Wages

UK Farmworkers are one of the few groups of workers whose wages are controlled by the state (Farmworkers Wages 2003) to make sure that conditions don't get too bad.

Gangmasters

The Transport and General Workers Union are campaigning to restore the system of licensing of gangmasters to control unscruplous ganagmasters .

Health & Safety

Farming has one of the worst records for health and safety. Farming has the worst fatal injury rate of any broad employment sector, on average, one death every week. In addition over 100,000 working days are lost a year costing the British economy around £130 million.

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified agriculture as one of eight priority areas in its "Revitalising Safety" campaign, if the national targets for safety are to be met. The HSE is working with employers and trade unions to develop health and safety skills to enable managers and employees to integrate better health and safety systems in farms.

Ethics

There is the Ethical Trading Initiative (EYI), an alliance of companies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and trade union organisations committed to working together to identify and promote ethical trade - good practice in the implementation of a code of conduct for good labour standards, including the monitoring and independent verification of the observance of ethics code provisions, as standards for ethical sourcing.