
union refused to consent to such an arrangement unless all the undertakings growing sugar beet, and not only those which were members of
the employers' federation, signed those Articles of the collective
agreements which dealt with beet cultivation.
Since that time
representatives of the sugar beet producers' associations have taken
part in negotiations concerning agricultural collective agreements.
The original object of these associations was to defend the interests
of the sugar-beet farmers as against the sugar factories. The agreement
made with them is incorporated in the general collective agreement
and is binding not only on members of the employers' federation but
also on all the farmers organised in the sugar-beet producers' associations.
Further, the agricultural workers' union has concluded an agreement
with a co-operative sugar factory, according to which the farmers who
have shares in the factory and therefore do not belong to an association
of sugar-beet producers undertake to respect the general arrangement
for beet work which may at any time be in force.
Since 1924 the negotiations concerning collective agreements in
agriculture have been carried on in common by all the existing
employers' organisations, but the National Federation has been steadily
losing its importance. At the beginning of 1930 it had only 150 members,
and after a vain attempt to bring the membership back to its old size
it was decided to dissolve the Federation. Shortly before, the local
federation for the island of Langeland had ceased to function. This
meant a fundamental change in the conditions of collective bargaining
in Danish agriculture. It was, of course, natural that the organised
employers -— very few in numbers outside the islands of Laaland and
Falster — should have objected strongly to bearing all the cost of
regulating conditions of employment by a system of collective agreements
(by which the other employers benefited equally), without being in a
position to put up any effective resistance to the demands of the workers'
union. It was precisely the fear that higher wages would have to be
paid when the agreements were renewed in the spring of 1930 that led
to the decision to dissolve the Federation, since the agricultural workers'
union would then be compelled to negotiate with the individual employers
— naturally a much more involved and difficult process than negotiating
with a federation. When the agreement with the surviving employers'
organisation in Laaland and Falster was renewed, certain increases in
wages were, in fact, introduced.
After the dissolution of the Federation, most of the former members
continued to act in unison and urged their workers to continue on the
same conditions after 1 May (the date on which changes of employment
usually take place), notice of termination not to have effect until
1 November. The employers hoped by this means to obtain two
advantages, first a supply of labour for the summer and secondly the
opportunity to negotiate for new conditions of employment in the winter,
a time unfavourable to the workers. The agricultural workers' union
thereupon declared that this concerted action was not in conformity
with the system under which collective bargaining had been regulated
since 1899, brought a plaint against the dissolved employers' federation
before the arbitration court and sent strike notices to most of its exmembers who had not in the meanwhile signed agreements with the
workers on their respective farms. The arbitration court caused
negotiations to be opened, and, with the aid of the Federation of Danish
Employers, agreements covering single farms were concluded with
thirty-three of the most important former members of the dissolved
federation. These included the wage increases already agreed to in
— 33 —
Laaland and Falster, and were, moreover, valid for two years instead
of the one year which had previously been customary. After this
success the workers' union opened negotiations with about a hundred
other large undertakings, and sixty-two new estate agreements were
signed.
According to the agricultural workers' union, these methods have led
to conditions of employment being collectively regulated in a greater
number of undertakings than was the case when the employers'
federation still existed. In certain cases employers have been compelled
to accept less favourable conditions than those obtained by the local
employers' organisation in Laaland and Falster ; but there is no longer
a possibility of employers entering an organisation and so protecting
themselves from terms which are more unfavourable than those which
might have been nationally agreed upon. Apart from the Southern
Islands, the collective bargaining position in agriculture is the same as
in 1918, when organised workers were opposed to unorganised employers
— the very situation which led the employers to organise. The
agricultural workers are certainly in a strong position, though the
existence of a collective agreement concluded with an employers'
federation would ease matters in many ways. The full exploitation
of such a situation would imply a state of permanent and undesirable
unrest among the workers — a policy likely to prejudice the interests
of both parties. Further developments, which will probably lead sooner
or later to fresh organisation on the part of the employers, are at present
affected by the agricultural depression, and their course cannot
therefore be foreseen.
As long as the agricultural workers' union was negotiating separately
with the existing employers' organisations, the agreements varied on
particular points, although the union was succeeding in achieving
a more and more uniform regulation of conditions of employment.
When the negotiations were carried on between federations, there was
only one collective agreement for the whole country and this regulated
all branches of farm work. The wage rates, which formerly varied
from district to district — even the so-called national agreement
contained a number of different rates — are now uniform. In this
respect the dissolution of the employers' federation has made no
difference. The collective agreement made with the one remaining
employers' organisation, that for the islands of Laaland and Falster,
now serves as a basis for all estate agreements, so that, in so far as
conditions of employment are collectively regulated in Danish agriculture,
the regulation is uniform for the whole country.
During the summer of 1931 the extent of collective bargaining in
Danish agriculture was as follows. Its centre of gravity was on the
islands of Laaland and Falster, where occupational organisation on both
sides is most highly developed ; here there are also agreements between
the Danish Union of Agricultural Workers and the sugar-beet producers'
associations, and there are corresponding agreements in Fünen and
Jutland, though in the last-named districts the area under beet is small.
Further, there are collective agreements with about a hundred estates,
almost all on the islands. There are only four estate agreements in
Jutland, where the influence of the agricultural workers' union is weakest.
Conditions of employment are regulated collectively on an eighth only
of all the large farms in Denmark.
These agreements cover some 1,500 employers, 1,200 to 1,300 of
whom belong to the employers' federation in Laaland and Falster,
and 5,000 to 6,000 farmers who are parties to the agreements only in
3
— 34 —
respect of beet cultivation. The Danish Union of Agricultural Workers'
has some 13,500 members, 500 of whom are women; 1,000 of the men
are unmarried day labourers or farm servants, the others married workers.
In addition, there are 2,000 women who, though nominally not organised,
are married to organised workers and are therefore regarded by both
sides as members of the union. These women are occupied mainly
in milking and beet cultivation. Some 5,000 to 6,000 of the organised
workers are employed by members of the employers' federation or by
farmers who have signed estate agreements, and 3,000 to 4,000 (with
their wives about 6,000 in all) as seasonal workers with members of the
sugar-beet producers' associations. It is difficult to say what proportion
of the workers employed by the organised employers are themselves
organised. If the wives of organised landworkers are regarded as
organised, the proportion of organised married workers employed b y
organised employers is between 70 and 80 per cent.
GERMANY
In Germany both the German Agricultural Workers' Union (SocialDemocratic) and the Central Union of Agricultural Workers, now
the Federal Union of Rural Workers (Christian), were in existence
before the war, b u t a t t h a t time legislation made it almost everywhere
impossible for them to use the strike as a weapon in the struggle for
higher wages ; moreover, their membership was far too small to permit
the exercise of any real influence on conditions of employment. At the
same time, there would appear to have been only a very small number
of local employers' organisations which admitted farmers as members. In
general, there was a feeling against organisation among agricultural
employers, nor was such organisation necessary so long as the prohibition
of strikes limited the possibility of concerted action on the part of the
workers 1 . As late as 1911 a suggestion concerning the foundation of
agricultural employers' organisations was turned down by the Prussian
Rural Economic Chamber in order not to encourage organisation among
the workers 2 . Even the Social-Democratic Agricultural Workers'
Union seems originally to have disapproved of the idea of collective
agreements.
Nevertheless, the first step towards the introduction of collective
bargaining into agriculture was made before the war, the Christian
trade unions being responsible for it. The Central Union of State,
Municipal, Transport, Assistant and other Industrial Workers, to which
many Bavarian agricultural and forestry workers belonged, concluded
three estate agreements in 1908, and these were taken over by the
Central Union of Agricultural Workers on its foundation in 1912 3 .
In the following years the principal efforts of this organisation were
directed towards improving conditions of employment in the Rhenish
vine country, and it was in this district t h a t the first wage campaign
was carried through in J a n u a r y and February 1913. A general and
considerable increase in wages, and in certain cases a reduction in hours
of work, were the results. On 1 March 1913 a three years' collective
agreement was concluded at Niernstein on the Rhine between the
1
A federation of agricultural employers was founded in Schleswig-Holstein
in 1912 for the purpose of combating breach of agreement.
2
Dr. Joseph WILDANGEL : Arbeilgeberverbände und Tarifverträge in der
Landwirtschaft.
Munich-Gladbach, 1920.
3
Max HOPER : Die Löhne und Tarifpolitik des Zentralverbandes der Landarbeiter, p. 7. Berlin 1926.
' — 35 —
vinegrowers' associations and the local branch of the Central Union,
regulating in great detail piece rates, day wages, hours of work, the period
of validity of the agreement and the conditions of terminating it. At
Rüdesheim separate collective agreements were concluded with 17
vineyard proprietors. In all, the wage rates and other conditions of
employment of over 500 members of the Central Union were collectively
regulated during 1913 1 . In April 1914 the vineyard proprietors'
association of Neustadt on the Haart made a collective agreement
with the Central Union and with the Social-Democratic Agricultural
Workers' Union, this being the only collective agreement to which the
latter was a party before the war. The development of collective
bargaining in the vine country continued during the war. In central
Germany a modest beginning in the same direction was made in 1916,
but in general the rapid change in values and the rise in the cost of
living during the war were not favourable to the conclusion of collective
agreements in agriculture.
Then came the Revolution of November 1918, which suddenly
and completely transformed conditions of employment on the land.
As all the old farm servants' codes were repealed on the third day of the
Revolution, there was no further obstacle to the spread of the trade
union movement among agricultural workers, and the membership of
the unions therefore grew rapidly. But agricultural labour law needed
immediate completion, for the gap left by the repeal of the old special
legislation had to be filled up. Since there was no time to prepare
Federal legislation, the Federal Council of Farmers and Agricultural
Workers, which had been founded in November, was entrusted with
the task. By 20 December a draft had already been agreed on, and
this was promulgated as a Provisional Agricultural Code by the Federal
Order of 24 J a n u a r y 1919. This achievement of the Federal Council
of Farmers and Agricultural Workers is still of great importance for
agricultural workers in Germany, since no definitive legislation on the
subject has yet been passed.
In origin the Provisional Code may be regarded as equivalent to a
collective agreement, for it came into existence as a result of discussion
between employers and workers and was only subsequently given the
force of law. The Provisional Code presupposes t h a t collective agreements
will be made, for it provides in section 2 t h a t in undertakings in agriculture and forestry " for which no collective agreement exists, contracts of
service shall be drawn up in writing for periods of more t h a n six months".
Many of the provisions of the Code have been included textually in
subsequent collective agreements.
In Anhalt and the province of
Saxony the first collective agreement is even called " Agricultural
Labour Code for the Province of Saxony " 3 .
1
HAUPTVORSTAND
DES ZENTRALVERBANDES
DER LANDARBEITER : Zehn
Jahre2 christlich-nationale Landarbeiter-Bewegung, 1913-1923, p. 16. Berlin, 1923.
Dr. E. MOLITOR : Kommentar zur vorläufigen Landarbeitsordnung vom 24.
Januar
1919, p. 3. Berlin 1928.
3
The Order of 23 December 1918 concerning collective agreements, workers'
committees, etc., also had much influence on the introduction of collective bargaining
•into agriculture in Germany. The workers' committees were instructed to work
for the conclusion of collective agreements in those undertakings where they did
not already exist. The Order applied to agriculture, and was supplemented by a
Decree of the Demobilisation Board on 16 January 1919, which provided that if no
other joint organisation of agricultural employers and workers was in existence in
a district, the local Council of Farmers and.Agricultural Workers should be competent to conclude agreements regulating wages and conditions of employment
on the land.
— 36 —
The necessity of supplying the people of Germany with food during
the Revolution and demobilisation made it essential that conditions of
employment in agriculture should be uniformly regulated. Various
organisations of agricultural employers, headed by the Farmers' Union,
had proclaimed, in the early days of the Revolution, that they were
prepared to regulate wages and conditions of employment by means of
local committees, whereupon the agricultural workers' organisations
had immediately pointed out that this could only be done in conjunction
with the workers1.
The first agreements were therefore made by the local councils of
farmers and agricultural workers which had sprung up on all sides on
the Russian model ; but it was recognised by both parties that neither
side could use these bodies as permanent agents for collective bargaining.
As early as January 1919 district federations of agricultural employers
were formed all over the province of Saxony, and on 25 February,
forty-eight of these, with some 12,000 members in all, amalgamated to
form a provincial association. It is interesting to note that the movement had its cradle in central Germany, where there are both great
industrial undertakings and large agricultural estates, and where
therefore the introduction into agriculture of a method of labour organisation hitherto confined to industry seemed more natural both to employers
and to workers in that part of the country than elsewhere. But the
example was quickly followed. Before the end of February district
federations had been formed in north Germany, and in the following
months employers' federations were founded in all parts of the country
except where small holdings are the rule. In the occupied areas of
western Germany, the movement started later, because the occupation
authorities did not permit concerted action on the part of the workers
and there was consequently less need to form employers' organisations.
The trade union movement is still less highly developed in the west
than elsewhere, and this is certainly due to the hindrances put in the
way of an early rapid growth during the Revolution.
In September 1919 it was decided to found a national federation of
agricultural employers' associations. Not only organisations of agricultural employers but also chambers of agriculture (the Chamber
of Agriculture in Halle had collaborated in the foundation of the
Federation for the province of Saxony), co-operative societies, the Farmers' Union and other trade associations which had interests in common
with the agricultural employers were represented on this occasion.
From the very beginning the organisation of German agricultural
employers took various forms. On 1 February 1920, ten provincial
and State federations — six of whom had 38,000 members in all—were
affiliated to the Federal
Union of Agricultural and Forestry
Employers' Associations2.
The formation of employers' organisations made it possible for
collective bargaining to develop freely in agriculture, and during 1919
district agreements were made in nearly every part of Germany. The
conclusion of these agreements ran roughly parallel with the foundation
of employers' organisations ; they started in central Germany, but
were often being signed simultaneously in quite different parts of the
country. Towards the end of 1919 the Agricultural Workers' Union
1
Niederschrift über die Konferenz der Gauleiter des Deutschen LandarbeiterVerbandes zu Berlin, am. 3.. 4. und 5 Dezember 1919, p. 16. Schriften des Deutschen
Landarbeiterverbandes, Ño. 4. Berlin, 1920.
2
WlLDANGEL, Op. Cit.
— 37 —
was a party to 268 collective agreements and the Central Union of
Agricultural Workers to 177 1 ; but it is impossible to determine to what
extent the figures overlap through the two unions signing the same
agreements. There is a general lack of information concerning the
number of agricultural collective agreements during these first years,
and not even the central committees had a thorough grasp of the situation
at t h a t time.
Most of the so-called collective agreements concluded up to 1920
were in essence nothing but wage bargaining 2 . On the other hand, it is
maintained that in the early days a t t e m p t s were made to regulate wages
and conditions of employment in far too formal and detailed a way ; the
farmers were accustomed to the complete regulations contained in the old
farm servants' codes, and tried to use collective agreements as a substitute
for them. The first agreements suffered from the fact t h a t sufficient
preliminary discussion between the members of each party was not
practicable, and thus many of the workers' wishes had to remain unfulfilled. Both workers and employers lacked experience in collective
bargaining, and the structure of the agreements made was not satisfactory ; hours of negotiation were often wasted in disputes over unimport a n t details, while matters of real consequence lost the attention they
deserved ; neither side really understood what a collective agreement
should be 3 . But already in 1920 real collective agreements had been
concluded ; and these have in most cases since retained the same general
form.
The latter part of the inflation period (1921-1923) was of course
a difficult time for the agricultural workers' unions. On the one hand,
wages rates had to be continuously raised, while on the other there Tas
an over-large supply of agricultural labour, since former landworkers
were inclined to return from the towns, because food supplies were
secure in the country. The agricultural workers had no cash to pay
their union contributions, and those which were paid soon lost value.
This is the period of struggle in the history of collective bargaining in
German agriculture. The contests concerned not the existence of
collective bargaining or any other question of principle, but simply
increases of wages, sometimes in conjunction with a reduction in hours
of work. The causes were often of a purely local nature, and the central
committees, which had not always the power to control their members,
were a t times compelled to join in strikes which they had not originally
undertaken to support. The greatest strike in German agriculture
occurred in Silesia in the early summer of 1923. At the end of May in
t h a t year a wage agreement had, after negotiation, been agreed to,
but it did not satisfy the workers. In some districts the employers paid
advances on account of future increases, b u t mass meetings were nevertheless held and it was decided to strike. Without preliminary discussion
with the central committee of the Union, work was stopped. According
to the German Agricultural Workers' Union, some 90,000 workers were
involved — the employers subsequently gave the number as 120,000.
They continued to strike for four weeks, practically without strike pay,
until the dispute was settled by arbitration.
According to the statistics of the German Agricultural Workers'
1
Franz BABILAS : Tarifverträge und Landwirtschaft, p. 8.
des Zentralverbandes der Landarbeiter, Heft 12. Berlin, 1921.
2
3
WILDANGEL, op. eil., p. 27.
Schriftenreihe
Geschäftsbericht des Deutschen Landarbeilerverbandes für die Jahre 1914
bis 1919, p. 53. Schriften des Deutschen Landarbeiterverbandes, Ño. 5. Berlin
1920.
— 38 —
Union, there were in 1923 over 3,000 wage movements not involving
cessation of work, and twelve stoppages affecting in all about 37,000 undertakings and 280,000 workers. In 1924 there were under 500 wage
movements, and only nine strikes affecting 2,200 undertakings and 24,000
workers. The biggest strike of the last-named year was in East Prussia,
— again contrary to the will of the central committee. There had
already been a number of such unauthorised strikes in different East
Prussian districts in 1923. At the end of April 1924 the workers, partly
under Communist influence, went on strike, and by the beginning of
May 20,000 workers were affected, but the strike had eventually to be
called off without attaining its object. In the Free State of Saxony
also there were a number of strikes in 1924 and 1925.
Since t h a t time even the employers admit t h a t only local and easily
settled strikes have occurred. But although it has been possible to avoid
stoppages of work, it is often very difficult to agree by negotiation alone ;
in m a n y cases the conciliation and arbitration authorities are required
to give awards, and sometimes the latter must be declared binding before
the agreement can be concluded. Nevertheless, agricultural collective
bargaining seems to have established itself firmly in Germany.
But of late collective agreements have on several occasions been
denounced with a view to reducing wages, and most recently for
30 April 1932. By 1 July, however, all the agreements, with a few
exceptions, had been renewed, in most cases by mutual agreement
between the former parties, and not by arbitration awards declared
binding. It is noteworthy t h a t the new agreement for Wurtemberg
and Hohenzollern contains no wage rates and only regulates the other
conditions of employment. Wages are now fixed by consent between
employer and worker.
Conditions in Pomerania are exceptional. In the spring of 1919 the
so-called land unions (Landbünde) were set up this province ; they soon
spread all over the country and the German Land Union was formed,
amalgamating in 1920 with the Farmers' Union (founded in 1893) to
constitute the Federal Land Union. While the Farmers' Union, as
its name implies, was an association of independent farmers, the land
unions aimed at realising the ideal of occupational solidarity, i.e. of
bringing into one organisation all persons, employers or workers,
engaged in a single occupation, in this case agriculture. In accordance
with this policy, the land unions object to the formation of employers'
federations. " We cannot afford to indulge in such conflicts as are
carried on in industry, and so we have no need for class-war organisations;
we must therefore oppose the creation of such organisations among the
employers and among the workers. W h a t we need is economic peace,
and this is the watchword of the Pomeranian Land Union. " 1
At the same time the first a t t e m p t was made in Pomerania to form
a non-militant or "yellow" labour organisation, a workers' group of the
Pomeranian Land Union being founded in July 1919. The same form of
organisation was subsequently adopted in Mecklenburg-Strelitz,but in the
other parts of the country the yellow workers' organisations were not so
closely connected with the respective land unions. In 1920 all these
workers' bodies amalgamated to form the Federal Land Workers'
1
Cited in Julius SCHMITT: Tarifverträgenn der Landwirtschaft, p. 17. Schriften
des Deutschen Landarbeiterverbandes, No. 13. Berlin, 1922.
— 39 —
Union, which is in its turn affiliated to the Federal Land Union 1 .
These non-militant organisations are not recognised by the authorities
as competent to conclude collective agreements, and this means, among
other things, that an agreement made with them has not the legal effects
of collective agreements proper. In a few cases the courts, and also the
Federal Labour Court, have deemed the agreements concluded by
non-militant organisations to be genuine collective agreements. It is
nevertheless a fact that the workers' group of the Pomeranian Land
Union has been largely responsible for the development of collective
bargaining in that province.
The German Agricultural Workers' Union had established itself in
Pomerania before the foundation of the non-militant organisations, and
after the Revolution there were also employers' federations in ten districts
of the province, but even in 1919 it was impossible to arrive at a collective
agreement, because the employers wished to include the yellow organisations and the workers would not agree. An Order issued by the Prussian
Minister of Agriculture in J u n e 1919 made the conclusion of collective
agreements compulsory, and this policy was continued by Order of the
provincial administration in 1920. In the following years the non-militant
workers' organisations gained the upper hand, collective agreements
between the workers' and employers' groups of the Land Union being
in many cases declared binding on members of-the German Agricultural
Workers' Union. The latter is a party to agreements in a few districts
only, though the number of direct agreements between it and the
employers' groups is on the increase. The National Union of Agricultural Workers is a party to only one agreement 2 .
The present position of collective bargaining in agriculture in
Germany is as follows : there are two workers' organisations — the
Social-Democratic and the Christian agricultural workers' unions
— which extend to all parts of the country. They are both parties to
all the agricultural collective agreements of any importance, the only
exceptions being the provincial agreement in Schleswig-Holstein and the
agreement of Brunswick to which the Social-Democratic union alone of
the workers' organisations is a party. In Pomerania and the neighbouring country the non-militant workers' organisations are of considerable importance.
All the organisations representing the interests of agricultural
employers are affiliated to the Federal Union of Agricultural and Forestry
Employers' Associations, save only the Agricultural Employers' Federation for Bavaria, which has left the central body 3 . In 1926 the Federal
Union of Agricultural and Forestry Employers' Associations joined the
above-mentioned Federal Land Union as an independent body dealing
with all questions affecting agricultural wages, conditions of employment and social policy, and the result was that all the employers' groups
attached to the Federal Land Union or its affiliated State, provincial
and district land unions, in particular those of Pomerania, the Free
State of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, came under the control of
the Union. Further the Union took over the representation of employers' interests in all those districts where land unions existed, but where
1
Dr. Constance VON SCHWERIN : Die Landarbeiterorganisationen
Ostdeutschlands2 und ihre klassenmässige und ständische Struktur, p. 29. Langensalza, 1928.
Dr. F. HERING : Die Landarbeiter und ihre Gewerkschaften, p. 34. Schriften des Deutschen Landarbeiterverbandes, No. 24. Berlin, 1929.
3
The Agricultural Federation for Wurtemberg and Hohenzollern was also
independent for a time.
— 40 —
employers' groups had not been founded because of the prevalence of
small peasant farms 1 .
The Federal Union admits t h a t the varying structure of the
employers' organisations in the different States and provinces makes
a uniform representation of agricultural employers a very difficult
matter ; it never itself concludes collective agreements, and the bodies
which compose it have a free hand in the settlement of wages and other
conditions of employment. On the other hand, the fact t h a t general
associations of persons engaged in agriculture frequently act as employers'
organisations has probably contributed to the progress of collective
bargaining in districts where empjoyers' associations pure and simple
could hardly have gained a foothold.
But this spontaneous and unsystematic growth of employers'organisations would now appear to be giving rise to certain difficulties. In
Germany only the so-called " economic associations " of employers and
workers are competent to propose and designate representatives on
social insurance institutions, labour exchanges, unemployment insurance
institutions and institutions for the settlement of labour disputes.
Exactly what the term " economic associations " means is not laid down,
but legal decisions have gradually established certain principles in
accordance with which an organisation which wishes to be regarded as
an association of employers is required to fulfil the following conditions.
It must comprise employers only ; and the economic purpose of the
organisation must be the regulation of conditions of employment.
These requirements have only gradually been clearly established, and in
many parts of the country no difficulties are yet raised with regard to
organisations which do not fully accord with them (land unions, peasants'
associations, etc.) ; but the authorities are now requiring more and more
exact conformity with their definition. One cause of this attitude is the
steady growth among the workers of a trade union movement of a Communist type which has been refused recognition by the labour courts as
having political rather than economic objects. As a result of this stricter
attitude a number of agricultural associations, which until recently
had been readily recognised as employers' organisations, have suffered
the same fate, and if the process continues it will apparently be necessary
to reorganise the representation of agricultural employers in many
parts of Germany 2 .
Agricultural collective agreements are common in almost every part
of Germany. In Pomerania and Brandenburg conditions of employment
1
Annual report on the work of the National Union for 1926.
The Federal Union of Agricultural and Forestry Employers is now
organised on the following lines. In Anhalt and the province of Saxony, Silesia,
Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Hanover and the Rheingau the
agricultural employers have largely formed associations to protect their interests
purely as employers of labour on the model of the industrialists' organisations,
some even relying on the latter for support. The members are in part individual
employers, in part agricultural and forestry organisations founded for economic
purposes which watch their members' interests as employers in exchange for an
agreed sum. Moreover, in Hessen and the Rhineland the chambers of agriculture
are at the same time the offices of the local federations.
In East Prussia, Brunswick, Nassau, the two States of Mecklenburg, Pomerania
and the Free State of Saxony, employers' groups have simply been founded
as branches of the land unions ; they are supported out of the ordinary land union
contributions and have no individual members." The Agricultural Federation
for Wurtemberg and Hohenzollern, the employers' committee of which is affiliated
to the Federal Union, belongs to the Federation of German Peasants'
Associations.
2
" Der land- und forstwirtschaftliche Arbeitgeber ", Nachrichtenblatt des
Reichsverbandes der deutschen land- und forstwirtschaftlichen Arbeitgebervereinigungen, 12th year, No. Il ,28 Nov. 1931.
— 41 —
are regulated by district, and, in these provinces only, some districts
have collective agreements only with non-militant workers' organisations,
In the Rhineland and the other frontier lands of north-west Germany
collective bargaining is less firmly entrenched than in other parts,
and here too the number of agreements varies. The north-west, and above
all Westphalia, where peasant farming is overwhelmingly prevalent, is the
only part of Germany where collective agreements are practically nonexistent. In 1919 the first collective agreements were concluded in that
province, some with individual employers, others with district employers'
federations ; in 1924 the latter bodies disbanded in order to prevent
collective agreements being made, and in 1929 only six agreements with
individual employers were in force ; but it is probable that, under the
influence of the Federation of German Peasants' Associations, some form
of organisation to represent the interests of agricultural employers will
be formed in Westphalia.
The area covered by collective agreements in German agriculture
varies considerably, depending largely on the form of association
adopted by the employers ; but organisation on their part is so widespread that very few agreements are now concluded with individual
undertakings. Agreements covering districts only occur most frequently
in Pomerania and Brandenburg, and are accounted for by the
decentralisation of the land unions. In the Rhineland and central
Germany (including the Free State of Saxony) the agreements cover a
considerably larger area. Apart from the local subsidiary agreements
which regulate wage rates and occasionally hours of work within the
limits laid down by the covering agreements, and which occur chiefly
in Anhalt, the province of Saxony and Bavaria, conditions of employment
are uniformly regulated in the following large areas : the Prussian
provinces of East Prussia, Silesia, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein and
the States of Baden, Bavaria and Wurtemberg.
Much of the importance of collective bargaining in Germany is due
to the possibility of declaring agreements generally binding. The
Federal Minister of Labour is empowered to declare agreements which
are decisive factors in the conditions of employment of any occupational
group in a given area to be generally binding within the area covered
by them. They are then binding, within the area which they cover,
in respect of all contracts concerning the same type of employment even
if neither the employer nor the workerwas party to the original collective
agreement. Such a declaration can only be made on application by
one of the parties to the agreement or by an organisation of employers
or workers the members of which will be affected by the declaration1.
Naturally, in occupations like agriculture where both employers and
workers are only partially organised, such a possibility is an enormous
support to collective bargaining. In certain cases — in the province
of Saxony, for instance — the text of the collective agreement provides
that application shall be made for such a declaration. At the end of
1931 the covering agreements for agricultural workers in Bavaria,
Wurtemberg and Baden, Rheinhessen
and Kurhessen, Brunswick,
Anhalt and the province of Saxony2, Silesia, Schleswig-Holstein, and
in one district each in Brandenburg and Pomerania, were declared
generally binding.
1
and 3.
Order of 23 December 1918 concerning collective agreements, sections 2
2
The covering agreement is generally binding ; but this does not apply to
all its subsidiary agreements.
— 42 —
The frequency of this declaration and the extent to which agricultural
employers are organised make the question how far unorganised
employers apply the terms of collective agreements to their undertakings
of less importance. According to the workers' unions there are, in
East Prussia for instance, practically no unorganised employers, and the
few who exist accept the terms of the agreements. In MecklenburgSchwerin the few unorganised employers pay the agreement wage-rates
and, in some cases, even more. It is reported from other parts of the
country also t h a t unorganised employers accept the terms of collective
agreements.
The following figures may illustrate the extent of agricultural
collective bargaining in Germany ; they are taken from the collective
agreement statistics 1 .
NUMBER
OF
COLLECTIVE
AGREEMENTS
ON
FOR
1 JANUARY
AGRICULTURAL
WORKERS
1929
Number of
agreements
Number of
undertakings
Number of
workers
Single estates
One locality
One district
28
4
84
55
74
189,320
1,712
3,296
1,393,997
1 undertaking
2-20 undertakings
21-100 undertakings
Over 100 undertakings
Not known
19
16
15
65
1
19
105
776
188,549
740
3,682
34,667
1,359,916
Up to 100 workers
101-1,000
1,001-10,000 „
10,001-100,000,,
Over 100,000 „
25
14
37
37
2
64
259
10,509
140,787
37,830
902
5,577
147,133
839,393
406,000
116
103
115
189,449
172,256
169,982
1,399,005
1,591,806
1,363,937
Agreements valid for
Total 1929 :
1928 :
1927 :
Note. — In the first years after the war it was not regarded as sufficient
in Germany to establish independent workers' and employers' organisations and to have them brought into the position of contracting parties
through the collective agreements which they signed ; it was considered
necessary to create permanent bodies to which both these parties might
belong ; and it was even declared that the most important part of a collec1
" Die Tarifverträge im Deutschen Reich am 1. Januar 1929 " (bearbeitet
im Statistischen Reichsamt), Reichsarbeiisblatt, 55. Sonderheft. Berlin, 1930.
— 43 —
tive agreement was t h a t which established a " joint labour association "
composed of equal numbers of employers' and workers' representatives 1 .
The German legal definition of a joint labour association is a joint
trade body founded by voluntary agreement to protect the interests
of the persons represented. The first joint labour associations were
set up during the war as a result of exceptional circumstances, and
conditions during the following years greatly favoured their development.
In 1919 the Central Joint Association of Industrial and Handicraft
Employers and Workers of Germany was founded and its creation
officially announced. The need for such an association in agriculture
was then generally recognised, but very different ideas were held
concerning the form which it should take. Some considered that it
should be a permanent institution composed of representatives of
employers and workers for the purpose of maintaining and extending
collective bargaining and deciding on the correct interpretation
of agreements in cases of dispute ; while others believed t h a t labour
questions could not be isolated from other economic problems in agriculture and therefore regarded it as necessary for employers and workers
to have a common policy on matters of production and technique.
The employers' federations had come into existence locally and
subsequently amalgamated, but the joint labour associations were
developed, so to speak, from above downwards. As a result of negotiations set in motion by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs (now the
Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Supplies) and concluded on
20 February 1920, the Federal Union of Agricultural and Forestry
Employers' Associations on the one hand and the German Agricultural
Workers' Union and the Central Union of Agricultural Workers on the
other entered the Federal Joint Association of Employers and Workers
in Agriculture and Forestry. Each side had equal rights and obligations,
the principal objects of the new organisation being :
(a)
to encourage the conclusion and application of collective
agreements ;
(b)
to make proposals and to give expert advice to the authorities
and legislative institutions.
The formation of State and provincial joint labour associations in the
Federal States, in Prussia and also in the provinces was to be encouraged 2 .
In its first years the Federal Joint Labour Association was very
active, although it confined its attention to the development of collective
bargaining, while the Central Joint Association for Industry dealt
also with all economic questions of occupational interest. Very soon,
however, the Federal J o i n t Association, like the corresponding industrial
body, lost much of its importance. From 1923 onwards its activity
was restricted to more or less desultory collaboration between the
member organisations, though the Association did not actually cease
to exist until 1926. Its formal dissolution was occasioned by the secession of the Federal Union of Agricultural and .Forestry Employers'
Associations, which had come to the conclusion t h a t the German
Agricultural Workers' Union did not wish to collaborate further within
the Association.
Of the local joint labour associations the most highly developed
was t h a t for Anhalt and the province of Saxony, which not only met
1
2
W l L D A N G E L , Op.
Cil.
Dr. W. v. ALTROCK : Die Organisation der deutschen Landwirtschaft,
Berlin, 1921.
p. 108.
— 44 —
regularly but also set up a permanent Collective Agreement Office
which still exists.
After the conclusion of the first covering agreement in the province
of Saxony in 1919 the contracting parties formed a joint labour association 1 , and set up the following bodies to ensure the general application
of the agreements : (a) district joint labour associations ; (b)
the
Agricultural Collective Agreement Office for Anhalt and the province
of Saxony at Halle. The district joint associations were composed of
from two to five employers and the same number of workers, representing the parties to the covering agreement. Since 1926 an arbitration
committee has been set up as part of each district joint association.
But the foundation of the Collective Agreement Office is of greater
practical importance. Its duties are :
(a)
to examine every part of the wage and labour contracts
made in agriculture, forestry and related occupations in order
to supply the district joint associations with the necessary
d a t a on which the collective agreements to be concluded b y
them may be based ;
(b)
to further uniformity in collective agreements ;
(c)
to guarantee the observance of the rights and obligations
laid down in agreements ;
(d)
to secure as far as possible a uniform regulation of wages and
conditions of employment for the whole area with which it
deals ;
(e)
to further the development of separate departments
agricultural workers at public labour exchanges.
for
The board of the Collective Agreement Office comprises two full-time
officials, one appointed by the employers, the other by the workers.
The district joint associations are competent to settle any disputes
concerning collective bargaining in the place of the official conciliation
and arbitration bodies. If the district association can neither mediate
nor make an award the matter is decided by the Office.
The Collective Agreement Office also acts as secretariat to the
Central Germany Joint Agricultural Association, which was formed in
1926. Its founders were the employers' associations for agriculture
and forestry in Brunswick, Kurhessen, the Free State of Saxony, the
province of Saxony, Southern Hanover and Thuringia (Federation of
Central Germany Agricultural and Forestry Employers' Associations)
on the one hand and the Social-Democratic and Christian Federations of
agricultural workers' unions on the other. The object of the Association is
to settle questions affecting wages and conditions of employment in as uniform a manner as possible. The conclusion of collective agreements for the
various areas is left to the competent district joint associations, so t h a t
due account may be taken of local conditions. If an agreement cannot
be so concluded, the matter is decided b y a special ad hoc committee of the
Central Germany Joint Association, composed of five employers' and
five workers' assessors and an impartial chairman with the right to vote.
The committee's first task is to a t t e m p t mediation ; if this is not success1
The term " Collective Agreement Association " was in subsequent agreements substituted for that of Joint Labour Association, but this was a change
in name only.
— 45 —
ful the award given is an award within the meaning of section 1 of the
Conciliation Order of 30 October 1923, and is immediately binding on
the parties if such has been agreed on for the case in question before the
award. Decisions made by majority vote of the assessors are immediately binding under similar conditions. In order to facilitate uniform
regulation of wages and other conditions of employment, the parties
are entitled to request members of the board of the Collective Agreement
Office at Halle to attend negotiations in an advisory capacity. The
convention by which the Central Germany Joint Association was set up
can only be terminated at the end of a calendar year with three months'
notice.
GREAT BRITAIN: Scotland
The Scottish Farm Servants' Union was founded in 1912 and the
National Farmers' Union for Scotland was set up a year later ; the
latter organisation is a general agricultural association of farmers. The
agreements concluded between the Scottish Farm Servants' Union and
this association, or its local sections, are not collective agreements in
the strict sense of the word. They only stipulate the working conditions
which the organisation recommend to its members as a basis for
individual labour contracts. They can therefore only be characterised
as guiding principles. The general practice followed is to print the
agreement on the back of the engagement form, the terms of the agreement thus becoming part of the individual contract. Even where no
individual written contract has been drawn up, however, the agreement
is accepted as an implied condition of employment, unless an employer
is able to prove that he has contracted out of it.
The first collective agreement in Scotland was signed in 1915, and
covered only a small district in the county of Ayrshire. In 1916 a Joint
Wages Committee was established with the National Farmers' Union
for the districts covered by the Glasgow hiring area, Renfrew, Dumbarton,
Lower Lanark and West Stirling, but only that for the Glasgow area
is still in force. The Committee meets every six months to adjust
wages for the following half-year.
During the war agricultural committees of the local authorities were
recommended to arrange for meetings of farmers and farm servants
for the purpose of electing representatives who would form a joint
committee to discuss from time to time the necessary adjustments
of wages and conditions of service. These district agricultural committees had already been set up in several counties in 1917, and in the
Lothians the first agreement concerning wages was concluded during
this year. In the three following years this method of collective bargaining was extended to about half of the counties of Scotland. After the
first year the representatives of these joint committees were nominated
by the National Farmers' Union and the Scottish Farm Servants'
Union respectively. Ón the other hand, the work of the statutory
wage committees, which were set up between 1917 and 1921 under
the Corn Production Act, was of limited practical importance. By
means of the voluntary collective bargaining carried out by the joint
committees, it was generally possible to obtain higher wages than the
minimum rates fixed by the statutory committees.
In the year 1922 the growth of collective agreements concerning
wages in Scottish agriculture reached its high water mark, and most
of the counties had agreed as to the general principles to be observed.
— 46 —
Since then, however, there has been a marked failure to reach agreement
on this question, although here and there progress has been made.
In 1930 the only wage agreement concluded was that for the Glasgow
hiring area, although in 1931 agreements were also drawn u p in
Midlothian, West Lothian and West Fife.
In February 1919 a conference was held between the National
Farmers' Union and the Scottish Farm Servants' Union to regulate
the question of hours of work in agriculture, at which a resolution was
adopted recommending to farmers and agricultural workers t h a t the
hours of work should be laid down on the basis of a 50-hour week.
This was the first attempt made to draw up an agreement for the whole
of Scotland on working conditions in agriculture. Difficulties of
interpretation arose, however, and the agreement was not finally accepted
by the national organisations. In practice, however, it formed the basis
of local agreements between the two parties in all counties except one,
although certain difficulties were experienced when it came to be carried
out in practice.
After 1923 the representatives of the National Farmers' Union tried,
in several counties, to alter the working conditions laid down by the
1919 agreement. They succeeded in doing so in some counties, though
the main principles adopted remained in force for some time longer.
In other counties the agreements ceased to exist. In many cases the
workers succeeded in maintaining the old conditions of work, in spite
of the fact t h a t the formal agreements had expired. For the past
eight years no new agreements concerning conditions of work have been
made, with the exception of t h a t for the Glasgow hiring area, which
is thus the only existing agreement on this subject.
ITALY
Italy is the only European State which had really developed a system
of collective bargaining in agriculture before the war. Agricultural
workers' unions appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century,
the movement beginning in the valley of the Po, where agricultural
work is done largely by day labourers and permanent workers,
subsequently spreading to districts where share farming is the prevailing
system. In every village each category of workers formed its own
" league ", and these bodies concluded collective agreements with the
individual employers. The latter were well-nigh powerless to resist
them, and therefore began to organise on their side, first in committees
formed for the conduct of negotiations and then in permanent associations. Collective bargaining has since that date always taken place
between the organisations on either side. The next step was the
amalgamation of the local associations into provincial federations and
the consequent suppression of the principal variations between the many
agreements. A collective agreement at this time usually covered the
area of a whole province. As early as 1901 the agricultural workers'
organisations founded a national federation. In 1907 the agricultural
employers set up a inter-provincial federation in Bologna which comprised
several provinces and regions of Northern Italy. In 1910 this federation was transformed into a national organisation, but its field of activity
remained practically the same. After the war the National Agricultural
Secretariat succeeded in forming, out of this federation and other
associations which it had set up in Central and Southern Italy, a real
— 47 —
national federation, i.e. the General National Federation of Agriculture.
After five years of activity this organisation was absorbed by the National
Fascist Confederation of Agriculture. The Social-Democratic Agricultural Workers' Union was followed later by the establishment of
Republican and Catholic workers' federations. In some provinces all
the workers' unions were parties to the same collective agreement, while
in others they negotiated separately with the employers 1 . The SocialDemocratic Federation, comprising some 850,000 members, affiliated
itself to the International Landworkers' Federation.
The Fascist trade union movement has profoundly modified this
situation. From the very beginning the idea of an intimate collaboration between employers and workers played an important role in the
development of occupational representation in Fascist Italy. Originally
attempts were made to combine both parties into one joint organisation.
This idea was successfully carried out as regards agriculture, but not
in the manufacturing industries. Even in agriculture, however, this
procedure, met with resistance on the part of the workers. In 1924
all joint organisations of agricultural workers and employers had ceased
to exist and only separate organisations remained. Subsequent legislation on occupational representation has maintained the principle of
separate organisation.
The importance of the Act of 3 April 1926 on the legal regulation of
collective relations in connection with employment lies in the definite
framework which it supplies for a system of occupational organisation,
officially recognised and placed under the control of the State. Occupational organisations are public institutions possessing the rights and
duties attached to such bodies ; but in the execution of their tasks, as
set forth in their statutes, and above all as regards the conclusion and
terms of collective agreements, they enjoy complete autonomy. According to the principles laid down in the Act, the formation of occupational
organisations shall be carried out on voluntary lines, no one being
compelled to join, but only one such organisation in any occupational
group can obtain State recognition. To this end certain stipulations
must be fulfilled. A workers' organisation must comprise directly, and
an employers' organisation indirectly, at least one-tenth of the workers
engaged in a particular occupation. Such associations may cover a
commune, a district, one or more provinces or regions, or the whole
State. The associations may unite to form federations, and the federations again to form confederations. The federations and confederations
are designated as organisations of higher grade, and the associations as
organisations of inferior grade. National confederations may be
officially recognised both for employers and workers for each of the
following industries : the manufacturing industry, agriculture, commerce,
marine and aerial transport, transport by land and inland navigation,
banking and insurance. There is further a national confederation for
persons belonging to the liberal professions and for artists, making
altogether thirteen national confederations.
On their recognition as occupational organisations depends the right
of such bodies to represent employers and workers within a district and
to conclude collective agreements, to which all local individual labour
contracts must conform. In this way every collective agreement
becomes generally binding. There is no strict obligation to conclude
collective agreements, although the Labour Charter of 1927 declares,
1
" Collective Labour Agreements in Italian Agriculture ", in
Labour Review, Vol. XIV, No. 5, Nov. 1926, p. 676.
International
— 48 —
t h a t it is the d u t y of the occupational organisations to conclude them.
Theoretically it is conceivable t h a t the necessary organisations may not
exist in a given district and t h a t therefore no collective agreement can
be concluded. The idea to which consideration was first given of
prescribing collective agreements in every part of the country was
abandoned, owing to the rapid and spontaneous growth of collective
bargaining. Strikes and lock-outs are prohibited. Disputes concerning
collective agreements, their introduction or renewal, are settled by the
labour courts. The awards of the courts are binding and have the same
legal power as collective agreements concluded voluntarily. When
necessary, the Ministry of Corporations acts as conciliator. In accordance with a recommendation of the Central Committee of Trade Unions,
collective agreements hitherto ruling remain in force until a new agreement has been concluded.
A collective agreement is not valid until it has been deposited with
the public authorities and approved and published by them. It is
their d u t y to ascertain whether such agreements are in accordance with
legislation, and an agreement cannot be published unless it contains in
full the statutory provisions and regulations concerning the following :
employment of workers during their period of probation, wage rates and
payment methods, hours of work and the weekly rest, annual holidays
with pay in the case of continuous undertakings, arrangements in case of
sickness or death, of dismissal without fault of the worker, of change of
management, and of calling up for military service. Exception is made
for agreements which do not regulate certain of these points provided
the latter are covered by legislation, or are not important in the particular
case, or if it is stipulated in the agreement t h a t they will be settled by
the parties within a certain period.
Occupational organisations shall not only seek to regulate labour
conditions from the point of view of the employer and of the worker,
b u t shall also take the higher interests of production, and consequently
the interests of the whole nation, into consideration. Thus the
" corporative idea " exercises influence over the activity of occupational
organisations. The legislation of 1926, however, also created the
possibility of instituting special organs to bring about more intimate
collaboration between (employers' and workers' organisations. Such
liaison bodies may be established by the Ministry of Corporations. They
are designated as corporations, and are not legal personalities but organs
of the State administration. To them is confided the task of settling
disputes between their constituent organs, the drawing up of certain
general regulations with regard to labour, the encouragement and
support of measures for the co-ordination and improved organisation of
production, the setting up of employment exchanges where necessary,
and the regulation and superintendence of apprenticeship. In all
matters relating to the conclusion of collective labour contracts, however,
the occupational organisations retain their competence. In the meanwhile such corporations were not set up, but first the National Council
of Corporations, already announced by Order of J u l y 1926, was created
under an Act of 20 March 1930. The National Council of Corporations
was instructed to keep watch over the activities of every factor of economic and social life and to bring them into harmony with one another.
It is also the duty of the Council to further uniformity in collective
agreements. Besides representatives of employers' and workers'
organisations, the Council includes representatives of the co-operative
societies. The Council is divided into sections corresponding to the
above-mentioned occupational confederations. A Decree provides
— 49 —
t h a t the duties and rights of the above-mentioned corporations can be
entrusted to the corresponding sections of the National Council of
Corporations. This was done under the Decree of 27 J a n u a r y 1931, the
function of conciliator being reserved for the Minister of Corporations.
In everyday language these sections are spoken of, though incorrectly,
as corporations. According to the strict sense of the Act, however,
there is only one corporation properly so called, i.e. t h a t of the theatre.
The Agricultural Section of the National Council of Corporations has
dealt with such questions as methods of fixing wages for workers
occupied in soil improvement work, the valuation of the live stock of
share farmers, and the liquidation of credits of share farmers in cases of
change of proprietor. The section is working on a " Charter of Share
Farming ". This problem is not one of tenancy only, b u t is rather a
labour question of the greatest social importance.
The structure of agricultural occupational organisations, which has
been changed several times, is actually as follows : the National Fascist
Confederation of Agriculture comprises agricultural associations of the
higher grade, national confederations of special categories, and certain
other agricultural associations and institutions. Associations of the
higher grade are again divided into section for agriculturists who do not
themselves engage in manual work but superintend an undertaking
(estates and large peasant farms) ; section for landowners who lease
their land ; section for leaseholders ; and section for owners and tenants
who themselves share in the manual work. In accordance with a Decree
of J a n u a r y 1931, tenants who themselves do manual work belong
either to the organisation of employers or to t h a t of the workers, according to the size of their holding. The determining area is fixed by the
two organisations in agreement for each province or part of a province.
Out of a total of 2,700,000 farmers, 465,000 are members of the abovementioned Confederation.
The Federation of Fascist Agricultural Trade Unions is formed by
provincial agricultural workers' organisations.
These again are subdivided into sections for the different categories of agricultural workers.
The Federation has at the present time about 1,400,000 members, of
whom 1,035,000 are permanent and day labourers, while 208,000 are
share farmers and 89,000 small tenants. It is estimated t h a t about onehalf of the persons eligible for membership belong to the Federation,
while about two-thirds of the permanent and day labourers are members.
On 31 December 1931, 4 agreements covering the whole of Italy, •
2 regional agreements, and 375 provincial agreements were in force,
besides 207 agreements existing concerning only one commune or a single
undertaking. The number of collective agreements in certain provinces
has fallen, owing to the amalgamation of several minor agreements to
cover a whole province. In other provinces several agreements still
exist both for different classes of agricultural workers and for different
districts of the province.
NETHERLANDS
The representation of agricultural employers and workers in the
Netherlands is extremely decentralised. There are a Social-Democratic,
a Protestant and a Roman Catholic agricultural workers' union, and each
enters into collective agreements with the general associations of agricultural employers. Local collective agreements have been in existence
since 1908, but the movement was not of real importance until the last
4
— 50 —
years of the war. Negotiations for the conclusion of collective agreements have on several occasions caused strikes of considerable gravity,
one declared by the Social-Democratic union in 1930 affecting 3,000
workers and continuing for as long as five and a half months.
The following table 1 shows the position in June 1930 in respect of
collective agreements in agriculture and horticulture. Separate data
for stock-raising and crop production are only available on the totals.
Number of
undertakings
Number of
workers
11
53
66
78
79
91
742
3,864
3,810
3,519
3,891
4,252
1,492
11,948
15,185
18,861
15,753
21,252
1930
valid for :
one undertaking
one locality
one district
31
100
15
31
4,027
2,005
663
13,815
12,001
Total
For agriculture proper only
146
82
6,063
3,902
26,479
18,186
Year
1918
1920
1922
1924 .
1926
1928
Number of
agreements
As the table indicates, most of the agreements are valid for a small
area. The few district agreements have only recently been concluded,
and there are none with a really wide — i.e. provincial or national —
validity ; in several cases wage rates for larger areas have been collectively
settled by the employers' and workers' organisations, but this has been
done by means of correspondence, and no actual collective agreement
has been made.
Since 1919 the Netherlands Catholic Farmers' and Market Gardeners'
Federation and the Catholic Land Workers' Union have maintained
joint councils similar in character to the German joint labour associations.
Their object is to encourage the spirit of occupational solidarity in
agriculture and market gardening and to ensure a maximum of economic
peace ; they are composed of equal numbers of employers and workers,
and represent not individual undertakings but areas of a considerable
size. Their duties include acting as arbitration boards when a conflict
appears imminent, drafting collective agreements and securing their
conclusion, and safeguarding the rights of the workers to a voice in
economic policy in each district. There are three such local councils
and one for the whole country.
1
STATISTIEK VAN NEDERLAND : Overzichl van den Omvang en den Voornaamslen Inhoud der Collectieve Arbeidsovereenkomsten op I June 1930, table p. 29.
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Dec. 1930.
— 51 —
POLAND
It was not possible to set up agricultural trade unions for the whole
of Poland before the foundation of the Republic. All combination was
prohibited in Congress Poland 1 , there were no agricultural workers'
organisations in Galicia, and the unions formed in the former Prussian
territory in connection with the movement then developing in Germany
were the only agricultural workers' organisations in existence in Poland
before 1918. As many as five agricultural workers' unions were subsequently formed, the Social Democratic, National and Christian being
the most important.
The interests of the agricultural employers are represented not by
federations of employers of labour as such, but by general agricultural
associations, and these may be divided into two groups, that of the large
estate owners and t h a t of the independent farmers in general. The
following review will show t h a t in many parts of Poland the employers
are represented by several different organisations.
( 1 ) In the five central provinces agricultural employers are represented by the Landowners' Association (Warsaw).
(2) In the provinces of Poznan and Pomorze the Federation of
Agricultural Associations (Poznan) represents the independent Polish
farmers, while the Federation of Employers in German Agricultural
Undertakings (Poznan) and the Federation of Farmers in the Vistula
Valley represent German agricultural employers in Poznan and Pomorze
respectively.
(3) In the provinces of Lwow (Lemberg), StanislawówandTarnopol
the Federation of Landowners of the East-Galician Provinces (Lwow)
and the Federation of Galician Farmers (Lwow) represent respectively
the Christian and Jewish agricultural employers of the area.
(4) In the province of Krakow agricultural employers are represented by the Association of Landowners (Krakow).
(5) In the Eastern provinces of Wilno, Nowogrodek and Polesie
by the Federation of Landowners of the Frontier Provinces (Warsaw).
(6) In the province of Volhynia by the Federation of Landowners
(Luck).
While most of these organisations are content to be represented
by ad hoc delegates at negotiations concerning collective agreements,
the organisations in the five central provinces and in Poznan and
Pomorze have set up special departments for labour questions, and
maintain permanent delegations, which constitute a Committee of
Employers, for negotiations on agreements. These institutions are a
considerable aid to the uniform settlement of labour questions. Special
services of the Central Council of Landowners' Organisations, to which
all the above bodies are affiliated, have as their chief duty to assist in
the conclusion of collective agreements all over the country and to give
advice to various employers' organisations.
When the present Polish Republic was founded, the agricultural
population was in an extremely unsettled state, and with the first
months of independence came a dangerous strike among the agricultural
1
This includes only the former Grand Duchy of Poland and not the Eastern
Provinces, which were part of Russia proper until 1918.
— 52 —
workers. Popular land movements had taken place before the war,
and during the Revolution of 1905 widespread strikes had broken out in
Russian Poland. In October 1918 a strike occurred on certain estates
in t h e former Government of Lublin, and quickly spread over the whole
southern part of Congress Poland. This movement, which was encouraged by Communist agitation, compelled t h e Minister of Labour to send
into the strike area so-called Agricultural Delegates, whose duty it was
to a t t e m p t mediation on individual estates. The Delegates, following
the instructions of the Ministry of Labour, attempted to make
settlements for several estates a t once. Eventually their efforts
were successful and the strike ended. This was the beginning of
collective bargaining in Polish agriculture. It was considered necessary
to give the Delegates' work a statutory basis, and' on 28 March
1919 the Act concerning the settlement of collective disputes between
employers and workers in agriculture was passed. Additional provisions
became law on 1 August 1919 and 11 March 1921 1 . The Act 2 has two
objects: (1) to facilitate and ensure the conclusion of collective
agreements in agriculture ; (2) to provide for decisions in case of disputes
concerning the application and interpretation of such agreements (the
arbitration boards instituted by t h e Act function as labour tribunals
for agriculture, but have no power themselves to enforce their
decisions).
Collective disputes m a y be settled in three ways : (1) with t h e
assistance of the labour inspectorate, which was created by Order
of 3 J a n u a r y 1919; (2) by conciliation b o a r d s ; (3) by arbitration
boards. The conciliation boards established by the supplementary Act of 1 August 1919 are not of great importance, for the disputes
are usually either so inconsiderable t h a t the labour inspector can settle
them, or so serious that application must be made to an arbitration
board. The employers and workers are represented on the conciliation
and arbitration boards through their occupational organisations established in the district in question and registered in accordance with t h e
regulations. If there are no such organisations, the authorities arrange
for the direct election of employers' and workers' representatives. The
labour inspector may refer a dispute, on his own initiative, to conciliation,
but application by one of the parties and agreement in advance, by both
parties, to accept the award are necessary before the matter m a y be
brought before an arbitration board. The settlements made with t h e
aid of t h e conciliation board and awards issued by the arbitration
board are binding for the period laid down in the collective agreement
or in the award, but in no case for longer than one year.
The regulation of wages and conditions of employment made by
means of such a settlement or award is binding on all agricultural
employers and workers in t h e district concerned ; individual contracts
which contain conditions less favourable to the workers are invalid.
The Act thus ignores the comparative importance of the occupational
organisations which conclude agreements by means of the machinery
it sets up, and its insistence on t h e generally binding force of all agreements so concluded is its most essential feature. It has become t h e
universal practice for the public authorities to collaborate in the drafting
of collective agreements ; the labour inspector invites the parties in
good time to a meeting to negotiate on the renewal of the agreement,
which is then concluded either with the aid of a conciliation board or
1
2
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE : Legislative Series, 1921, Pol. 2.
The text of 1921 was amended by the Act of 25 February 1930, but the
alterations affect only the duties of the arbitration boards as agricultural tribunals.
— 53 —
by the decision of an arbitration board, and is therefore binding on all
agricultural employers and workers in the district.
In t h e early part of 1919 large numbers of collective agreements,
based on the legislation of that year, came into existence in the provinces
of Poznan, Warsaw, Kielce, Lublin and Bialystok, and in 1919
occupational association was so far advanced t h a t it was possible to
conclude an agreement for the whole of Congress Poland. In December
of t h a t year representatives of the central committees of the employers'
and workers' organisations m e t for t h e first time t o discuss this
possibility. The Act of 1919 had prescribed district collective agreements, so t h a t only these could be given binding force ; and the central
committees had therefore to undertake to induce their district committees
to ratify t h e general agreement. This was speedily and easily done
and the agreement remained in force until t h e end of March 1921.
In t h a t year the employers' organisations of the five central provinces
refused t o negotiate with the workers' unions on account of the latter's
alleged Communist attitude.
The Act of 1919, which does not provide for the issue of a binding
award by t h e authorities, was not sufficient to meet t h e emergency,
and t h e Government was compelled to introduce new legislation. The
old Act, which was valid for a year and applied only to Congress Poland,
was renewed several times and extended in 1922 to Galicia ; b u t finally
in July 1924 a new Act was passed with unlimited temporal validity
and applying to the whole of Poland except Upper Silesia 1 . The Minister
of Labour and Social Welfare is hereby empowered to convene a special
arbitration board in cases in which it is impossible to settle a collective
dispute in agriculture by t h e procedure prescribed in t h e Act of 1919,
or if the parties refuse to submit voluntarily to the arbitration board
to which they appealed. The Minister appoints t h e chairman of t h e
board, on which the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands, the Ministry
of Justice and the organisations of agricultural employers and workers
are also represented. If t h e parties refuse to appoint representatives,
the latter are no longer elected, and t h e board then consists only of t h e
three Government representatives. The board lays down the conditions
under which contracts of employment may be concluded in agriculture,
and its decisions are binding for not more than one year. If, after a
decision by this special board, a collective agreement is concluded b y
friendly negotiation between employers and workers, its provisions are
substituted for the relevant decisions of t h e board.
The Act makes it possible for t h e authorities to intervene in cases
where t h e workers are not organised — where, for instance, a dispute
has arisen between t h e workers on a single estate and t h e employer,
or where a collective demand for higher wages is made b y workers not
supported by an organisation ; it has thus enabled collective agreements
to spread in areas where the workers were comparatively poorly organised. On t h e other hand, in the opinion of the workers it has prevented
them from using their advantage to t h e full where their organisations
are strongest.
In 1922 collective agreements
for Congress Poland were again
voluntarily concluded, and in t h e same year t h e first agreement for
Pomorze was made. Collective bargaining then spread over the whole
country, and by 1927 every province had its agreement. The instability
of the currency, however, made it extremely difficult to regulate wages,
1
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR »OFFICE : Legislative
Series,
1924, Pol. 4.
— 54 —
and 1925 saw the third strike in the history of collective bargaining in
Polish agriculture. It was not of long duration, for the majority of the
workers did not take part, and its result was a slight improvement in
conditions of employment, though many of the strikers were dismissed
at the end of the year. In the last few years collective agreements have
been concluded in Poznan and Pomorze only by means of binding
arbitration awards.
Collective agreements are in principle valid for all agricultural
undertakings, but in practice they apply mostly to the larger estates.
The statistics of 1920 show t h a t there were then 16,713 large estates
(i.e. estates of a total area of more t h a n 50 hectares — about 125 acres)
in Poland, employing 620,000 workers in all ; in view of these figures,
the following table will give an idea of the extent of collective bargaining
in such undertakings 1 :
Year
Number of
undertakings
Total area
(hectares)
Number of workers
employed
1920-1921
1921-1922
1922-1923
1923-1924
1927-1928
1928-1929
1929-1930
5,917
10,717
12,121
13,652
16,873
16,873
16,873
2,878,278
4,447,543
5,236,783
6,314,598
9,765,706
9,765,706
9,765,706
122,517
318,825
396,414
412,832
520,365
454,318
520,365
The agreements are in most cases valid for several provinces, the
geographical arrangement corresponding with t h a t of the employers'
organisations outlined above.
SWEDEN
By 1904 the trade union movement was strong enough among
agricultural workers in Scania to compel organisation on the part of the
employers and to force through the first collective agreements ; in many
cases the latter process was only completed after long and stubborn
conflicts, for the employers refused to accept the principle of the collective
regulation of conditions of employment. The pre-war movement reached its zenith in 1908, when the conditions of some 2,000 workers in
ninety undertakings were regulated by collective agreements. In t h a t
year the local employers' associations, which had by t h a t time appeared
in several provinces, formed a central organisation entitled the Representative Committee of the Swedish Agricultural Employers' Associations ; in 1910 this body had 1,800 members, farming 215,000 hectares
(about 550,000 acres) of arable land and employing 26,000 workers.
Subsequently, however, the union movement among the agricultural
workers suffered a decline. Better wages having been obtained, interest
was lost. The Swedish Union of Agricultural Workers, which was
founded in 1907, wasted its strength in two serious local conflicts and in
the general strike of 1909. The trade unions lost nearly all their
1
Zarzad GLOWNY : Sprawozdanie
Z dzialalnosci
Zwiazki
Zawodoweqo
Robolnikow Rolnych Rzeczypospolilej Polskiej 1919-1928, p. 65. Warsaw, 1929.
— 55 —
importance, and collective agreements again ceased to exist. It was
not until 1918 that the unions were reorganised and again obtained a
considerable membership. The employers' central body was extended
and put on a firmer basis in 1920, when it was transformed into the
Central Federation of Swedish Agricultural Employers. It has now
twelve local sections, with 1,100 members cultivating 160,225 hectares
of land. There is also a provincial employers' organisation, which is
not affiliated to the Central Federation. Since 1912 the latter has been
represented on a joint committee of the General Federation of Employers'
Associations and some other employers' organisations not affiliated to it.
In the early summer of 1919 the agricultural workers of several
districts made proposals to employers on the subject of collective
agreements, and, since the employers of Uppland did not seem disposed
to negotiate, the workers of that province went on strike. Similar
strikes being imminent in other parts of the country, it was considered
necessary to nominate a State conciliation board, the authorities only
undertaking mediation on the condition that both the parties accepted
the principle of the collective regulation of conditions of employment.
The workers naturally agreed. The employers followed suit, work was
recommenced, and negotiations lasting for three weeks led to the
conclusion of a national agreement providing for general rules for the
regulation of wages and other conditions of employment, and of local
agreements settling wage rates and hours of work in detail. The national
agreement was to run for three years, the local agreements — which
applied to eight provinces in 1919 — for one year only. However, the
workers were not satisfied with the conditions; and in the summer of
1920 fresh local strikes broke out, in some cases in violation of existing
agreements. Once more a State conciliation board was set up, and
on this occasion local agreements were entered into in nine provinces,
estate agreements being concluded in others. While the local
agreements of 1919 provided that the hours of work hitherto in force
should be maintained and only prescribed that in the summer work
should not continue after 6 p.m. on Saturday evenings, those of 1920
fixed the daily hours for the different months of the year1.
In the autumn of 1924 attempts to renew the various agreements
ended in failure and the Agricultural Workers' Union called strikes
in Scania, the Malar Provinces and Ostergotland which lasted until
January and February 1925. New agreements were then concluded.
On the other hand the workers in Uppland who were organised in a
provincial union not affiliated to the National Landworkers' Union,
stayed at work despite the expiration of their agreement and did not go
on strike until July ; this dispute, affected from 2,500 to 3,000
workers, but only lasted for a short time, and in August a fresh agreement was made. September 1925 saw the conclusion of a new national
agreement with three years' validity, and this was subsequently renewed
and is still in force. It regulates hours of work, although these vary
with the provinces, and wage rates are thus now the only matter regulated by the local agreements. These too have been annually renewed
since 1925, so that Swedish agriculture has been under unchanged
conditions for the last seven years2.
However, the principle of collective bargaining in agriculture, which
is a recurring source of dispute in practically every country, has again
1
Sodala Meddelanden, 1919, pp. 638-645, and 1921, pp. 5-8. Stockholm,
1919-1921.
2
In the summer of 1932 both parties denounced the local agreements, claiming modifications of the wage rates.
— 56 —
been a cause of conflict in Sweden. An attempt on the part of the Swedish
Landworkers' Union to introduce a collective agreement into the Södra
More district in July 1929 was met with stubborn resistance on the part
of the farmers. The workers therefore called a strike, which lasted for
nearly two years. The conflict became extremely violent and though
it directly affected only a small number of undertakings its peculiar
character caused considerable feeling. A special State conciliation
board attempted in vain to make a settlement in 1929, and it was not
until August 1931 that the strike could be brought to an end. The
arrangement made between the workers' union and the farmers affected
by the strike provided that all belligerent action was to cease at once ;
that the strikebreaking workers were to remain in their employment ;
that twelve married strikers were to be reinstated ; that a joint committee
was to set about finding work for the other strikers 1 ; and that negotiations concerning arrangements and terms were to be carried out voluntarily by employers and workers. A further clause provided that hours of
work, procedure in case of sickness, etc., were to remain as before the
strike. The principal object of this arrangement was undoubtedly
to end the dispute. Although this agreement does not fulfil the conditions
laid down by the legislation on collective bargaining, in respect of the
agreements covered by its provisions, the labour tribunal, in a decision
given in June 1932, stated that it was impossible to deny that the
agreement in question partook, in a certain measure, of the character
of a collective agreement. It is in any case an interesting incident in
the history of agricultural collective bargaining, and shows how firmly
some agricultural employers are convinced that they are bound to
oppose that principle.
The following table shows the number of strikes and lock-outs which
have occurred in Swedish agriculture since the war :
Number affected
Employers
Workers
Year
Strikes and
lock-outs
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
10
14
13
12
400
237
18
15
7,824
4,985
767
671
6
3
6
6
9
8
8
205
170
6
6
37
44
178
3,090
• 3,080
170
92
327
398
726
There are at the moment some ten local agreements connected with
the national agreement ; the latter is only valid in conjunction with such
local agreements, but the provincial agricultural federations are not
formally obliged to conclude collective agreements. If they d so, the
agreements must be submitted to the central organisation for examination,
1
The total number of strikers was about eighty.
— 57 —
and are not valid without its approval. Officials of the central organisation are in practice present at all negotiations, and the requisite uniformity in the contents of the agreements is thus achieved without great
difficulty. The independent provincial employers' federation has also
used the national agreement as a basis for its arrangements with the
workers' union. Some 800 employers and 15,000 workers — i.e. about
one-seventh of those engaged on farms with more than 100 hectares of
land — are directly affected by collective agreements 1 . Besides the
provincial agreements, estate agreements are also conducted with
individual employers, in some districts very widely, but collective
bargaining is limited to central and southern Sweden, small holdings
being the only form of agriculture to be met with in the north 2 .
1
According to data supplied by the Swedish Social Board there are eighty
agreements in agriculture and the fishing industry in Sweden, and these concern
934 employers and 16,706 workers.
2
Sodala Meddelanden, 1929, pp. 982-85. Stockholm, 1929.
CHAPTER II
CONTENTS OF AGRICULTURAL COLLECTIVE
AGREEMENTS
I
Scope of the Contents of Agricultural Collective Agreements
The aim of agricultural collective agreements is to bring
about collective regulation of the conditions of employment
of agricultural workers, and since the agreements are the
fruit of trade union effort, it may be assumed that the aims
envisaged include an actual improvement in conditions.
However, the degree to which such regulation can be carried
through, and the net result which may be gained thereby,
depend on more than one factor.
The decisive factors are naturally the strength of the trade
unions and the opposition displayed from the employer's
side to collective agreements as a whole and to their individual
provisions. Further, in Scotland and Pomerania the agricultural
unions have to content themselves with a very simple regulation
of wage rates and hours of work. Thirdly, the contents
of collective agreements depend upon the actual existing
organisation of labour in agriculture ; for only on the basis of
such existing organisation has it been possible to establish a
collective system of regulation. Hence, the contents of collective
agreements do not always represent the desires of the
agricultural workers. The agreements regulate many practices
which the workers look upon as out of date, and consequently
demand their abolition or replacement. Among the most
important of such practices are those inherent in and indeed
peculiar to agricultural work. For instance, most of the
agricultural trade unions, although on this point there is not
absolute uniformity, aim at abolishing wages in kind wherever
— 59 —
this is possible. Another example is furnished by the dwelling
and the plot of land that the worker receives as part of his
wages. By this arrangement he is the tenant and the employer
the landlord, and, consequently, any question, involved in
a landlord-and-tenant relationship can arise between employer
and worker, and indeed assume a special character owing
to its close connection with conditions of employment.
The
aim of the worker is to separate this existing relationship
from employment conditions and convert it into a purely
landlord-and-tenant relationship. The agricultural unions are
also attempting to abolish the "Hofgänger" system and the
obligation of the agricultural worker's family to work for the
employer.
But only gradually and to a certain extent have collective
agreements been able to contribute to the transformation of this
state of affairs into something more modern. Hitherto, the
workers have often been compelled to accept a provisional regulation of questions in collective agreements. The historical background of present conditions in agriculture in various districts
will, for a long time to come, be reflected in the contents of
agricultural collective agreements, and in general retard
wished-for improvements.
Finally, the contents of agricultural collective agreements
are partly conditioned by the social legislation for agricultural
workers. The lack of social legislation for agricultural workers
in Poland, more than the strength of the agricultural unions,
contributed to the fullness of the contents of Polish collective
agreements. The Italian legislation, which makes approval
of collective agreements dependent upon acceptance of a
whole series of conditions, naturally exercises a great influence
on the contents of such agreements. Owing to these circumstances alone, partly legal, partly practical, the contents
of the many agreements now in force are extremely diverse.
Any attempt to survey the contents of agreements is further
made difficult by their diversity of structure. From district
to district, even if the districts are adjoining, collective agreements disclose wide differences both as regards general structure
and the terms of the individual provisions. Even the two
Austrian collective agreements, for Lower Austria and Burgen land respectively, which were drawn up by the same parties
on either side, vary widely both in their structure and their
contents.
— 60 —
From the structural point of view, agricultural collective
agreements assume countless forms. Some agreements begin
with questions with which others end ; some treat a question as an
independent matter, others as an exception to a general rule ;
others again fix the working conditions of the general body of
agricultural workers by means of special rules for certain
classes of workers, or even for each class quite separately,
so that actually the collective agreement consists of several
agreements applying respectively to the various classes of
workers. This is the form taken by collective agreements
in Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. 1
Even the separate questions are very variously dealt with ;
regulation of hours of work, for example, generally constitutes a
separate Article of the agreement. On the other hand, provisions concerning overtime are frequently contained in the
wages agreement. Again, breaks for workers in the employer's
household are regulated in still another Article. True, most
collective agreements deal with holidays as a separate matter,
but, here again, in some of them holidays are an exception to
the general rule that only time actually worked is paid for.
The same may be said of the way in which the workers'
rights in the case of illness are dealt with.
Some collective agreements go into great detail and are
carefully framed ; but others are too short, so that it is difficult
for outsiders to appreciate the exact meaning of the provisions.
For instance, the provisions regulating the most important
item in a collective agreement, namely wage rates, vary from
simple stipulations that the worker shall be boarded and
lodged and receive a monthly or yearly wage in cash, to comprehensive provisions concerning hourly rates of pay, piece rates,
payment for overtime and Sunday work, extra allowances
for special work, regulation of wages in kind including quality,
calculation of wages, calculation of journeys to the workplace,
method of paying wages, etc. In this respect many agricultural agreements are hardly less complicated than industrial
agreements.
These variations are explained to some extent in the local
origin of collective agreements, which are influenced by local
manners and customs, and by the whole organisation of
agriculture and its attitude to the collective regulation of
1
In Italy, certain social welfare questions affecting agricultural workers are
regulated by special agreements between the employers' and workers' associations.
— 61 —
working conditions. Here t h e decisive factor is whether the
contracting parties desire to frame an agreement as comprehensive as possible or as brief as possible. The local origin of
agreements also makes it clear t h a t a question is often settled
in quite different ways because it is considered from quite
different standpoints. Of t h e m a n y theoretical aspects of
a labour problem, here one and there another has been given
pre-eminence and so has conditioned the settlement.
There are, for example, provisions ensuring compensation
for holidays n o t taken, so as n o t to give t h e employer any
interest in refusing holidays. B u t there are also provisions
ruling out such compensation so as not to make it possible
for the worker to derive any financial advantage from his
holidays.
Working conditions in agriculture and accordingly the
contents of collective agreements m u s t necessarily depend
upon the stage of economic development attained. This
is also true of social legislation. B u t it is the very aim of
social legislation to establish certain minimum conditions by
freeing working conditions from economic limitations and
their a t t e n d a n t fluctuations, and by establishing a fixed basis
to the extent t h a t this is possible. The purpose of the present
enquiry is to examine to w h a t extent agricultural collective
agreements contain provisions which afford the workers protection either in the place of or supplementing statutory protection, and which, in view of their unaltered character from year
to year, represent such a degree of independence from economic
conditions t h a t they may rightly be considered as a provisional
substitute for statutory provisions.
Looked a t from this angle, the question of the regulation
of wage rates by agricultural collective agreements loses its
importance for the purpose in view. S t a t u t o r y regulation
of wage rates in agriculture comes into consideration only
where there is some doubt as to whether wages are falling or
t h r e a t e n to fall below a certain minimum, considered b y society
as a whole as essential to the bare existence of agricultural
workers. In England the question of a minimum wage in
agriculture has been settled by the creation of an official agricultural wages committee in each county. The workers of some
other countries are unanimous in thinking t h a t some such regulation is desirable. So far the general body of organised agricultural
workers has opposed such a solution, and has taken the view
— •62 —
that wages should be settled on purely economic lines, through
collective agreements 1 . The Draft Convention on the creation
of minimum-wage-fixing machinery, adopted by the International Labour Conference at its Eleventh Session in 1928,
and the Recommendation concerning the application of this
machinery, do not extend to agriculture. Actual conditions
have hitherto been such that the question whether collective
agreements can provisionally make good any deficiencies in
legislation as regards minimum wages in agriculture cannot
arise in practice, although continuation of the present depression
may completely alter matters. Consequently, for the purposes
of this report, it will not be necessary to go into the question
of regulation of wages by agricultural collective agreements.
The following section will deal with such provisions
of collective agreements as fall within the domain of general
social legislation, consideration being given to their form,
frequency and permanency.
In this connection attention
will be paid only to such provisions as recur more or less generally
in collective agreements.
Isolated and special provisions
of agricultural agreements will not be mentioned, although
they are often not devoid of interest in that they suddenly flash a
light, as it were, on a social problem that otherwise would
remain unnoticed.
Before turning to the individual provisions of agricultural
agreements, consideration must be given to another question.
The importance of the system of regulation embodied in collective
agreements depends not only on their area of application but
also on the classes of workers covered. It is naturally outside
the task of a trade union to concern itself with the working
conditions of unorganised workers2. In practice, however, the
beneficiaries of a collective agreement do not always coincide
with the organised workers. The employer is usually not in a
position to discriminate between organised' and unorganised
workers. On the other hand, certain classes of workers
be may affiliated to a union without its being possible on this
1
In Italy conditions are somewhat different, because the Charter of Labour
states that the adjustment of wages to the normal requirements of life, the
possibilities of production and the output of labour shall be ensured by means
of trade association action, the conciliation work of corporative organs and the
awards of the labour courts. A Decree of 1928 stated that the fixation of minimum
wage rates is a compulsory function of collective agreements.
2
In Italy, the occupational organisations represent all workers, both organised
and unorganised.
— 63 —
account to pay regard to their special circumstances in the
collective agreement.
Estate officials and other salaried employees, who in several
States have their own organisations, are usually not covered
by the collective agreements here examined ; but apart from this,
these agreements mostly group all categories of agricultural
workers, though exceptions exist.
In Italy, the relations
between land proprietors and share farmers and other small
tenants are regulated collectively.
In Germany separate agreements are often concluded for
special classes of workers, such as farm handicraftsmen and
milkers. Hence, other agreements exclude these classes. In
Poland the collective agreements do not apply to agricultural
casual workers. Particularly important is the position of workers
in the employer's household. Usually this class is covered by
agreements. There are, however, special agreements for agricultural domestic servants. In Czechoslovakia the guiding principles
provide that special rules shall be drawn up for domestic servants ;
but no agreements on this point have so far been concluded.
. With regard to age, too, the scope of collective agreements
is sometimes limited. In no case do they cover child work properly
so called, but in the German collective agreements there are
special wage rates for juvenile workers and these are explicitly included in the scope of the agreement. Only in Sweden
are workers under eighteen years of age totally excluded from
collective agreements.
What is the significance of the fact that some classes of
workers are not covered by collective agreements, or, if they
are, that their working conditions are incompletely regulated ?
It might be expected that such classes would be preferred by
employers and, in some countries, this is actually thought to be the
case. The Austrian Agricultural Workers' Union claims to have
proved that some undertakings employ large numbers of socalled independent day labourers who receive no députât,
and whose wages were not originally regulated by collective
agreement. The Union later succeeded in incorporating
provisions concerning the working conditions of these classes
in the agreement. Consequently, the matter would not appear
to be of any great practical importance. From certain German
districts, it is reported that a similar state of affairs is to be found.
Such districts, however, are scattered among others where
the practice in question is inexistent. Where the employer
— 64 —
does follow it, he usually replaces fully qualified workers by
juveniles and married workers by domestic servants. It is
reported from Schleswig-Holstein that since wages for married
workers have increased, juveniles are being substituted for
them. It is likewise reported from Poland that the employers
are trying to find cheaper labour.
This example shows how important it is that collective
regulations in agriculture should embrace as many classes as
possible of agricultural workers.
II
Items in the Contents of Agricultural Collective Agreements
1.
HOURS OF WORK
Economic Importance of the Regulation of Hours of Work
Every one of the agricultural collective agreements which
come within the scope of this report contains some regulation,
simple or detailed, of hours of work. Four States have, in
addition, passed legislation on the subject, thus fixing a limit
above which independent negotiation may not go. In some
cases the collective agreements merely refer to this statutory
regulation or incorporate it in their own text, while in others
they supplement it by going into greater detail. In general,
however, the terms of collective agreements are more favourable to the workers than the statutory regulations.
In another of its publications 1 the International Labour
Office has made an exhaustive review of the statutory regulation
of hours of work in agriculture and also discussed the treatment
of the subject in collective agreements ; the principal purpose
of the present Chapter is to show what are the different ways
in which this regulation can be effected and the relation of
provisions on hours to the other parts of agreements.
Agricultural workers desire shorter hours and object in
particular to an over-long working day. The German agricultural labour movement, for instance, aims at establishing
1
" The Present Regulation of Working Hours in Agriculture ", International
Labour Review, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Jan. 1932. p. 79.
— 65 —
the ten-hour day as a maximum. Where the worker has his
own piece of land or livestock to attend to, he is especially
interested in shortening the working day, even if this entails
lower earnings. But the limitation of hours of work is often
merely a question of wages ; when normal hours are exceeded
overtime must be paid at higher rates and the worker's earning
capacity is thus greater. It is a fact recognised by the workers
themselves that many whose usual earnings are small voluntarily offer to do overtime. This reduces the hours of work
question to one of wages only.
The connection between hours and wages is perhaps most
clearly displayed in the working of the British Agricultural Wages
(Regulation) Act of 19241. This Act provides for the establishment of an agricultural wages committee in each county or combination of counties in England and Wales to fix minimum rates
of wages for workers employed in agriculture : " Any such
minimum rates may be fixed by a committee so as to apply
universally to all workers employed in agriculture in the county
for which the committee act, or to any special class of workers so
employed, or to any special area in the county, or to any special
class in a special area, . . . and so as to vary according as the
employment is for a day, week, month, or other period, or according to the number of working hours, or the conditions of the
employment, or so as to provide for a differential rate in the
case of overtime. In the exercise of their powers under this
subsection, the committee shall,so far as is reasonably practicable,
secure a weekly half-holiday for workers." In practice, all
the committees have fixed weekly wage rates for male workers
and laid down the number of working hours per week on which
the rates are based. Any time worked beyond this number
must be paid for at overtime rates. Women workers are usually
paid by the hour, and it is therefore less necessary in their case
to fix normal hours of work.
During the period between the first application of this Act
and September 1930, wages and other working conditions (the
latter in so far as they are indirectly settled by the committees)
were comparatively stable and any alterations tended to benefit
the workers ; but owing to the steadily increasing gravity of
the agricultural depression the committees have latterly had
to deal with employers' demands for wage reductions. In most
1
In Legislative
Series,
1924, G.B. 5.
5
— 66 —
cases the committees, instead of reducing the minimum rates,
have merely increased the number of hours to be worked for the
weekly wage, and have thus enabled the employers to save on
overtime pay. Between October 1930 and September 1931 nine
of the forty-eight committees increased the number of working
hours and four reduced the minimum wage rate, while one
committee both lowered wages and lengthened working
time.
All agricultural collective agreements proper regulate payment for hours of overtime, but in no case do they limit the
number of such hours. The influence of regulation on the
actual time worked therefore depends very largely on the amount
by which the overtime rate differs from the normal rate of pay.
In the earliest collective agreements the supplement for overtime
was usually very high, but there has since been a tendency to
reduce it.
The economic effect of regulating hours appears also in
another way. The number of hours per year prescribed in a
collective agreement may be taken not only as the maximum
which must be worked in exchange for the normal wage, but also
as the minimum for which the workers are entitled to remuneration. The difficulties which may here arise will be due to the
long contracts customary in agriculture and to the methods
of remuneration. A worker engaged for a year puts his
labour at the disposal of his employer for that period,
and the provisions on the length of the working day decide
the number of hours during which he may be called upon
to work. If more is required of him, more must be paid. The
regulation of hours of work has usually no further significance,
since the worker is likely to be employed up to the maximum,
first because of the general shortage of agricultural labour, and
secondly because there is always work to do on a farm. Indeed,
provisions which appeared in the first German collective agreements show that the prescribed hours were regarded by the
employers as an absolute minimum, the workers being in many
cases obliged to do as many as 200 so-called emergency hours
in the year over and above the regulation time. Provisions on
emergency work have since totally disappeared from collective
agreements, with the result that in some cases the actual
time worked has decreased, while in others the emergency
hours have been added to and included in the regulation
time.
— 67 —
It now sometimes occurs that the latter is not fully utilised —
a well-run farm, for instance, often does not require a ten-hour
day in summer ; nine and a half hours suffice. Such reduction
is very popular among the workers ; but if in a time of depression
the employers incline to economise on labour and, above all
in winter, do not make full use of the workers in their employment, the] latter may find themselves in a difficult situation,
for their cash wages in winter are in any case on the low side
by reason of the shorter regulation hours. Further decrease
or the suppression of whole days of work may entail such a
reduction in earnings that the workers begin to wonder whether
after all they cannot claim full occupation for the number of
hours mentioned in their agreements. The question is so new
that its legal aspect is not yet clear ; but an attempt has been
made in certain German agricultural collective agreements not
simply to limit normal hours of work, but also to guarantee a
minimum of occupied hours to workers with long contracts.
The collective agreement for Kurhessen explicitly provides
that the working year is equivalent to 2,800 hours of duty
(Pflichtstunden), a term which is so interpreted that the employer
is obliged to pay workers engaged by the year for that number
of hours. A district agreement in Pomerania obliges employers
to provide work during the whole year for workers engaged by
the year, and in several parts of the Province of Saxony an eighthour day is prescribed as a minimum. Another Pomeranian
district agreement provides that, as far as possible, not less
than eight hours shall be worked daily between 1 December and
28 February. The Bavarian covering agreement lays down that
the average working time over a period of four months shall
not be less than eight hours per day, and that, if for several
days together the daily hours of work are to be shorter than
those prescribed in the agreement, the workers are to be
informed of the fact in sufficient time for hardship to be
prevented. One of the district agreements in the Free State
of Saxony provides that workers who put the whole of their
labour at the disposal of their employer must be given occupation if they require it.
Other agreements take the contrary view and state that only
the hours actually worked are to be paid for. If an agreement
contains no provision on this point, ambiguity arises and the
solution will probably have to take account of the method of
payment in the district. In northern and eastern Germany
— 68 —
payment in kind (the députât) is given for the whole year,
whatever work is actually done ; in the south and west, where
it is incidentally of much smaller importance, it is correspondingly
reduced if the working time prescribed in the agreement is
not fully occupied.
In the opinion of the Federal Union of Agricultural and
Forestry Employers' Associations the number of hours prescribed
in a collective agreement is as a rule the maximum which may
be required by the employer, and can only be regarded as the
minimum during which the worker is entitled to occupation if
this is explicitly provided for. The collective agreement for
Silesia gives 2,856 hours as the annual working time at
normal rates, and it is assumed that the employer is not obliged to provide work for all the agreed hours, nor the worker
entitled to claim payment for those in which he is not occupied1.
This opinion is not shared by the workers, who maintain that
in the case of agreements for a year or an unspecified period the
worker has the right to payment for the regulation number of
hours whether or not he is given work to do. It is of course
easy to draft the provisions concerning hours of work in such a
way that the question does not arise, but this does not cause
the problem to disappear. If agricultural workers are not
occupied for a sufficient number of hours, their position becomes
economically impossible ; they need not only protection against
excessive hours but also a guarantee of permanent occupation,
unless agricultural work is to develop into seasonal employment
with correspondingly higher remuneration.
Ways of Regulating Hours of Work
The practical value of the regulation of hours of work in
agriculture naturally depends on the way in which this regulation
is arranged, and particularly, as far as the workers are concerned,
on the distribution of the annual working time over the various
seasons of the year. The greater the difference between the
length of the working day in summer and in winter, i.e. the
more closely the regulation follows natural conditions, the
smaller is the advantage obtained from it by the workers ;
on the other hand, the closer the working day approaches the
1
FEIGE : Schriftenreihe des betriebswirtschaftlichen Aasschusses beim land- und
forstwirtschaftlichen Arbeitgeberverband für die Provinz Schlesien, Vol. 9, p. 44.
— 69 —
average over the year, the more easily will regulation achieve
its object. Provisions on the calculation of working time,
the jobs to be done before and after regulation hours, and the
extent to which journey time is to be included are also of importance ; and among the most decisive of all is the question of time
spent in tending livestock, for on this depends the possibility
of regulating hours on peasant and other small farms.
With the exception of arrangements for certain categories
of workers, which will be discussed later, the regulation of hours
of work in agriculture by collective agreement is direct — that
is, the number of hours to be worked at the ordinary wage rate
is exactly fixed either for the whole year or per day for a specified
period ; in the latter case the average or the maximum day
may be prescribed. In Czechoslovakia and Italy the statutory
eight-hour day applies to agriculture as well as to other
industries, and, as far as hours of work are concerned, collective
agreements do little more than give effect to this principle with
the exceptions allowed. Conditions in these two countries
will be discussed separately. Of the other countries with which
this report deals, it may be said that collective agreements are
the decisive factor in the regulation of hours of work.
Austrian and German legislation has very little to say on
hours. The Agricultural Labour Codes of Burgenland and
Lower Austria merely lay down that working time is to average
ten hours per day over the whole year. The German statutory
regulations are fuller — section 3 of the Provisional Agricultural
Labour Code provides that the maximum daily hours of work
shall average eight over four months, and ten over four months,
and be eleven for the remaining four months, but it must be
remembered that the Provisional Code was originally a collective
agreement ; and the daily maximum of eleven hours for four
months — not simply an average as during the other periods —
is so high that in most cases a collective regulation is more
advantageous to the workers. In the winter, working days
of less than eight hours may be agreed if occasion demands,
though the Committee of the German Agricultural Workers'
Union objects to the inclusion of such arrangements in collective
agreements, as occurs in some districts, and regards them as
contrary to the terms of the Provisional Code. The actual
text of the Code hardly lends itself to the objection of the Union,
which is prompted by the desire to limit the span between working hours in summer and in winter. It is also frequently stated
— 70 —
that hours of work in agriculture in Germany are fixed by
law at 2,900 in the year. This figure is reached by reckoning
twenty-five working days to the month and multiplying by eight,
ten and eleven respectively for the three four-month periods prescribed in the Provisional Code. The figure is not to be found
in the Code itself, and an exact calculation based on the calendar
gives a somewhat larger number of hours ; when, therefore,
collective agreements prescribe this figure and refer at the
same time to the Provisional Code, as some do, there is ambiguity
unless the text of the agreement explicitly states that this number
of hours per annum may not be exceeded.
Methods of regulating working hours by collective agreement, additional to statutory provisions, are as follows in
Austria and Germany. The German agricultural collective
agreements are instances of the simplest method of regulating
hours of work. A number of agreements merely fix a total of
2,900 hours per annum ; in various agreements for the Marches
the figure is 2,800, while others go as low as 2,700. The distribution over the months of the year is left either to local subsidiary
agreements (covering agreement for Anhalt and the Province
of Saxony, for instance), to estate agreements, or simply to
the employer. In such cases the length of the working day is
only limited by the maximum of eleven hours laid down in the
Provisional Code. Some of the agreements which regulate
hours of work by fixing a total for the whole year also provide
maxima and minima for the day. The Silesian collective agreement, for instance, provides that 2,856 hours are to be worked
annually and that their distribution over the year is to be in the
hands of the employers unless district arrangements are made
on the subject ; but employers may require a ten and a half
hour day only during a period of four months, and this must
fall between 15 April and 30 September. The covering agreement for Anhalt and the Province of Saxony fixes the normal
annual hours of work for each district on the basis of 300 working
days in the year, and leaves it to the district joint labour
associations to regulate the distribution over the different months
The subsidiary agreement for the district of Jerichow, for
instance, lays down that the management of each undertaking
may make its own arrangements on the point, provided that
not more than'ten nor less than eight hours are worked on any
one day. In the Free State of Lippe the distribution of the 2,700
annual hours over the months may be settled by arrangement
— 71 —
with the workers or their s t a t u t o r y representatives, provided
t h a t not less t h a n seven hours per day are worked in the winter
nor more t h a n ten in the summer.
Other German agreements follow t h e Provisional Code and
fix either the absolute or the average length of the working
day for periods of a certain duration, b u t without indicating
when these periods are to fall. All these agreements divide
the year into three periods, each having a working day of
a different length. The periods are not bound to coincide with
calendar months or weeks, or to be continuous ; the four m o n t h s '
period of ten hours is usually divided into two sections between
the eight-hour and eleven-hour periods 1 .
Some of these agreements simply refer to the Provisional
Code or repeat its terms ; b u t most of t h e m contain a more
advantageous regulation for the workers, either by reducing
the number of months during which t h e eleven-hour day is to
be worked, or even by abolishing it, in which case ten hours
becomes the maximum. The following table gives an idea of
the various regulations :
Hours
per year
(25 working
days per
month)
Area covered by
agreement
Baden, Usedom-Wollin in
Pomerania
Wurtemberg and Bavaria
Anhalt
Erfurt
Brunswick
Saale district.
Dresden
Leipzig
Magdeburg
Bautzen
2,900
2,875
2,800
2,775
2,750
2,750
2,725
2,725
2,700
2,700
Number of months when
hours per day are
11
10
9
8
4
3
—
4
5
5
6
5
4
5
4
6
4
5
3
4
6
3
5
3
4
4
4
2
3
3
2
4
3
3
4
—
In all these cases the individual undertaking is allowed
considerable freedom in the distribution of t h e annual t o t a l
over the different months. Perhaps the agreement for Kurhessen
is the best illustration of the consideration given to individual
conditions. It provides t h a t the distribution of the 2,800 hours
1
MOLITOR, op. cit.,
p.
27.
— 72 —
of duty (Pflichtstunden) should be settled by the employer after
consultation with the workers' representatives, for instance
on the following lines : ten hours daily from 16 March to 15 November and eight hours daily from 16 November to 15 March ;
but adds that such regulations should not be applied rigidly,
but should be adapted to the particular nature of the undertaking, the early or late start of the crops, the climate and
essential seasonal work. In this way a seven-hour day may be
worked for a definite period (not on separate days) in the slack
season, and in the busy season, also for a fixed period, a ten-hour
day may be extended over more than its normal eight months
(speaking in terms of the above example) in compensation,
provided always that the grand total of 2,800 hours be not
exceeded ; but the shorter time worked during the eight-hour
period may only be compensated during that same period, and
not during the normal ten-hour period.
The regulation is more exact when the agreements themselves
determine the number of hours to be worked in each month.
Here there are great possibilities of variation. A few agreements provide for only two types of working day, while others —
obviously modelled on the Provisional Code — divide the year
into three sections, and determine also the number of hours to
be worked in each month. Others again contain a still more
detailed regulation, which may go so far as to make a difference
of four and a half hours between the summer and winter working
day — in East Prussia, for instance, an eleven-hour day is worked
in summer and a six and a half hour day in December and January
— so or as to provide for twelve or fourteen changes of daily hours
during the year. The changes usually take place at the beginning or in the middle of a month, but also occur at other dates,
and are commonest in the spring and autumn, when hours of
work do not remain the same for more than a fortnight together.
It is impossible to make an exhaustive survey of the stipulations
of this sort, and the following table merely gives some examples
of the simplest and of the most complicated of them :
— 73 —
District covered (hours per day)
Period
East Prussia SchleswigHolstein
Borde
Kurhessen
Hours per day
1 - 15
16 - 31
1-15
16 - 28
1 - 15
16 - 31
April
January
January
February
February
March
March
7
7
8
8%
9%
10
io y2
May
ii
June
July
August
1 - 15 September
16 - 30 September
1 - 1 5 October
16 - 31 October
1 - 1 5 November
16 - 30 November
December
ii .
ii
ii
io y2
10
10
9
8
8
6%
7
7%
8i/,
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
sy2
8%
7
8
8
8
8
9
9
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
9
9
8
8
8
8
8
8
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
8
8
In many cases the agreement permits the use of a different
method of distributing the annual hours than that which it
prescribes, if employers and workers agree on the subject and provided that the contractual number of hours per year is not exceeded.
Sometimes a limit is set to such rearrangement ; in one district
in Pomerania the employer may, with the consent of the workers'
statutory representatives, shorten working hours by half-an-hour
daily, but the hours thus carried over may not be worked off
on Saturdays nor between 1 April and 31 August. In another
district hours of work during December, January, and February
should, as far as possible, be not less that eight per day. In
many cases it is arranged that the workers may be employed
in one spell during the winter months if the employer so instructs,
and the result is often a slight shortening of hours for the workers.
In most of the German agreements it is left to the employer
to determine the daily time-table though in many cases he
must consult the workers on the subject ; but some contain
provisions concerning the length of the rest periods, and these
indirectly determine the limits within which work may be
performed.
— 74 —
A glance at the geographical distribution of the various
methods of regulating hours of work in German agriculture
so far described, shows that all over southern Germany — in
Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria and the Bhine country — and
in Hanover and nearly every district of the Free State of Saxony
the system defined in the Provisional Code is prevalent ; in
other parts of central Germany, too, the year is divided into three.
sections, though here the number of hours to be worked in the
different months is often given. Scattered over the centre and
in part of the east are to be found agreements which simply
prescribe the number of hours to be worked per annum and
leave the distribution to estate agreements or to the employers
alone. Agreements providing for working days of more than
three different lengths occur only in East Prussia, Pomerania,
Brandenburg, Silesia, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and SchleswigHolstein.
The largest number of hours per annum is worked in the
south and north of Germany, that is, in the markedly peasant
districts with difficult soil conditions, great fragmentation and
resulting unsatisfactory distribution of cultivations ; and in the
east with its large and less intensively cultivated estates. The
shortest hours occur in the Rhenish wine country, where one
agreement, for instance, provides for an eight-hour day, and in
the intensively cultivated estates of the centre. An eleven-hour
day is the normal only in south Germany and in East Prussia,
Pomerania and Brandenburg. In the last two provinces eleven
hours are even worked for more than four months in the year ;
this is made possible by the fact that the Provisional Code
prescribes only an average for the two periods of eight and
ten hours respectively and not a maximum as for the
eleven-hour period. For the rest of Germany the maximum day
is ten hours, except in two central German districts where it is
as Iowas nine and a half hours. The workers'organisations report
that the agreed ten-hour day is not fully exploited on many
of the large estates in the centre and that only nine and a half
hours are required.
The hours worked vary remarkably from district to district.
In Pomerania, one district may work 2,950 hours per annum
and another, bordering on it, only 2,850. In Brandenburg
the figure varies between 2,825 and 2,912, and in the Province
of Saxony between 2,750 and 2,848. This is all the more extraordinary in that a uniform system for large areas, such as is
— 75 —
to be found in other collective agreements, seems perfectly
practicable ; the same hours are, for instance, worked over all
Bavaria and over all Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
In the Austrian States of Lower Austria and Burgenland, too,
the agreements specify the exact distribution of hours of work
over the various seasons of the year, the length of the working
day changing three and four times respectively. The following
table shows the distribution in these two States :
Daily working hours
January - February . . .
March - April - May - June
July - August - September
October
November
December
jower Austria
Burgenland
8
10
10
10
9
8
8
10
11
10
9
8
The Burgenland Code is somewhat harder on the workers,
who have an eleven-hour day for three months of the year. In
Lower Austria, too, the workers are obliged, at the request of
the employer, to work an eleven-hour day from 15 July to
31 August without special remuneration, but in this case they
receive compensation in the shape of a corresponding shortening
in the winter. In Austrian agriculture wages are paid by the
day ; in both the States mentioned work stops at 12 noon on
Saturdays during two months of the winter without reduction
of wages. This arrangement brings the number of hours per
year down to 2,816 in Lower Austria and 2,875 in Burgenland —
figures well below those prescribed in the respective Agricultural
Labour Codes.
In the other countries which come within the scope of this
report the system is that of exact distribution of hours over the
seasons of the year and frequent change in the length of the working day. This is natural inDenmark and Sweden, whose northerly
position makes the day very long in summer and short in winter
and compresses agricultural processes into a comparatively
short period. This last circumstance is also of importance in
Poland with its markedly continental climate, and the fact that
the north and east are the only parts of Germany where such
— 76 —
detailed distribution is to be found is accounted for by similar
reasons.
In Sweden, the covering agreement for the whole country
regulates the hours of work in various provinces as shown
in the following table :
Scania
Province
of
Kalmar
V ârmland.
Uppland province
and
of Örebro, Province
province Ö stergo tof
of
land,
Vastman- Söderman- Elvsborg
land
land
Hours per day
January
1 - 15 February
1 6 - 2 8 February
1 - 1 5 March
16 - 31 March
1 - 15 April
1 6 - 3 0 April
May
June
July
August
September
1 - 15 October
16 - 31 October
1 - 15 November
16 - 30 November
December .
8
8
8
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
9
9
8
Total hours per year 1 2,700
8
8
8%
9
9%
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9%
9
8%
8
2,700
8
sy 2
8%
9
9
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
8
8
7%
2,650
8
8%
8%
9
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
8
8
'V,
2,650
8
8
8
9
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
8%
8%
7
2,650
After deduction of days of rest laid down in the agreements.
Individual employers are entitled to arrange with their
workers for a further hour per day during two months or halfan-hour during four months, but not during the months when the
ten-hour day is already in operation. In this way the annual
total may be increased by fifty hours, which must be paid for
at special rates fixed in local agreements. The employer is
entitled to fix the daily time-table, as a rule on condition that
the actual agricultural work does not normally begin before
7 a.m. or end after 7 p.m. (6 p.m. on Saturdays).
— 11 —
In Denmark, hours of work are uniformly regulated as follows:
Date
_ .
1 January - 28 February
1-15 March
16 - 31 March
1 April - 31 October
1 - 15 November
16 - 30 November
. 01 _,
1 - 31 December
Hours
no
. . . .
Between
o f
7.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.
8
> o r g 0Q a m a n d & Q0 p m
9
6.30 a.m. and 5.00 p.m.
9%
6.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m.
10
6.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m.
9
6.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m.
8y2
6.30 a.m. and 5.00 p.m.
f
7.30
a.m. and 4.30 p.m.
Q
8
Qp g 0 0 a m a n d 5 Q0 p m
The remarkable feature of this scheme is that it exactly
determines the hours at which work is to begin and end. Local
arrangements may be made to settle at what time breaks shall
be taken, but in no case prolong working hours. The midday
break lasts for at least one hour. During harvest the employer
is entitled to shift working hours so that they fall between
8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but only in order to carry out harvest operations in the best possible way. This shifting of hours can therefore take place only on days when either reaping or bringing
in crops is on hand, and only for a maximum of five weeks ;
if the harvest is finished before the expiration of the five weeks,
the rearrangement of hours must cease. Workers must as far
as possible be warned a day in advance. On days when
such rearrangement of hours is prevented, for example owing
to rain, work stops at the usual hour of 7 p.m.
In sugar
beet districts working time can — from 15 November to 1
December — be prolonged by half-an-hour, on condition that
a corresponding shortening of hours takes place in the first
half of January.
In Poland, the regulation of hours of work in the central
provinces serves as a model for other parts of the country. It
is very exactly worked out and determines the time at which
work shall begin and end and the length of breaks. The annual
working hours amount to 2,800, i.e. a daily average of nine
hours twenty minutes over the year. The difference between
hours of work in summer and winter is very great, at one point
as much as six and a half hours, the longest working day in
summer being almost twice as long as the shortest in winter.
The length of the working day changes three times in the month.
— 78 —
Working
day
Working
DD Midday Working hours AfiereooD
hours in Morn'
break break in the afternoon Break
the morning
Period
Hours
6%
8
9%
10
11 1 /*
IIV3
liVt
10%
10%
82/3
7 8 /4
614
a.m.
January
February
March
I
1-10
11-20
!
21-31
April
I
1-10
11-20
'
21-20
May
(
1-10
11-20
( 21-31
June
8-12
7.30-12
Hours
—
Hours
iy 2
1%
)
)
%
1%
( 1.30-6.40 )
] 1.30-7.00 [
' 1.30-7.20 1
%
6-12
%
1%
( 1.30-7.30 J
I 1.30-7.50 [
' 1.30-8.00 )
6-12
%
2
( 2.00-8.20 /
j 2.00-8.20 [
( 2.00-8.30 )
%
6-12
%
2
( 2.00-8.30 J
| 2.00-8.30 [
! 2.00-8.00 I
y2
6-12
%
2
( 2.00-7.50 )
I 2.00-7.30 |
' 2.00-7.00 1
y2
6-12
y2
1%
I 1.30-6.40 )
j 1.30-6.20 [
' 1.30-6.00 !
—
7-12
—
1%
7.30-12
8-12
—
—
lX/2
)
)
j 11-20 [
!
21-30 1
July
I
1-10 )
11-20
'
21-31 !
August
I
1-10 Ì
11-20
!
21-31 1
September
I
1-10 )
11-20
( 21-30 )
October
t
1-10 Ì
j
11-20
'
21-31 >
November
December
1.30-4.00
1.30-5.00
I 1.30-5.30 ]
j 1.30-6.00 |
( 1.30-6.30 )
/
7-12
Hours
1%
)
7-12
p.m.
1%
Í 1.30-5.30 )
| 1.30-5.20 [
' 1.30-4.50 )
1.30-4.50
1.30-3.45
—
—
—
On the whole the various stipulations on hours of work to
be found in agricultural collective agreements are respected,
although the smaller the undertaking is and the more the owner
shares in the work, the more frequently do departures from the
rules occur. Conformity with stipulated hours is naturally
less exact in agriculture than in industry ; and it is equally
natural that compliance with such a detailed regulation as the
Polish leaves something to be desired, for agricultural workers
— 79 —
in Poland are in a less favourable position than those in the
other countries where there are collective agreements, and their
organisations are weak in comparison with the number of workers
they represent. The somewhat unsatisfactory observance of
the agreements on hours of work in Poland has been explained
as follows. It is much more difficult to check what hours are
worked in agriculture than in industry, because a large proportion
of the workers are scattered over the fields, often far apart,
and because the variations in the length of the working day
make the agricultural worker less conscious of his rights. Noncompliance with the contractual time-table is most common
in summer ; being accustomed to start workat 5 a.m., the workers
tend to ignore the fact that the agreements prescribe 6 a.m. in
order to shorten working time ; habit is strong, and when the
employer calls on them to start at 5 a.m. in summer they
often do not like to stand on their rights and refuse. The
breaks and knocking-off hours are on the whole respected. The
time-table is usually so arranged that the latter hour coincides
with sunset and the worker is thus practically never obliged to
work overtime.
Methods of Calculation; Journey Time
In order to form an opinion on the value of agricultural
collective agreements in the regulation of hours of work it is
most important to know how working time is calculated and
when and where work begins and ends. All collective agreements assume that certain preparatory work, in particular the
tending of draught animals, e.g. their feeding, is excluded from
regular hours ; but it is rare for such work to be exactly defined.
Duties of this sort count neither as normal working time nor as
overtime, and are often unpaid. Most of the German agricultural collective agreements repeat the terms of the Provisional
Code to the effect that the time spent in looking after draught
animals, e.g. feeding them, is not to count as regular working
time. In Denmark, male farm servants are obliged to do halfan-hour's stable work before the regulation working time begins,
without extra remuneration ; if this work is done by workers
of other categories, special payment is given. In Sweden, the
workers are bound to attend to not more than three horses or
oxen and clean their stables before working hours. If this work
does not take up the time provided for it in the agreement, the
time saved can only be used for other work at special rates.
— 80 —
In Lower Austria, the collective agreements provide that a
driver's working time begins with the harnessing of the horses.
The calculation of journey time is of great importance in
agriculture. In districts with large estates, or where the land
is highly subdivided and the fields of a farm are widely scattered,
the time spent going to and from work is often considerable.
The various journeys may be grouped as follows :
(1)
between the farm and the place of work (a further
distinction must be made here between the morning
and evening journeys on the one hand and those at
midday on the other) ;
(2) between the worker's dwelling and the farm (with a
further distinction according as the worker lives in his
own dwelling or in one supplied by the employer).
Despite the complicated nature of the question, the collective
agreements which regulate it at all usually do so in a very
simple manner. In Poland, the time required by the worker
to cover the distance between his dwelling and his place
of work is included in working time. In Denmark, workers
may not knock off until the end of the normal working time,
even if employed in the fields, though drivers are permitted
to begin the journey back to the farm in time to have finished
not less than twenty minutes after the close of the normal working
time. In the Italian Province of Matera, the collective agreement
states that work starts and ends on the field only. When the
distance from the dwelling of the worker exceeds 4 kilometres
and conveyance is not furnished, every additional kilometre is
counted within the working hours. The time allowed for each
kilometre is fifteen minutes. Other agreements confine themselves to considering as actual hours of work only the time
required to go from one field to another, or include the time
taken by a worker to lead draft animals in his charge from the
stable to the fields and back again. In Lower Austria, working
time begins and ends at the farm ; the Agricultural Labour Code
provides that the time spent on the way from the worker's dwelling
to his work is not to be counted as working time if less than one
hour ; any time spent over one hour is to be so counted or specially
paid for. Ini?ur#en/and,thecollectiveagreementcontainsthesame
provision, but adds that at noon the time spent going from and
back to work is included in the midday break ; if more than
half-an-houris needed, the employer is bound to have the worker's
— 81 —
midday meal sent out to him, and if this cannot be done, the
journey is counted as working time. If the midday break is
spent at the place of work, the employer may require it to be
shortened by an hour. In Germany the Provisional Agricultural
Labour Code prescribes that the journey time between the farm
and the place of work is to be included in working time. This
regulation is repeated in all collective agreements for the
country east of the Elbe and in the district agreements for the
Province of Saxony and for the whole of south Germany. The
East Prussian collective agreement adds that working time ends
at the farm if the latter is not more than 1 kilometre from
the worker's dwelling. The State covering agreement for Bavaria
formerly prescribed that in the case of fields situated at a great
distance from the farm only one hour of the time spent on the
way might be deducted from working time ; the remainder was
to be worked off later and paid at the ordinary hourly rates.
This provision now appears only in the Upper Bavarian district
agreement, and the State agreement merely repeats the Provisional Code on the point. In central Germany, where working
hours in agriculture are shorter than in other parts, schemes
different from that of the Code are in many cases in operation.
Instead of the farm buildings, another place is often appointed
as rendezvous, and working time usually ends at the workplace
unless it lies more than 2 kilometres — in some cases 2% or 1%
kilometres — from the farm ; time spent on journeys in excess
of these distances is either counted as working time or specially
paid for. These arrangements are against the letter of the
Provisional Code, but it should not be forgotten that the worker
whom his duties do not compel to return to the farm after
knocking off may well find it nearer to go straight home ; as
long as working time is not more than that laid down by the
Provisional Code, such a method of calculation is permissible.
Some collective agreements determine how long certain distances
should take, the large estates in the east giving fifteen minutes
per kilometre, while in central Germany only twelve minutes
are allowed. Other German collective agreements provide that
journey time at noon is to be counted in working time, and that
if the midday meal must be taken in the fields, the worker is
entitled to have it sent out to him or, alternatively, to a cash
compensation.
The Schleswig-Holstein collective agreement contains the
fullest regulation of journey time. It provides that working
6
— 82 —
time shall begin at the appointed hour at the farm and end at
the place of work, whatever the distance from the worker's
dwelling to the farm may be. If the worker's dwelling is further
from the farm than from the morning workplace, the employer
may arrange that working time shall begin at the workplace,
provided that warning is given a day in advance ; and if the
evening workplace is further from the farm than from the worker's
dwelling, the worker may go straight home if he has no further
occupation at the farm (bringing back team, harness, etc.).
If the workplace is more than 2 kilometres from the farm, time
spent in the evening in covering the excess is deducted from
working time. The distance from the farm of any fields to which
this stipulation may apply should be determined as soon as
possible, and 12 minutes per kilometre be allowed. The daily
time-table, including breaks, is settled by the employer, after
discussion with the workers' representatives, if any exist. The
time spent in covering distances up to 2 kilometres at breaks,
particularly the midday break, is not counted as working time ;
the following provisions regulate the point in greater detail :
(a)
the time spent going to and from the farm at noon
by men working with horses does not count as part
of the midday break ;
(b) other workers are obliged to remain at the place of
work until the beginning of the midday break and to
be back by the time the break ends ;
(c) individual undertakings are free to settle any difficulties
which may arise out of the above by agreeing on a
new stipulation on the subject, provided that the
contractual number of hours per annum is not affected
and that no arrangement made before conclusion of
the agreement is amended to the workers' disadvantage.
The exactitude with which hours of work are often regulated is
sometimes reflected in special arrangements concerning methods
of payment, which occasionally allow the workers to knock
off earlier on pay day.
Special Regulations for Certain Types of Undertakings
and Certain Categories of Workers
A few German collective agreements regulate hours of work
on peasant farms separately. According to the SchleswigHolstein agreement, the hours of work on peasant farms of less
than 100 hectares may if necessary be prolonged for half-an-hour
— 83 —
daily ; while a district agreement in Brandenburg provides that
on farms where most of the workers Uveas members of the farmer's
household — that is to say, peasant farms — the regulation
contained in the agreement does not apply and the time-table
may be settled by the employer according to need ; even on
these farms, however, it is not allowable to exceed the total
number of hours fixed for the year. The Silesian collective
agreement provides that on peasant farms the hours of the
workers living in depend on the working day of the stockmen,
which may not normally exceed the regulation time of other
(day) workers by more than three and a half hours daily.
It may be taken as a general rule that the hours of work of
persons living as members of the farmers household cannot
be exactly defined, for their work usually includes looking after
livestock and various preparatory and accessory duties outside
the normal hours, and work on Sundays and public holidays ;
a special regulation of the hours of work of this category of
workers is therefore rare. The Bavarian system is particularly
interesting, for the State covering agreement provides that the
district agreements shall fix for farm servants a nightly rest
of a certain length, which amounts to an indirect limitation of
working time ; the district agreements lay down that the
hours of these workers depend on the season and on the
pressure of work ; that they should as a rule have eight hours'
rest at night for eight months of the year and ten hours for the
other four months ; and that the four months must lie between
either 1 November and 1 March or 15 November and 15 March.
Several district agreements provide that, if economic conditions
and the weather make it necessary, the nightly rest may be
shortened to seven hours between 15 May and 15 September ;
in some cases the employer may make such a regulation unilaterally, in others he must arrange with the farm servants or
the workers' representative. This indirect method avoids the
necessity of calculating hours. In fact, the collective agreement
explicitly states that there can be no question of special rates
for overtime in the case of farm servants and that regulations
concerning journey time do not apply to them.
On the other hand, there are often special regulations for
stockmen, their most noticeable point being the attempt to
limit the amount of work per worker rather than the number
of working hours. When this amount is exceeded, the employer
is obliged to increase his staff.
— 84 —
In Denmark, stockmen's hours of work are regulated as
follows. They are not entitled to overtime pay as long as their
hours do not exceed sixty-six and a half in the week or ten in
the day. Each stockman must milk up to eighteen cows twice
daily, provided that the maximum week mentioned is not thereby exceeded. In Austria, horsemen and cowmen must attend
to and feed the animals and milk the cattle within the time needed
for the purpose, but if the milking staff is required to fetch the
fodder from the fields, they are entitled to extra pay. Both
in Lower Austria and in Burgenland the agreements assume that
a man can attend to fourteen cows and a woman to eleven.
In Sweden, working hours for stockmen are those necessary
in order reasonably to tend and look after the animals ; but
hours must not as a rule exceed ten per day. For milkmaids
the hours are those necessary for milking work, but where
milking machines are not used women cannot be obliged to
milk more than 150 litres of milk per day in three milkings.
In Germany, hours of work for milkers are widely settled
by the special collective agreements concluded by the independent
organisations of skilled milkers. These agreements are in some
cases attached to those for ordinary agricultural workers in the
same area, in others independent ; they fix the milkers' hours
by defining the amount of work and many explicitly state that
the working time cannot be subject to limitation. Twenty
head of milch cows or young cattle is the usual number taken
in the case of grass-farming and in breeding-sheds, while in
mixed sheds the number is twenty-seven and in milking-sheds
twenty-five. Breeding-sheds are those in which at least onethird of the cattle are not full-grown, mixed sheds those in which
there are a few cows and where a number of calves are brought
up, or where a number of store cattle are kept, and milking-sheds
those in which there are no young cattle.
Agricultural Collective Agreements and the Statutory
Eight-Hour Day
In Czechoslovakia, the Eight-Hour Day Act was promulgated
on 19 December 1918 ; with certain necessary exceptions it
applies to agriculture as well as to other industries. A Decree
of 11 January 1919 authorised the distribution of working hours
in agriculture in a different way provided that they do not exceed
192 in four weeks ; but this does not provide for seasonal varia-
— 85 —
tions proper. Further, when extra work is necessary owing
to force majeure or to accidents or in the public interest, hours
of work may be increased during not more than four weeks of
the year by not more than two hours a day ; under this provision
permits are issued to agricultural undertakings by the communal
authorities. Overtime, which must be specially remunerated,
may be allowed for a further sixteen weeks in the year, but
permits from a higher authority are required, except in the case
of particularly urgent work or of subsidiary work in the household, such as the feeding of stock. A Circular of the Ministry
of Social Welfare to the administrative authorities dated
21 March 1919 instructed them, when examining demands for
permits for extension of working hours, to pay special attention
to this point in agriculture and mining. Although the eighthour day applies only to persons employed regularly in agriculture who live outside the employer's household and receive
daily or weekly wages, the working time of other workers is
also regulated under the Act, which states that persons employed
in the household of the employer and living there and engaged
for more than one month shall be allowed a twelve-hour period
of rest in every twenty-four hours, eight of which shall be
uninterrupted night's rest ; the same applies to persons engaged
in irregular services that involve little exertion, such as the
supervision and watching of premises and undertakings and
looking after animals. The Circular interprets the first group
to comprise among others resident farm servants and farm
hands paid partly in kind (députât workers), and the second
group night watchmen and special watchmen in stables. Large
numbers of agricultural workers may therefore be called upon
to work a twelve-hour rather than an eight-hour day. No
stipulations are laid down as to the working day of day labourers
engaged for less than one week.
Practical life has considerably modified the working of the
Act in agriculture. It was the principle of the Act that, where an
aggregate of 192 hours was allowed to be spread over four weeks,
the number of hours exceeding forty-eight in one week should
be compensated by corresponding rest periods in the following
three weeks ; but both employers and workers agreed that such
an arrangement was not possible in agriculture. The employers
argued that work must be dependent on weather conditions,
while the workers had no interest in obligatory rests during the
summer ; they depended for their living almost entirely on their
— 86 —
summer earnings and wanted these to be as large as possible.
A public enquiry undertaken in December 1920 proved that
by that date the compensatory rest period had already been
abandoned in agricultural practice. The same was the case
with the demand for advance permits to work overtime. Here
also the conditions which make overtime necessary cannot be
foreseen early enough to allow for previous authorisation.
The negotiations undertaken by the Provincial Auxiliary
Councils for Agricultural Labour Questions, with the object of
• establishing guiding principles for agricultural employment, have
provided the required additions for applying the eight-hour day
principle to agriculture. The hours of work of both day
labourers and députât workers are dealt with. For day
labourers there is a tendency to lengthen the working day,
for it is laid down that the ninth and tenth hours, although
overtime in the eyes of the law, are to be paid at the same rate
as the first eight hours ; only the eleventh and following hours
are to be paid at a higher rate. At the time when the EightHour Day Act was passed wages in agriculture were paid by the
day, the length of which was undefined. The Act introduced
the notion of overtime and secured to the workers that extra
payment should be given for it, but there was no specific provision in the Act that this payment for overtime should necessarily be at a rate higher than that for ordinary work. Consequently, when the method of payment was altered throughout from
a daily to an hourly rate, there was nothing in the text of the
Act to make it necessary to pay higher overtime rates. These
were introduced only by the collective agreements. For
députât workers the guiding principles have tended to reduce
the working day. For those employed as drivers the number
of hours in the twelve-hour day to be spent on driving proper,
counted from the departure from the farm, are :
Hours .
Hours
January - February . . .
8
October
9
March - May
9
November - December . 8
June - September . . . . 10
If necessary these hours may be otherwise distributed for
individual districts or estates, or a nine-hour average day may
be agreed upon for the year. The remainder of the twelve
hours is to be spent in auxiliary work (cleaning, feeding, putting
the horses to, attending to harness, etc.). In the busy season
in the fields or when the horses are required on long trips the
— 87 —
députât driver is required to work the extra hours fixed during
such periods and is paid the normal wage of his category for
every hour of such work. In the same way the stable staff
are entitled to pay if required to work for more than twelve
hours.
In Italy, hours of work in all industries are regulated by a
Legislative Decree of 15 March 1923, which lays down that the
normal maximum daily hours of all workers shall not exceed
eight a day or forty-eight a week. The Decree does not apply
to persons engaged in domestic work. Regulations for its
application to agriculture were issued on 10 September 1923.
The Decree applies only to day labourers in agriculture,
leaving other categories to be dealt with by Regulation. The
Regulations state that the Decree shall apply to share
producers employed as casual and permanent workers on
agricultural work exclusive of work executed by them under a
share-produce contract ; persons in large and medium-sized
undertakings who have charge of the technical and administrative direction of undertakings and who only occasionally
take part in manual work are excluded.
At all periods of the year, if bad weather conditions prevent
the full utilisation of the hours planned, the employer may,
where workers are paid by the day, make up the time lost by
increasing the hours of work in the course of the week up to a
maximum of ten, without paying any extra wage. The Decree
also states that the eight-hour day or the forty-eight hour week
may be exceeded on account of technical or seasonal requirements
during a specified period, provided that the average duration of
work during that period does not exceed the limits fixed by Royal
Decree or by an agreement concluded between the parties concerned. In the case of agriculture the specified period may not
exceed three months in the year. Except where agreements to
the contrary have been concluded between the parties, the hours
of work may not exceed ten in the day or sixty in the week during
this period.
In addition, overtime may be added to the normal working
time of eight hours a day or forty-eight a week, but must not
exceed two hours a day nor twelve a week ; it must be agreed
upon by the parties, and must be paid at a rate 10 per cent.
above that for ordinary work. Working hours do not include
breaks ; time spent in going to and from the fields or workplace
and in resetting scythes is reckoned in accordance with local
— 88 —
custom in default of any agreement to the contrary. Further,
agreed exceptions may be permitted for preparatory and accessory work which must be performed outside the normal hours.
Finally, work may be prolonged beyond the limits laid down
in the Regulations in case of force majeure or when cessation of
work at the normal hour would entail risk and damage to human
beings or to production.
It will be seen that the Italian legislation itself opens wide
possibilities for extending working time in agriculture beyond
eight hours in the day or forty-eight in the week, and gives
the organisations of employers and workers power to act in
the same direction by means of agreements. Moreover, a
Decree of 30 June 1926 provides that until further notice, and in
spite of anything specified to the contrary in the Legislative
Decree of 15 March 1923, all industrial, commercial and agricultural undertakings are authorised to increase their daily
hours of work by one hour. A Decree of 11 January 1927
states that this extension to a nine-hour day is permissible only
by agreement between the competent organisations of employers
and workers and subject to the approval of the competent public
authorities. The ninth hour must be paid for at a rate 10 per
cent, above that for normal hours.
The collective agreements are usually content to distribute
working time over the year within the limits laid down by the
Act, i.e. so as to obtain an annual average of eight hours a day,
and to define the months in which the different maxima apply.
In some cases, however, shorter hours are agreed on. The
following table gives examples of the various systems :
Area covered by
the agreement
Region
Piedmont
Lombardy
Liguria
Emilia
Latium
Apulia
Calabria
Sicily
Sardinia
Province
Novara
Mantua
Spezia
Parma
Piacenza
Viterbo
Brindisi
Catanzaro
Trapani
Nuoro
Number of months in which maximum
hours per day are :
6
6y2
2
7
8
9
10
4
2
8
8
12
4
6
5
1
1
2
3
2
1
3
2
3
1
2
1
1
4
2
1
3
2
•
7
7
6
5
3
3
3
— 89 —
2.
HOLIDAYS
Almost all agricultural collective agreements make provision
for annual holidays, a fact to which attention may be drawn.
The prevalence of the long contract, on which a claim for holidays may be based, is undoubtedly responsible for their definite
introduction into agriculture. Holidays are frequently used
not so much for rest as for personal business, which takes
up more time in the country than in the towns because of the
greater distances. The collective agreement for the district
of Hildesheim is typical ; it provides that all days granted off
for other purposes — slaughtering of animals, carriage of wood,
visits to the annual market, etc. — shall be deducted from the
annual holiday. In the same way, Polish agricultural workers
are reported to use their holiday for personal business or for
shopping.
The Danish agricultural collective agreements are the
only agreements which make no provision whatever for annual
holidays. This is all the more remarkable in that the Act
concerning the legal relations between master and servant
lays down that a servant living in, who was engaged or who
has been employed for a half-year shall be entitled to leave
on 3 working days, and a servant who was engaged or who has
been employed for a whole year shall be entitled to leave on
6 working days, during the term of service. Agricultural
workers living in their own homes do not, however, benefit
by this provision, nor have collective agreements yet succeeded
in securing annual holidays for them. It may be remarked
in this connection that even in Danish industry, where the
workers are in other respects so well-situated, the question
of holidays is still unsettled, and the position in this respect
is less advanced than in other countries.
Many of the Netherlands collective agreements contain
stipulations on annual holidays. The Italian Labour Charter
states that workers are entitled to holidays with pay after
one year's employment, and the length of such holidays is
regulated in many of the agricultural collective agreements.
In the other countries with which this report deals the agreements, as a rule, make some such provision, the only exceptions
being certain districts in Pomerania and Brandenburg.
Naturally, only those workers who have been in the service
of the same employer for a considerable period are entitled to
— 90 —
holidays. This period is usually one year, but in the Rheingau
and Wurtemberg it is two years. In Sweden and Poland only
workers engaged by the year, and in Austria and Germany
only permanent workers who have been employed in the same
undertaking for at least a year, are entitled to holidays. In
Czechoslovakia, the députât workers who have been in the
service of the same employer for at least a year without interruption are allowed holidays. It is not always necessary for
the workers to have been fully occupied during this period.
In some of the wage agreements in the Free State of Saxony
200 days' work during the year, and in one only 150 days' work,
suffices. In Thuringia, no distinction is made between permanent and non-permanent workers, all those who have worked
for a certain number of hours — in the case of men 2,600, in
the case of women 2,000 — in the undertaking during the year
being entitled to holidays. Permanent women workers —
those who are regularly at the employer's disposal — have
always the right to a proportionate holiday.
In some German collective agreements certain categories
of workers are excluded from the right to holidays, although
permanently employed. Examples are farm servants in Bavaria
and in Silesia men and women day workers and women députât
workers not contractually bound to a six-day week. In East
Prussia, the holidays for ' ' Hofgänger ' ' (additional labour employed
on sub-contracts by permanent workers) and farm servants
are shorter than for députât workers. In many cases the length
of the holiday depends on the age of the worker. In the district
of Hildesheim, workers of under 21 years of age are not entitled
to any holiday ; in those of Magdeburg, Halle and Erfurt,
workers from 16 to 20 years of age are entitled to 3 days', from
21 to 23 to 4 days', from 24 to 25 to 5 days', and from 26 onwards
to 6 days' holiday. In Kurhessen, workers under 18 are entitled
to 3 days' holiday, and those over that age to 6 days.
In general, the length of the annual holiday varies with
length of service, and differs largely from country to country.
Holidays are apparently shortest in Italy and Germany. In the
province of Piacenza, they are fixed at 2 days, in Mantua and
Parma at 3 days, in Brindisi at 4 days and in Spezia at 6 days.
In Bavaria, the workers are entitled to 2 days' holiday, in Silesia
to 3 days', and in East Prussia to 5 days' (" Hofgänger " and farm
servants to 3 only). In the other German collective agreements the length of the holiday increases annually, usually by
— 91 —
1 day, but in Pomerania by 2 days, to a maximum varying
between 6 and 9 days.
In Sweden, workers employed by the year are entitled to
7 working days' holiday. In Czechoslovakia députât workers
have the right to 6 days', after ten years' service to 7, and after
15 years' service to 8 days' holiday. In the last-named country
religious festivals falling on weekdays and taken as free time
are deducted from the annual holiday,, three such festivals
counting only as two full days for this purpose if the worker
feeds his own team. In Poland, the regulation of holidays in
the different collective agreements varies ; in three localities
8 days are allowed, in twelve 9, and in four 10.
The holidays of agricultural workers in Austria are relatively long. The Lower Austrian Code provides for a holiday of
8 days after an uninterrupted employment of one year in the
same undertaking, and according to the Burgenland Code
the holiday amounts to up to two weeks according to the
period of service with the same employer. The collective
agreements in these two States provide for still longer holidays.
In Lower Austria, the agreement states that workers are
entitled to 10 days' holiday after one year's service, and to
14 days after three years, in both cases exclusive of religious
festivals, while that for Burgenland allows a holiday of 7 consecutive days to workers who have been in the service of the
same employer for a year without a break, the number of days
increasing to 14 after five years, to 18 after ten years and to
21 after fifteen years' service.
The date at which holidays are taken is fixed by mutual
agreement, and must as a rule fall in the slack season. In
Czechoslovakia, holidays, apart from religious festivals, may
only be taken in the winter. In Sweden, holidays must be
divided into two instalments and may not be taken during the
sowing or harvest season.
As a rule workers are entitled to remuneration during holidays, payment for 8 or 9 hours being allowed in case of hourly
wage rates. In parts of Germany where payment in kind is
given only for work actually performed, it is in certain cases
provided that such payment is to be made for the period of the
holiday. In some Brandenburg and Pomeranian districts no
cash wages are paid during holidays. In order to ensure that
the holidays are actually used for rest or private affairs, it is
provided in some agreements that work for other employers
— 92 —
is not permitted during holidays, or that, if such work is done,
wages for the period of the holiday are forfeited. It is occasionally
provided that no special compensation is payable for unclaimed holiday rights, so that workers shall not be tempted to prefer
an economic gain to a rest. On the other hand, it is in some
cases stated that compensation must be paid if holidays are not
taken, the object here being to deprive the employer of any
interest in refusing to allow his workers their full right to holidays.
3.
HOUSING
The provision made in collective agreements for the housing
of agricultural workers naturally concerns service dwellings only
— that is, dwellings provided by the employer as part of the
worker's wages. As has been mentioned, the result of such
arrangements is that employer and worker stand, one towards
the other, in a relation resembling that of landlord and tenant.
Besides settling the legal position which thus arises, collective
agreements also lay down minimum requirements to be fulfilled by the employer in respect of such dwellings. These
usually concern the size of the accommodation, and only in
exceptional cases its quality. It is noteworthy that some
agreements require a higher standard for buildings about
to be erected than for dwellings already in existence.
Stipulations concerning agricultural workers' dwellings are
but rarely to be found in Italian and German collective agreements. In Italy it is simply laid down that dwellings must be
of adequate size and in a habitable state. The German Provisional Agricultural Labour Code provides that dwellings should
be free from objection with regard both to morals and to health,
and, in the case of married people, of adequate size in respect
of the number of children and of the sexes. Such German
collective agreements as do not themselves regulate the question
of dwellings are content to refer to this provision, and minimum
requirements on the size of the dwellings are only occasionally
to be found. The agreement for the district of Schlawe, for
instance, states that large families are to be given dwellings of
sufficient size ; in Silesia, it is laid down that dwellings shall
contain at least one living room, one bedroom and some additional space ; and in the district of Leipzig, that married men
workers shall have free lodging, including living room, bedroom,
kitchen, loft or shed, and stabling. In Austria, too, the Lower
— 93 —
Austrian and Burgenland collective agreements provide only
that every permanently employed worker on an estate is
entitled to accommodation free from objection from the point
of view of health requirements and corresponding to the size
of his family ; the employer is required to bring this accommodation into a state consistent with health and sanitary requirements. In Burgenland, it is prescribed that the floors of such
dwellings must be of wood. In. both States representatives
of the workers' organisations or of the staff of the undertaking
are required to inspect dwellings, by agreement with the
employers, and to encourage the workers to keep them clean
and in order. The Czechoslovak guiding principles state that
each married députât worker should have a dwelling of adequate
size, free from objection from the point of view of health requirements and consisting of living room (fully equipped if possible),
bedroom, loft, cellar, pigsty, wood-shed, etc. At least 12 sq. m.
space must be reckoned for a married couple, and 2sq. m. extra
for each child.
The Polish collective agreements, on the other hand, deal
very fully with the question of lodging. Deputat workers'
dwellings must include at least one wooden-floored living
room and one bedroom. The rooms must be whitewashed
and absolutely clean, with airtight doors and windows. The
path leading to the pump must be paved, and there must be a
supply of clean and healthy drinking water. Sufficient sanitary
conveniences must be available near the dwellings. In
buildings with sufficient space and in all buildings to be erected
bath accommodation must be provided. On some estates the
employers are obliged to have a bathing establishment fitted
if there is any possibility at all of doing so.
In Denmark and Sweden dwellings should as a rule contain
at least two rooms and a kitchen, though in the latter country
one room and a kitchen, with a total surface of 35 sq. m., is sufficient. If dwellings of this size are not available, compensation
amounting to 10 kr. per annum for every 3 sq. m. less than the
prescribed surface must be paid. Necessary additional space
— cellars or other winter storage room for potatoes, wood-shed,
wash-house, pigsty, etc. — should also be provided. The
Danish collective agreements contain similar provisions concerning additional space, and lay down further that at least one good
usable stove must be provided (two in dwellings with more than
two rooms), that if a dwelling comprises three rooms they shall
— 94 —
all be made over to the worker, and that any dwelling erected
or adapted after the agreement has come into force shall contain
at least three rooms.
Only the Danish and Swedish agreements deal with the
question of accommodation for unmarried farm servants. In
Sweden each such worker is entitled to a separate bed with
bed clothes in a warm and decently furnished room. In
Denmark, the collective agreement states that farm servants'
rooms must comply with the minimum requirements contained
in the Act concerning the legal relations between master and
servant, and that if the farm servants' bedrooms are not heated
by a stove or other means, a sufficiently warm and lighted room
must be provided for use in their spare time.
4.
WORK OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Special provisions for the protection of certain classes of
workers, in particular women1, juveniles and children, are
extraordinarily rare in collective agreements. In Denmark
children under fourteen may lead horses only occasionally ;
and they may not be employed on agricultural machines,
for example, they may not lead the horses working horse-driven
machines. This provision goes beyond the statutory regulations.
Some Dutch agreements shorten hours of work and prohibit
employment on certain classes of work for young persons
and women.
In Poland women may not be employed in spreading certain kinds of artificials. The collective agreement for the
Province of East Prussia lays down that women may not be
employed without their consent four weeks before and eight
weeks after childbirth. The collective agreement for Lower
Austria lays down that pregnant women may not be employed
on heavy work from the fifth month of pregnancy onwards.
In Germany several agreements in the Eastern districts
provide that the wives of députât workers or other women
workers who manage households shall have shorter working
hours than the men, so that they can go home one hour before
the principal meal. This is in conformity with a provision in
the Provisional Agricultural Labour Code, and the agreements only exceptionally go beyond it. As an example of
1
In Italy special national agreements deal with the women working in the
ricefields.
— 95 —
provisions supplementary to the Agricultural Labour Code
can be mentioned the right of women workers in Mecklenburg-Schwerin to stay away from work on the days before
Christmas, Easter and Whitsun. In a Brandenburg district
a woman who takes the place of a " Hofgänger " is entitled to
remain at home at least one day a week for her household duties.
In the Dresden district women workers may not be employed
against their will after 6 p.m.
Among the provisions protecting the wives and children of
agricultural workers may be included those provisions of collective agreements cancelling or at least limiting the obligation to
work on the part of members of the family. This obligation
originates in the desire to obtain the services of as many as
possible of the persons living in service dwellings. In large
undertakings it has been customary from time immemorial
to oblige the members of the worker's family to work
on the employer's estate. Adult or even juvenile members of
the family who do not seek employment on the estate are often
refused the right to live in service dwellings.
In districts where a large part of the women's time is taken up
in making use of the comparatively high wages in kind, it had
become customary for the worker to have to place another
person at the employer's disposal. This person, the worker
had to board and lodge, but received correspondingly higher
wages in kind for him. He was the so-called " Hofgänger "
and might be a member of the worker's family. If, however,
no one of suitable age was available, the worker was obliged to
find an outsider.
The obligation to work on the part of the worker's family,
and in particular the obligation to furnish a " Hofgänger ",
has been more and more looked upon as an evil by the workers,
and they have gradually succeeded in inserting attenuating
clauses in the collective agreements. As a result, the German
collective agreements no longer contain a general obligation to
provide " Hofgänger ", as was the case in the earliest collective
agreements. But in concluding individual contracts of employment, many employers still insist on the furnishing of a " Hofgänger ", and, indeed, many Pomeranian collective agreements
still require inhabitants of service dwellings to furnish a
" Hofgänger " when household conditions make this possible,
and especially when there are children able to work. In many
districts the employer has to house the " Hofgänger " when the
— 96 —
worker cannot provide a member of his own family and there is
no room in the dwelling for outsiders.
In Poland, where similar conditions prevailed before the war,
the members of the family are no longer required to work, and
where members of the family are employed by the same employer
they have quite independent contracts of employment.
5.
SOCIAL
INSURANCE
The provisions of collective agreements concerning the
workers' rights in the case of illness or accident depend on the
scope of the legislation in force. In general, it may be said that
in the past sick or incapacitated agricultural workers have been
looked after to some extent by the employers ; but as social
insurance has developed this practice has tended to die out and
most collective agreements merely aim at eliminating the
simultaneous furnishing of benefits by the undertaking and the
insurance scheme. It is, however, still very frequently laid down
that notwithstanding the receipt of sick benefit, for instance,
wages in kind shall be continued for a certain time. Special
mention should be made of certain regulations in collective
agreements that take the place of social insurance or secure
greater advantages to the workers. In Italy, all collective
agreements stipulate either that sickness funds, with contributions from employers and workers, shall be established, or fix
directly on employers an obligation in the case of sickness of
the worker. In agriculture, the employers' and workers'
organisations have agreed to set up a national association of
sickness funds for agricultural workers which shall promote the
establishment of provincial sickness funds and co-ordinate their
activity.
In Poland accident insurance exists only for workers employed in undertakings exceeding 30 hectares in area ; and the sickness insurance scheme is only in force in the former Prussian and
Austrian territories. Consequently, in Congress Poland the
collective agreements lay down that the employer shall provide
medical aid for the workers and pay their wages during illness.
The employer is also required to pay for the coffin in the event
of a worker's death and to make a small payment to the family.
There are similar provisions concerning workmen's compensation
for accidents on undertakings of less than 30 hectares.
— 97 —
In Sweden the workers are not insured against sickness,
but the covering agricultural agreement lays down that every
worker whose contract of employment is for not less than one
month shall be entitled to medical treatment in the event of
sickness. Workers engaged by the year and living in a house
owned by the estate, are entitled to not more than three months'
hospital treatment at the employer's expense ; and the wife or
housekeeper and children of such workers are entitled to free
medical treatment.
In Denmark the collective agreement requires the employer
to pay the workers a daily wage for the first thirteen weeks
following an accident at work, during which period the compulsory insurance scheme furnishes no benefit. For this supplementary insurance the workers themselves pay part of the contributions.
Ill
Permanent Character of Items
The value of collective agreements in agriculture as a
substitute for social legislation is mainly determined by the
degree to which their provisions are permanent. It is of little
use for the workers to be able to wrest great advantages when the
season is good if they lose all or a substantial part of them in
harder times. Rates of wages will always be subject to fluctuations and it is not to be expected that the remaining provisions
will be absolutely permanent, seeing that a large proportion of
them are more or less of an economic character. Consequently, no
more than comparative permanency can reasonably be required,
so as to give the provisions of collective agreements a value
approximating to statutory regulations. Thus permanency
should not be formally insisted upon, for not every alteration
in the text of an agreement means a betterment or worsening
of working conditions ; many are only matters of drafting.
The question of permanency sometimes involves the whole
agreement and sometimes only individual provisions. In the
first years of agricultural collective agreements there were very
extensive alterations. This was the period of transition from
estate agreements to agreements between organisations, and
from simple wage bargains to complex collective agreements.
But in an astonishingly short time the present forms of collective
— 98 —
agreement came into quite general use. The fact that agreements were usually concluded without the accompaniment of
labour disputes may serve to indicate that no great alterations
have taken place.
In Denmark both the form and the substance of the agreement concluded in 1920 have remained unchanged, even the
number of paragraphs being still the same. Most of the small
changes introduced date from 1922 ; for instance, abolition of
the workers' right to leave the fields half an hour earlier on pay
day. In 1929 the employer's obligation to insure his workers
against accident was extended beyond the statutory requirements. In Germany the first collective agreements in the south
were drafted in great detail, whereas in the remaining districts
agreements, and especially those concluded in 1919, were essentially confined to matters of wages. Since 1921, however, both
form and substance have practically everywhere remained
unchanged. Only in the province of Saxony and Anhalt was the
evolution somewhat slower ; up to 1923 the covering agreement
contained only general principles concerning the contents of
district agreements, and not until the last few years has it
provided any detailed regulation of working conditions. In
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, as early as 1920 provisions concerning
the obligation to provide "Hofgänger" disappeared from the
collective agreement. In the following year a provision
concerning paid holidays was introduced. On the other hand,
provisions guaranteeing the worker's collective rights have
been struck out, and provisions concerning illness have been
altered, with the effect that cash wages are now only paid for
days actually worked. In Schleswig-Holstein the 1920 agreement
laid down that for all small undertakings employing less than
ten permanent workers a local committee should be set up,
representing all such undertakings in the localities concerned
and consisting of one employer and one worker. This provision,
however, was rescinded as early as 1921. In Silesia, a
provision was introduced into the agreement that every permanent worker was entitled to two half-days off ; this was
altered in 1921 to two days, and in 1923 to three days, the
present figure. On the other hand, sick benefits have been
somewhat reduced in the course of time. In Bavaria the covering agreement of 1922 laid down that provision should be made
in the district agreements for the grant of reasonable holidays to
the permanent workers. As a rule, the district agreements
— 99 —
allowed two days. In 1929 the provisions of the covering agreement were made more precise, and holidays were graduated
according to the number of years of service. Provision is now
made for the regulation of the matter uniformly over the whole
country, instead of on a district basis. In 1927 a provision
concerning the period of notice for permanent workers was
introduced into the covering agreement. In Wurtemberg
also the provisions concerning holidays have been repeatedly
altered, the last alteration being to the workers' detriment.
The following table shows how matters have gone.
NUMBER
OF D A Y S '
HOLIDAY
After employment of at least
1921
1922
1923
1924
1 year
2 years
3 years
4 years
5 years
6 years
2
2
2
3
3
3
2
4
4
4
3
4
4
5
4
6
6
6
6
7
7
8
In the province of Saxony and Anhalt the question of
holidays was originally dealt with in two different ways in the
district agreements, some calculating holidays according to the
worker's length of service, others according to his age. Since
1922 the covering agreement has laid down that after one year's
service all permanent workers shall be entitled to leave, the
amount varying with their ageIn Italy the provisions of agricultural collective agreements
have become steadily more complex, an evolution to which the
promulgation of the Labour Charter has particularly contributed.
The principle of paid holidays for agricultural workers was
adopted in 1928, and in the same year compensation for dismissal was introduced.
As regards Austria special consideration may be given to the
collective agreement for Burgenland. This has been considerably modified in the course of its existence. The original
wording of the agreement drafted in 1922 remained in force
until 1927, when it was completely remodelled in much greater
detail. Noteworthy is the fact that provisions which were
originally modelled on the agreement for Lower Austria have
— 100 —
been replaced by others, although the original provisions in the
Lower Austrian agreement have remained unchanged. In
1926 the Burgenland Agricultural Labour Code provided for
the introduction of workers' representatives in the larger
agricultural undertakings. The regulations, however, are not
very detailed, and have been supplemented by provisions in the
Burgenland collective agreements.
In Poland, up to 1925-1926, the collective agreements tended
to improve working conditions in agriculture, but since then
their provisions have undergone practically no change.
In Sweden the first collective agreements closely resembled
one another, but the agreement concluded in 1925, after an interval of some years, revealed not inconsiderable changes. The
regulation of hours of work was transferred from the district
agreements, and new provisions concerning holidays for workers
on time rates and sick benefit — which was formerly granted
only in connection with industrial accidents — were added.
Since 1925 this agreement has remained in force unchanged.
Special attention must be given to fluctuations in the
regulation of hours of work.
In Denmark, the estate agreements concluded in 1918 regulated hours of work very diversely. If the month is reckoned at
25 working days, the number of working hours per year varies
from 2,800 to 2,950. The first national collective agreements
shortened hours of work, but in 1921 they were increased by
150 hours, and in the following year there were further changes
to the workers' detriment. Since then the hours have remained
unchanged ; but their distribution over the year has been more
closely adapted to the demand for labour and to the season.
This adaptation in fact has been in evidence since 1920, despite
the shortening of hours of work. Whereas in 1919 hours were
altered only twice a year, now they are altered six times.
In order to make it easier to follow the fluctuations in hours
of work in the German agricultural collective agreements, the
number of hours per year as laid down in agreements in various
parts of the country are shown in the table of Appendix B.
The districts quoted which are not entire provinces or States
are those whose conditions of work represent the average for
the States in which they are situated. In all cases the calculations have been made in accordance with the Prussian State
Calendar.
— 101 —
In the first years of agricultural collective agreements hours
of work were shortened very considerably, but the present
annual hours of work show an increase over 1923. Not until
1929 are there fresh instances of hours being shortened. The
fluctuations in hours of work in the first years after the war
may be illustrated by the following considerations. In East
Prussia, as in many other parts of Germany, compulsory overtime
was introduced in 1920, and since 1924 this overtime has been
incorporated in the normal working hours. In MecklenburgSchwerin originally only eight and ten hour working days were
provided for, but in 1922 the agreement prescribed that for one
summer month eleven hours a day should be worked. This
provision, however, does not seem to have come into force
before 1923. Since 1925 in the cultivating season ten and a
half hours must be worked during four consecutive weeks, and
in the harvesting season eleven hours during six weeks. In
Schleswig-Holstein hours of work were originally fixed at 2,700
per year, but ten hours a day had to be worked for six months.
Later alterations increased this period of six months to seven
and a half. In Silesia the number of hours per year has remained
constant ; what fluctuations there are in the regulations concern
the maximum working day. In 1921, as a general rule not more
than ten hours a day were to be worked, but where a ten and a
half hour day was the practice, it was to be confined to four
months in the year at the most. In 1922 it was laid down that
the daily hours of work should not be exceeded for more than
three months in the year. In 1923 a working day of ten and a
half hours was allowed between 16 May and 31 August. In
1924 eleven hours a day could be worked during the six weeks
of the harvesting season. In 1925 eleven hours a day might
be worked on undertakings where this number had been worked
in 1924. Since then, the agreement has contained no provisions
concerning an eleven-hour working day ; the workers may be
required to work ten and a half hours for four months only during
the period 15 April to 30 September.
In the province of Saxony and Anhalt, hours of work were
regulated very diversely in the first district agreements. Some
of the 1919 agreements reproduced the stipulations of the
Provisional Agricultural Labour Code, but others provide for
much shorter hours of work. In the following year shorter
hours became the general rule. The number of hours per year
fell to 2,650, although occasionally overtime had to be worked.
— 102 —
In the next years hours were increased a little, but since 1923
they have remained stationary almost everywhere.
In Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Sweden hours of work
have remained stationary or have undergone only trifling changes
since collective agreements were first concluded.
The general evolution of hours of work may, then, be
summarised as follows : in the first years after the war collective
agreements were able to curtail hours substantially. Then a
reaction set in and in many cases a not inconsiderable lengthening of hours had to be accepted. Simultaneously there was a
movement to distribute hours of work over the year in closer
harmony with natural conditions, and consequently the regulation of hours of work lost some of its value to the worker. Since
1923-1924 hours have everywhere remained unchanged.
The evolution of the general contents of agricultural
collective agreements may be similarly summed up. Some of the
provisions included in collective agreements in the first years
were too radical for permanent retention and had to be dropped.
But since 1923-1924 it has proved possible to maintain intact
all provisions of practical value for the agricultural worker,
though very few new provisions have been added.
Of particular importance in judging of the permanency of
individual provisions in agricultural agreements is, naturally
enough, the question of the extent to which the latest renewals
of agreements have been detrimental to the workers by reason
of the agricultural depression. It was only to be expected that
the heavy fall in agricultural prices would entail a fall in wages ;
but there remained the question whether, and if so to what
extent, other provisions only indirectly bound up with wages
would change for the worse. In England, the agricultural
depression has for two years exerted a marked influence on
hours of work. In many cases where the employers have
demanded a lowering of the minimum wage rates, their demands
have been refused by the agricultural wages committees, but the
number of hours to be worked a week before overtime can be
paid has been increased. On the other hand, in Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Poland and Sweden collective agreements or guiding principles have been renewed without
any alterations except as regards rates of wages. In
Germany the employers were driven by the economic position
to demand both a reduction in wages and a tightening up of
other working conditions. The most important point was the
— 103 —
reduction in wages, and apart from one or two exceptions
their demands for other alterations in the collective agreements
were rejected. An enquiry into alterations in the provisions
relating to hours of work in the German agricultural collective
agreements of 1929-1931 even shows that improvements
predominate ; both in Wurtemberg and Bavaria, for instance,
the number of hours of work per year has been reduced by
twenty-five.
Consequently, it may be said that on the whole the agricultural depression has so far not had any considerable influence on
the regulation of working conditions by way of agricultural
collective agreements.
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSIONS
I
The information presented in the first two Chapters of this
report suffices to prove the existence of collective bargaining
in agriculture in a number of countries and shows that this
system has enabled large numbers of agricultural workers to
secure effective collective regulation of their working conditions.
We are now in a position to discuss the problem which constitutes the real aim of our enquiry. To what extent and in
what way does collective bargaining replace in agriculture an
inadequate social legislation ?
The suggestion that collective bargaining can replace
social legislation depends on certain assumptions. In the
first place, the geographical extension of social legislation
normally covers the whole national territory of a given country
and normally includes in its scope either all workers in the country or all workers falling under a given definition : the question
has to be raised whether collective agreements have a similar
universal application. In the second place, social legislation,
by its very character, secures for the workers positive improvements in their working conditions : the question has to be
raised whether collective agreements have a similar ameliorating character or whether they are limited to securing
merely a status quo. In the third place, social legislation
ex hypothesi can embrace any and every factor which bears on
working conditions, wages, hours, protection of the worker
in every direction even up to and including such forms of insurance as secure him in illness, accident, invalidity, old-age,
and unemployment: the question has to be raised whether
collective agreements can in any way rival social legislation in
the largeness of the subject matter to be dealt with.
A theoretical answer to these questions is of minor interest
for our present purpose. The Resolution accepted in 1928
— 105 —
by the International Labour Conference was the outcome of a
definite actual situation ; it amounted to a recognition of the
unsatisfactory progress which is at the present time being
made by social legislation on behalf of agricultural workers.
It is with this situation in front of us, namely, with our eyes on
the gaps and deficiencies in protective Acts on behalf of agricultural labour, that we have to answer the questions put,
and to try to realise both the present function of collective
bargaining in agriculture and its future possibilities.
There is first the question of the geographical and national
extension of collective bargaining. Here we must admit that
the limitations are very great. True, agricultural workers are
such an enormous group of the world's working population that
even on its present modest scale collective bargaining may be
estimated to cover 5,000,000 agricultural workers. But
5,000,000 workers are only a tiny fraction of the agricultural
workers of the world. Perhaps a truer estimate is obtainable
if we confine our attention definitely to those more advanced
countries where the system might reasonably be supposed to
apply under present conditions. Even here we find that in
many countries the agricultural trade unions essential to the
conclusion of collective agreements simply do not exist, while
in others, where they do, there are noticeable gaps, with the
result that whole districts and whole groups of agricultural
enterprises are quite untouched by the collective bargaining
idea. Nowhere have the agricultural workers' trade unions
been strong enough to influence working conditions throughout
a country. Indeed, the actual geographical extension of collective agreements in agriculture is noticeably greater in proportion
as the basic principle of direct negotiation between the two
parties is relaxed in favour of that of State intervention.
But, if the extension of collective bargaining in agriculture
is limited geographically, it is also limited in regard to the type
of enterprise to which it applies. It was noted in the first
Chapter of this report that the agricultural trade unions recruited
their membership principally from the workers who work on
large-scale farms. The character of existing agricultural
employers' organisations also contributes to this tendency to
concentrate on large-scale farming conditions. It is natural
that where negotiations are carried on with persons representative of these particular conditions — and the employers'
associations in agriculture draw their membership from occupiers
— 106 —
of large enterprises — the contents of collective agreements
should be suited to the interests of the negotiating parties.
Thus the prevailing tendencies in organisation, both on the
workers' and on the employers' side, combine to confine collective bargaining largely to workers on large-scale farms and
to prevent the working conditions of those groups of workers
who are principally or exclusively employed on smaller or on
peasant holdings from being regulated by collective bargaining
as completely as is done in large-scale farming. Formal
exceptions in the texts of agreements are perhaps rare, though
smaller farms are occasionally treated as though they were
exceptional, special terms being made for them, while certain
groups such as artisans or servants forming part of the farm
household are sometimes specifically excluded. But the terms
agreed upon are such as have little application to workers living at
the farmhouse, or else different conditions are deliberately
mentioned in their case, e.g. the number of their working hours
is fixed on quite a different basis. It is also characteristic that
rates of wages for farm servants are often left to be negotiated
between master and man or else are put so low as to be mostly
meaningless.
This state of affairs is quite natural. The large-scale enterprise is bound to be more rigid in its labour arrangements than
the smaller peasant type of farm ; any uncertainty or indefiniteness in the conditions to be observed will interfere with its
efficiency. The small occupier has little to fear on this score,
and adapts his orders to circumstances. At any rate the pressure
of the agricultural trade union movement is seldom intense
enough to induce him to join his district employers' association.
It is, in fact, difficult to maintain such associations in regions
of peasant farming or smallholding.
It must consequently be counted as a considerable step
forward when general farmers' associations which include all
types of farmers are induced to take part in the collective
bargaining process. Incidentally, owing to the wide membership basis of such associations, the rather curious situation
may arise that the total number of negotiating employers
may exceed the total number of negotiating workers. But
the fact remains that collective bargaining in agriculture is
possible even in peasant farming ; the conclusion of collective
agreements in south German agriculture is a proof. On the
other hand, as is shown by the history of such bargaining in
— 107 —
Scotland and by the way in which working conditions have been
settled in Danish sugar-beet farming, collective bargaining cannot
be carried so far when negotiations are with general farmers'
associations as when they are carried on with organisations
properly and exclusively representative of agricultural employers
only. Undoubtedly it is in large-scale farming that collective
negotiation has its most significant application, and, while this
must be recognised as a limitation, it also shows the great
significance of the collective bargaining principle for agriculture,
seeing that it is in this type of farming that we find the ordinary
agricultural labourer, who remains a general worker throughout
his life and is for that very reason peculiarly in need of securing
regulated working conditions.
Our second question concerned the ameliorative character
of the two methods of regulating working conditions in agriculture, namely, social legislation and collective bargaining.
The question may be simply put. Have collective agreements
brought improvements in the working conditions of agricultural
labour ? Are such improvements comparable to what can be
secured by legislation ? The answer is yes, but it must not
be given too unhesitatingly. The mere fact that his working
conditions are laid down in a collective agreement implies a
great deal for an agricultural worker. He is thereby supplied
with precise information about those conditions and can estimate
his rights much more accurately in case of dispute, a point
in which he is otherwise habitually at a very great disadvantage
owing to the frequent want of any written contract in his
industry. But collective bargaining has also given the agricultural workers more direct material benefits, even apart from
the bargains struck about wages rates, which of course constitute
the chief objective of the whole system. Terms as favourable
to the workers as those elsewhere laid down in legislation,
or even more favourable, are found in collective agreements
on a variety of points. A perceptible shortening of the working
day has been obtained throughout, while the grant of paid
holiday leave is generally admitted. As regards the length
of the working day, it may be claimed that there is no agricultural labour legislation in existence which approaches the
most favourable of the solutions laid down by collective negotiation between employers and employed.
It may therefore be taken as proved that collective bargaining
is a suitable way of dealing with problems which belong to the
— 108 —
field of agricultural social legislation and that it has an ameliorative effect on the worker's conditions. The limits of this suitability must, however, be examined.
There are two main limitations on the usefulness of collective
bargaining in agriculture. In the first place its results are
uneven, and in the second place they are incomplete.
Collective bargaining in agriculture is in direct contrast to
social legislation in respect of the marked local variations and
differences between the terms of the regional agreements.
In a few countries, e.g. in Denmark and Sweden, and also
throughout a few more extensive regions of Germany, it has
proved possible to obtain uniform working conditions, but in
many other parts of Germany and also, for example, in the
Netherlands, the size of the district covered by any one agreement is very restricted. This means that great attention is
paid to local conditions, with the result that elements of merely
historical interest, which need not have been safeguarded,
become stabilised in an agreement. Careful consideration of
local conditions is undoubtedly necessary if practical solutions
are to be arrived at, but some of the differences between the
terms laid down for adjacent districts point to a certain capriciousness in the results obtained.
The situation has unquestionably been influenced by the
present state of organisation among agricultural employers.
The marked decentralisation of their associations has on more
than one occasion hampered efforts made on the workers'
side to obtain uniform conditions over the widest possible area,
and constitutes one of the principal causes of the frequent
occurrence of agreements covering very small districts. Local
employers' organisations aim above all at concluding an agreement which shall fit their local needs.
To this unevenness in the results of collective bargaining in
agriculture is added a considerable incompleteness as regards
the topics dealt with. Chapter II of the present report shows
that while such questions as wages, hours, and, frequently, paid
holiday leave are included for settlement in agricultural collective agreements, many other topics, which might naturally form
the subject matter of a settlement, are not mentioned ; in fact,
comparatively few of the many questions arising out of the
agricultural labour contract are included. In some cases such
matters may already have been settled by legislation ; or local
custom on the point is fixed and mention is not .thought neces-
— 109 —
sary ; or else the workers have simply failed to get the point
included. But certain other topics which have no direct
importance in an individual agricultural labour contract,
though they are a matter of general advantage to the whole
body of agricultural workers, especially topics which include an
element of social risk and one therefore normally dealt with
by means of social insurance legislation, are also seldom mentioned in agricultural collective agreements. Such agreements are,
moreover, mostly silent on the subjects of women's labour and
child labour 1 .
This brings us face to face with our third question, which
indeed is already hereby in part answered. The contents of
collective agreements do not extend much beyond those elements
which form the basis of the individual employment contract.
The organised workers have not been able to press collective
bargaining much further than this, even on their own behalf.
In view of the limited extent to which agricultural employers
have at present troubled to organise themselves, the agricultural
workers' organisations are by contrast the stronger, but the
decisive factor is not so much the actual as the potential strength
of parties. Further concessions might frequently have been
obtained from the employers' organisations as at present
constituted, but the wisdom of doing so could be questioned.
It is universally admitted that, where a collective agreement
has been concluded, its terms are mostly observed even by the
unorganised employers ; evidence to this effect is supplied not
only by the representative organisations on either side but also
sometimes from official sources. It may at first sight appear
curious that the organisations of the agricultural workers
should have been able to spread their influence far beyond
the immediate circle of the negotiations ; the explanation
appears to lie in the fact that by thus accommodating themselves
to the present contents of agreements the agricultural employers
are able to call a halt to the organisation movement among
agricultural workers. Any offer of less favourable terms, which
would often not be at all impossible in view of the state of
the labour market, would evoke more organisation among the
workers.
1
Many workers' organisations consider that any mention of child labour in
a collective agreement implies a formal justification of such labour. A mention
is therefore refused, the demand here being for legislative intervention to prohibit
the employment of children.
— 110 —
The present restricted contents of agreements reflect the
present strength of the negotiating parties. On the workers'
side organisation is sufficiently good to enforce the terms as they
stand even among unorganised employers ; but any extension
of contents would jeopardise the currency of the agreements as
more or less practised to-day. The whole system might then
possibly be threatened.
Where the contents of agreements no longer coincide with
the contents of the individual employment contract, but are
extended to deal with social problems proper, the likelihood is
that the unorganised employer will not pay too much attention
to them, and that the worker himself will not lay a great deal
of stress on stipulations which may never come into play in his
own case. While it is universally admitted that employers
abide in general by the terms of agreements, such complaints
as are occasionally raised on this head have reference precisely
to the stipulations on general social questions. Here the
organised employer discovers that he has put himself at a disadvantage as against his unorganised colleague by the fact
of being bound by an agreement, and asks himself whether
he should not free himself of such obligations by resigning from
his organisation. On one occasion a stipulation in an agreement
designed to meet a social obligation — the promise of an extra
voluntary payment additional to an obligatory insurance
premium — was not taken over by the unorganised employers,
with the result that the organised employers dissolved their
association.
Another point which must be noticed in regard to the
contents of agreements is that agricultural collective agreements have remained very stationary. The original framework
has hardly anywhere been touched. The system has crystallised
into the forms which were adopted at the outset ; neither the
areas in respect of which agreements were to be current nor the
technical character of the agreements have been modified ;
very few new clauses have been added. Some very desirable
simplifications have failed to take place because negotiations
have been limited to the strictly necessary amendments. Nor,
in fact, are any developments likely until the agricultural
workers' trade unions are as important as they were just after
the war, when they first became parties to agreements.
With these facts in mind we must now give our verdict on
the value of collective bargaining in agriculture as a means of
— Ill —
replacing social legislation. Looking at the question quite
generally, and bearing in mind the present restricted use of
collective agreements in agriculture and the small hopes of their
immediate extension, we are compelled to deny that collective
bargaining is sufficiently important in the agricultural industry
to be reckoned as a means capable of replacing an
inadequate social legislation. This, in fact, is the view of all
agricultural workers' organisations. One and all sent a negative
answer to the question put to them by the International Labour
Office : " In your opinion, may the stipulations in agricultural
collective agreements be considered adequate to replace social
legislation ?" It is clear that it was more especially questions
concerning social insurance, workers' protection and women's
and children's labour which influenced the answers. The
achievements of collective bargaining on these heads are
insignificant compared with even the minimum results of legislative intervention. Though from the workers' side an effort
must needs be made to secure attention to such problems in
cases where legislation is wanting, no collective regulation can
be expected to prove on these points any sort of adequate
substitute for the law. Parliamentary action is the only means
of dealing with this part of the worker's conditions.
II
Are there then no problems in agricultural labour which
have been regulated by collective bargaining with results at
least as satisfactory as those induced by legislative action ?
Undoubtedly there are, for, as already indicated above, all those
employment conditions which have a permanent and direct
interest for the individual worker have been submitted to
collective regulation with results which may challenge what can
be obtained by legislation. True, not every problem of this
kind is commonly dealt with in this way, but the existence of
comprehensive stipulations on some of them shows that they
can suitably be dealt with by collective negotiation. Thus
within a limited field (but one of primary importance) collective
bargaining may fill up the gaps in legislation.
This, however, does not exhaust the significance of collective
bargaining in agriculture. Social legislation may not be so
much replaced as completed by collective bargaining, and this
— 112 —
possibility is particularly important in agriculture. We have
already mentioned variation in local conditions as a characteristic of the carrying on of the agricultural industry, and we have
drawn attention to the unnecessary observance of such local
variations. Indeed, a great risk lies here, especially in regard
to the fixing of wages rates ; there is every danger that, by the
system of separate local agreements, the backward parts of the
country may not be compelled to level up their rates sufficiently
to catch up current wages in more progressive areas, and may
remain permanently behindhand. National agreements and
even national legislation do not always surmount this difficulty,
which can only be dealt with by considerable pressure from a
central authority, whether that authority be a Government one,
or the workers' central executive, or the combined workers and
employers. But while stressing the importance of not overestimating the need for local variations, not only in the direction
of wages but also in many other directions, it must nevertheless
be admitted that there is a point up to which local variation
is peculiarly necessary in agriculture. It only needs to be
pointed out that different types of agricultural industry are
carried on in different parts of a country and that stipulations
which are required, e.g. on sheep farms, are totally without
application for workers in crop cultivation. In fact, agriculture
is not one but many occupations, and these occupations are
often strongly localised. It follows that legislation has to be
drafted in rather general terms in order to cover such varying
conditions, and it is precisely here that collective bargaining
can be useful in filling in those details which have to be accommodated to the current organisation of the agricultural industry
and the natural conditions which govern agricultural effort.
There exists unquestionably a type of problem which is more
easily handled by collective negotiation than by legislative
decision. The workers' organisations justly observe that collective bargaining is a means of clothing the guiding principles laid
down in an Act with the necessary meaning and the necessary
obligatory force.
Indeed, collective regulation, while it hesitates to deal with
problems of a wide social bearing like social insurance, is able,
in other directions, to go further than the law. The President
of the Danish Agricultural Workers' Federation has stated
this idea at length in a communication addressed to the International Labour Office :
— 113 —
Collective bargaining in agriculture must show a certain elasticity
and a certain capacity to adapt itself to economic and social circumstances. Alterations in production processes require to be rapidly
noted. This is best and most regularly done at the annual negotiations
for the renewal of agreements, where the demands made on either side
are discussed before debaters perfectly experienced in every practical
detail of agricultural processes and agricultural labour. Professional
knowledge is brought to bear on every argument on either side. Collective regulation then emerges as the result of pooled knowledge, of the
relative strength of the parties, and of the nature of the subject matter
handled
Previous experience has also shown that
the agricultural legislator has less understanding of labour questions
than the employers' representatives, who are in much more direct touch
with the circumstances, and that it is easier to come to an agreement
by friendly negotiation with practical farmers on points which no
legislator would ever put into an Act. Add to this that employers show
far less hesitation in accepting a point in an agreement whose validity
runs only for a year, which gives them a chance of re-negotiating at the
end of that period, than a legislator, who cannot foretell for how long
an Act will remain in force and only knows that amendments are difficult
to secure. The organisations representing the negotiating parties are
in a much better position to make experiments.
The writer points out t h a t it was fifteen years before the
Danish legislature abolished a Master and Servants Act which
had been recognised on all hands as quite out of date ; meanwhile, already two years before this abolition, collective negotiation had secured for Danish farm servants, in despite of existing
legislation, improved and more acceptable wages, housing,
and working conditions which on really i m p o r t a n t points still
go much further even t h a n w h a t the new Act provides. Similarly, on housing the first collective bargaining of the agricultural workers' federation secured clauses on the size, arrangement
and sanitary sufficiency of married workers' accommodation which
revolutionised housing standards. Legislation has here hardly
intervened a t all—only a few regulations of 1902 and an old Order
of the middle of the nineteenth century a b o u t notice and eviction are in force. Were t h e law merely to confirm the housing
clauses which have been incorporated for the last ten years in
the t e x t of t h e collective agreement, it would be a great step
forward. In other States it may also be observed t h a t legislation has only touched on the fringe of questions which are of t h e
first importance to the worker. Indeed, legislative intervention
is sometimes of a quite negative character, consisting in a mere
abolition of out-of-date enactments ; t h u s t h e Swedish Master
and Servants Act of 1833 was simply rescinded in 1926, as were
a number of German F a r m Servants' and Servants' Codes during
the 1918 Revolution. By such action the conditions formerly
8
— 114 —
regulated by law have been left to the free decision of employers
and workers, a process which has given increased importance to
the collective agreement system.
In one other way collective bargaining offers greater advantages than social legislation. One of the principal difficulties
of this type of legislation is, in agriculture, the enforcement of
decisions. The number of enterprises in question and their
topographical distribution demands a staff of inspectors which
has to be much larger than for any other industry if control is
to be exercised at standards as effective as those in urban
manufacture. In Poland special inspectors are appointed for
agricultural labour conditions, but their number proves insufficient to cope with all the duties which are assigned to them.
In England also the inspection of the payment of the minimum
wage rates laid down by the wages committees has always been a
difficult business. In spite of increased inspection, the number
of cases of underpayment does not diminish. Here collective
negotiation offers decided advantages, the many small branches
of the organisations on either side providing an easy check on
the loyalty of members.
In any case collective agreements bear witness to a certain
collaboration between the two sides, their very existence
implying relations of loyalty and confidence between the
organisations, confidence, in fact, that either party has a real
intention to abide by the negotiated terms and to see that their
members do so too. Where such confidence gives out, the
conditions making collective bargaining possible also disappear.
The organisations are therefore opposed to unconstitutional
behaviour on the part of their members, and where such
behaviour is noted, attempt a reprimand. When agreements
are unconstitutionally abandoned, their restoration is required,
and legal action instituted should warnings prove insufficient.
Finally, it must not be forgotten that the use of collective
bargaining in manufacturing industry to deal with conditions
of employment entails a corresponding necessity for agriculture
to adopt the same methods. In the degree in which strong
trade unions of industrial workers are able to exercise their
influence on working conditions in the factories, the occasions
for adopting factory legislation are likely to be much restricted.
The trade union movement in industry is often in a position to
forego legislation and deal directly with the employers, e.g.
on the important questions of wages and hours. Agricultural
— 115 —
workers must follow this general policy, as they can seldom hope
to obtain separate legislation on their own behalf, although,
objectively considered, their situation might sometimes seem
to call for it. In the absence of legislation, they will be left
unprotected, unless they manage to imitate their comrades
in industry and secure collective negotiation. There is also
the rather different situation where legislation exists on behalf
of the industrial worker which is specifically exclusive of the
agricultural worker ; here the agricultural worker can have
recourse to collective bargaining to make good at least in part
the inequality between himself and the workers in the towns.
Collective bargaining is necessary in agriculture if only in order
to prevent the widening of the gap between industrial and agricultural working conditions.
Ill
The contents of collective agreements in agriculture may be
considered to have an independent positive value ; they extend to
topics where legislation is negative or non-existent. Yet in
the present state of collective bargaining in this industry it is
obvious time and again that unless those contents are ultimately
supported by legislative action, the usefulness of the collective
bargaining process is soon threatened. The workers' action
becomes more and more difficult should the legislator fail to
adopt at least some of the advances which have been current
for years and which lend themselves to legislative definition.
It is nevertheless very difficult to quote specific instances
where clauses in collective agreements have provided a basis
for later legislation. In fact, in addition to the German
Provisional Labour Code, which resulted out of negotiations
between employers' and workers' organisations and was
given legal force, only one really good instance of this has
been brought to our notice. The careful stipulations laid
down in the earliest Danish national collective agreement
in agriculture on the accommodation of farm servants have
plainly been incorporated in the text of the 1921 Act in that
country on the relations between employers and their assistants.
The text of the later agreement therefore merely states that
accommodation must conform to the standard laid down in
the Act.
— 116 —
All the more important therefore are the various systems
which, while not incorporating in formal legislative Acts the
positive contents of agreements, nevertheless continue to give
value to those contents by attributing to the agreements themselves something of the force of law. The various systems
by which the texts of collective agreements can be declared
" binding " on non-signatory parties when living within a
specified area are of material assistance to agriculture. Nevertheless, even in this system, when the intervention of the State
seems so direct, nothing is added to or subtracted from the
contents of agreements ; these are and remain a matter solely
for the bargaining power of the two parties. Even the Polish
system maintains this, the true principle of collective bargaining, for though on occasion the Polish Governihent representatives may lay down the terms to be observed, sitting as sole
adjudicators, nevertheless this is only by exception and the
assumption is that the parties will meet and will bargain.
In fact, the Polish system illustrates well one marked difficulty
in collective bargaining in agriculture —• it is usually difficult
to get negotiations started ; once started, they are apt to continue, as observed above, more or less smoothly. Here a good
deal of stress must be laid on the novelty of collective bargaining
in so conservative an industry as agriculture. It is therefore
often practical, according to the circumstances of the particular
country in question, to back up at any rate the initial stages of
negotiation by some measure of compulsion.
The ideal system would then be to leave the parties to work
out the terms which they think the industry can carry, only
withdrawing from collective negotiation certain unsuitable
topics such as social insurance, negotiators being unlikely to
deal adequately with such large general interests, and also very
distinctly reserving the right of the State to protect by quite
other means certain weaker groups of workers, especially
children. Whether collective bargaining is a good means of
dealing with the housing problem is a rather disputable point ;
there is some reason for stating that it is apt to break down.
On the other hand, collective bargaining has held its own very
well during the recent severe agricultural depression on the
basic subject of wages rates, while on the almost equally important subject of working hours it has, as was pointed out above,
secured terms for the workers quite noticeably superior to
anything attempted by legislation.
— 117 —
A further ideal would be, when the collective bargaining
process has been carried on some time, to carry over for legislative action selected topics on which discussion has reached a
settlement of a kind which has proved acceptable to both sides
over a term of years. Such legislative confirmation of terms
agreeable to both parties should not come too late, or doubt
and difficulty may arise on the mere excuse of a passing economic
situation. Legislation, moreover, is necessary in order to bring
to heel certain backward areas where collective bargaining is
unable to surmount the difficulties created by historic or other
special circumstances.
That the workers on their side are in favour of collective
bargaining hardly requires statement. Nor does it require
argument to show why the employers' attitude is bound to be
somewhat different. When collective bargaining first started in
agriculture, between 1918 and 1920, employers were quite favourable ; they believed collective negotiation to be possible, indeed
necessary, in order to secure social peace and avoid great social
unrest. In many cases employers still remain of this opinion.
Their own advantage out of the system lies in the stabilisation
of labour conditions which it secures and the elimination of
competition for labour between one employer and another.
More particularly is it stated that this result of collective
bargaining is appreciated in peasant farming, where farm
servants are very scarce. While the Danish agricultural
employers' organisation declares that collective bargaining,
if not greatly to be desired, is necessary, and while the Swedish
agricultural employers' organisation does not wish for any
extension of the system but would prefer to see continued, as
far as possible, the old arrangements for individual labour
contracts, the General Secretary of the Federation of German
Agricultural and Forestry Employers' Organisations states
in a communication to the International Labour Office that the
members of his Organisation are " altogether in favour of "
collective bargaining and recognise its importance as a basis
for the individual labour contract in agriculture ; they protest,
however, against any tendency on the part of Government
authorities to force collective negotiations into certain channels
without sufficient regard for local agricultural situations.
Whatever the form of collective bargaining adopted, the
size and strength of the organisations on either side is the
determining factor. The results achieved will always be the
— 118 —
expression of the relative strength of the negotiating
parties.
The function of the State in regard to collective bargaining
is confined above all to recognising the organisations, to
facilitating the work of the negotiating parties and to enforcing
if necessary the results of negotiation.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
PRINCIPAL AGRICULTURAL WORKERS' ORGANISATIONS
Country
Austria:
Social-Democratic
Czechoslovakia :
Social-Democratic :
Czech language
German language
National-Socialist
Christian-Socialist
Denmark :
Social-Democratic
Membership
Founded
in
1920
1911
60,000
1921
1919
1920
1925
1924
44,000
6,000
—
1927
1930
34,000
32,000
37,000
3,000
23,000
12,000
7,000
4,000
1915
25,000
13,000
15,000
15,000
1908
1912
680,000
89,000
180,000
78,000
153,000
77,000
162,000
Greaf Britain:
Social-Democratic :
England and Wales 1906
1912
Scotland
150,000
23,000
30,000
15,000
1901
1926
846,000
15,000
1900
1914
Prewar
16,000
Germany :
Social-Democratic
Christian-Socialist
Italy:
Social-Democratic
Fascist
Netherlands :
Social-Democratic
Christian-Socialist
Roman-Catholic
Poland :
Social-Democratic ) Post
Christian Socialist [ war
National Socialist )
Sweden :
Social-Democratic •
1908
—
|E
10,000
10,000
35,00o 1
5,000
700,000
1,320,000
6,000
7,000
6,000
16,000
—
7,000
—
50,000
—
47,000
21,000
86,000
46,000
5,000
10,000
1
Further, the agricultural sections of the Transport and General Workers'
Union groups 10,000 members.
APPENDIX B
ANNUAL HOURS OF WORK ACCORDING TO COLLECTIVE A
IN THE YEARS 1920 TO 1931
Hours of work as laid down in
Districts
1920
1921
Province of East Prussia
Province of Pomerania
Free-State of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Province of Brandenburg
Province of Silesia
Province of Hanover
Province of
Schleswig-Holstein
Province of Saxony
Free State of Anhalt
Free State of Saxony
Free State of Thuringia
Province of Hesse-Nassau
Province of Rheinhesse
Province of Westphalia
Free State of Wurtemberg
Free State of Bavaria
2,788
—
1
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
2,788 3 2,788 s
—
—
2,788
2,900
2,895
2,900
2,895
2,900
2,90
2,96
2,800
—
2,850
—
2,764
2,700
2,850
—
2,802
2,700
2,840
2,850
2,870
2,850
2,857
2,775
2,870
2,850
2,856
2,750
2,88
2,85
2,85
2,75
2,700
—
2,650*
—
2,800
—
—
—
2,900
2,900
2,725
—
2,775
2,675 2,675 2,675
2,750 2 2,750 2,750
2,725
—
2,725
2,800 2,800 2,800
2,800
—
2,800
2,800
—
2,799
—
—
2,675
2,9004 2,9004 2,900
2,900 2,900 2,900
2,834
2,750
2,800
2,725
2,800
2,800
2,799
2,675
2,900
2,900
2,834
2,750
2,800
2,725
2,800
2,800
2,799
2,675
2,900
2,900
2,83
2,75
2,80
2,72
2,80
2,80
2,83
2,67
2,90
2,90
—
2,700
2,836
—
In addition there are 150 supplementary hours I
"
"
50
"
" / for which an extra payment must be g
a
>.
..
,.
.. \
100
4
If eleven hours are worked, extra payment must be given for the eleventh hour.
2
APPENDIX C
SOME ARTICLES IN THE " INTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW '
ON AGRICULTURE
O N COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN AGRICULTURE, OR MAKING R E F E R E N C E
TO A POLICY OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Conciliation in Agriculture
A New Policy for Agricultural Labour
Agricultural Conditions and Labour Agreements in
Denmark and Sweden
Collective Labour Agreements in Italian Agriculture : I
II
The Effects of Collective Agreements in Silesian
Agriculture
Collective Agreement Wages in Silesian Agriculture
Agricultural Wages and Labour Conditions in the
Netherlands
Agricultural Wages in Australia
Vol.
VIII
XXV
No.
1
2
II
XIV
XV
1
5
2
XVIII
XXI
3
4
XVIII
XXV
6
6
DESCRIBING OR MAKING R E F E R E N C E TO LABOUR CONDITIONS
IN AGRICULTURE N O T CONTROLLED BY NATIONAL OR RECOGNISED
SYSTEMS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
(a)
General1
The Present Regulation of Hours of Work in Agriculture
The Housing of Agricultural Wage-Paid Workers . . . .
Some Forms of Inspection in Agriculture
Unemployment in Agriculture. Cf. the relevant section
of the Grey Report on Unemployment Insurance
presented to the Seventeenth Session of the International Labour Conference.
(b)
By
XXV
XXV
VIII
1
3
4
Countries1
Algeria:
The Problem of Agricultural Labour
Algeria
Brazil: Agricultural Wages in Brazil
Cuba: Labour in the Cuban Sugar Industry
in
XXII
XXII
XX
1
The general articles mentioned deal simultaneously with conditions subject
to collective bargaining and with conditions uncontrolled by such bargaining;
the articles on the separate countries include information on some countries where
certain elements of collective action already exist.
— 122 —
Vol.
Estonia: The Position of the Agricultural Labourer
in Estonia
France: Labour Conditions in French Agriculture. . . .
The Housing of Agricultural Workers in F r a n c e . . .
Hungary: The Agricultural Labour Situation in Hungary
(Cf. also Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 10 :
The Law on the Contracts of Employment of Agricultural Workers in Austria, Germany and Hungary.)
Japan: Conditions of Agricultural Workers in J a p a n .
Kenya: Aspects of Agriculture in Kenya
Latvia : Social Aspects of Agrarian Reform in Latvia .
Palestine: Rates of Wages and Hours of Labour in
Palestine in 1929
.'
Rumania: Land Reform in Rumania
South Africa : Native Labour in South Africa
Spain : The Agrarian Problem in Spain
Switzerland : Working Conditions of Agricultural Wage
Earners in Switzerland
U.S.A. : Allowances in Kind Given to Farm Labourers
in the United States of America
No.
V
XXV
XVIII
5
1
6
XXV
5
XVI
XXII
XX
5
2
1
XXIII
XXII
XVI
XI
2
4
1
6
XXIV
2-3
XX
4
Labour Conditions in the Timber Industry in the
Argentine, Brazil and the Dutch Indies
XVIII
4-5
(c)
More than One Country