Farm leader urges pay freeze for food sector
Pat O’Rourke, president, warned at the Association’s annual general meeting in Limerick that farmers could not be part of a new national agreement unless the decline in farm incomes was positively addressed in the negotiations.
He said the last national agreement, the PPF, failed totally to deliver what was agreed on farm incomes. When the PPF was negotiated in 1999, farmers had suffered a fall of 20% in their income over the previous three years.
This was recognised as a fact in the PPF agreement, which states that farmers are entitled to the same income increase as enjoyed by other sectors. This was fully supported by the trade unions as well as all the other social partners and of course the Government.
“When inflation is taken into account, real incomes of farmers have declined by up to 15% during the PPF. Relative to other sectors, we have seen the average income per farmer fall from 61% of the average industrial wage in 1996 to 50% of the average industrial wage last year. This erosion of our income and living standard cannot continue,” he said.
Mr O’Rourke said the ICMSA welcomes the proposal from the Minister for Agriculture and Food that there must be a comprehensive study of farm income and viability by the EU Commission.
In addition, the Government must sponsor a similar study of the Irish farm income situation.
Mr O’Rourke said that in addition farm input costs and food processing sector costs will have to be frozen. With or without a new national agreement, the overall wage bill in the Irish food-processing sector cannot be increased.
“Therefore, if there is a wage rate increase it will have to be counter balanced by increased productivity and reduction in the number employed in the sector,” he said.
Mr O’Rourke said at farm level, there must be a systematic review of the costs of compliance with the various regulations and at the very least there can be no additional costs imposed on the business of farming.
