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Standards and rights at work
Basic rights at work
The right to join and/or form independent and democratic workers' organizations of one's own choosing is a cornerstone of the ILO's stance on social justice. Already in 1921 the ILO adopted a Convention extending to agricultural workers the same rights of association as for industrial workers. Legal impediments to the freedom of association of agricultural workers remain in some countries, but the real challenge is to assure the full exercise of this right in practice. For agricultural workers, numerous obstacles remain. Trade union organizations are generally weak in rural areas, with some exceptions as in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. Elsewhere, collective bargaining is often limited to large commercial farms and plantations. The prevalence of seasonal, migratory and casual labour along with the added constraints of illiteracy, ignorance of workers' rights, and isolation render the task of organizing among rural workers particularly difficult. ILO tripartite bodies have consistently recalled the need to apply in practice basic labour rights in rural areas and strengthen rural workers' organizations.
Many agricultural workers are only poorly protected by national labour law. Some countries specifically exclude the agriculture sector from their general labour legislation. In others, general protective legislation may not be fully applicable to the agriculture sector, or may simply not be applied. For example, exclusions based on the size of an undertaking or on the contractual status of the worker are common. In some cases, specific legislation has been enacted which accommodates the special characteristics of agricultural work, providing for flexible working time arrangements, the partial payment of wages in kind, the provision of housing and health care. Typically, casual, temporary or seasonal agricultural workers do not have labour protection equal to that of permanent employees.
Links to labour rights information in other ILO departments
National labour legislation (NATLEX database)
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour
Workers' Activities
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