Charleville, Qld, goat and sheep export abattoir could be back in business as early as this week following a meeting in Brisbane, to secure the required relaxation of Australian immigration laws. The abattoir, the biggest of its kind in the world, announced last week that it was closing down.
Western Exporters managing director Neil Duncan was to meet Federal and State representatives and union officials this morning to negotiate changes to 457 work visa regulations that he says are keeping the abattoir out of business.
Mr Duncan closed Western Exporters’ doors two weeks ago, claiming that at least another 50 workers were required for the business to remain viable.
His decision to close the plant put more than 100 existing employees out of work – jobs that will serve as Mr Duncan’s main bargaining chip when he seeks to negotiate for more workable immigration arrangements today.
Mr Duncan told Queensland Country Life yesterday he was confident today’s meeting would yield an acceptable result.
“I’m very confident an outcome will be resolved tomorrow,” he said.
“If we can get an outcome the plant will resume operations and we will try and gather our workforce back up and get things rolling again.”
Mr Duncan said closing the plant had been a less expensive option than keeping it running, because a severe shortage of labour meant the plant was being forced to throw away about $2 million worth of product such as offcuts every year because it did not have the staff to process the material.
“With a limited workforce, we were losing up to $40,000 a week in lost production.
"It is costing us money to have it closed, but not as much as it was, working.”
In a coincidental move, but one that could help to deliver a speedy resolution to the Western Exporters stand-off, Federal Immigration Minister Chris Evans last week announced that the Rudd Government would speed up processing of the 457 work visas.
The visas are granted to overseas workers who have been sponsored by employers for temporary work.
Western Exporters has already used the scheme successfully after bringing 15 Vietnamese workers and their families to Charleville when the scheme was first introduced two years ago. However, changes made to the scheme since that time by previous immigration minister Kevin Andrews had ruined the program for abattoir workers, Mr Duncan said.
Mr Andrews had removed slaughtermen from the mainstream 457 Act and had added extra conditions to their employment, Mr Duncan said.
For example, abattoirs were now required to guarantee they would employ and train unemployed Australians to replace their 457 workers when they returned home at the end of the three-year visa program.
In Charleville, where unemployment among the town’s 3500 residents was “basically zero”, it was impossible to find enough local workers required to satisfy the new requirements of the 457 visas for abattoirs, Mr Duncan said.
If Western Exporters brought in another 20 foreign workers under the 457 program, which would take its total number of 457 workers to 35 (including its existing 457 workers from Vietnam), Mr Duncan said he would have to find and train 35 local workers at the same time to meet the program’s requirements.
“For me to train 35 local workers so I can send these other workers home, I would actually have to train 90 people to get 35 out of them,” he said. “And to get 90 people I would have to have a pool of 500, because not everyone wants to become a meatworker, I can assure you.”
Abattoirs were also required to pay foreign meatworkers a minimum of $41,000 a year – about $3000 more than the minimum for Australian workers – as well as their medical costs, which added further pressure to the ability of abattoirs to compete internationally.
While most 457 workers also qualified for a regional allowance where workers who come to the bush received a concession of a few thousands dollars, that concession had also been eliminated for slaughtermen, Mr Duncan said.
“We need an undertaking from the immigration department that our applications will be processed and we do need changes to this 457 program for the sake of the export meat industry,” he said.
“Slaughtermen need to be brought under the same criteria as everyone else, and the regional allowance needs to be reinstated.”
Mr Duncan said he felt like he had “won the lottery” the day his Vietnamese workers arrived.
“They have been fantastic. Every-body in the community of Charleville likes the Vietnamese.
“They are very nice people. They are very family orientated.
"They have their wives and children here, and their children go to school here.
“They work side by side with the Australians, and we never have a problem with them.”
SOURCE: Queensland Country Life, January 3.