Australia Day barbecues were聽聽as Omicron infections continue to cripple meat-processing operations.
Most off the menu are chicken dishes. Australia鈥檚 biggest poultry processor Ingham鈥檚 (with a聽) has had to stop producing some items and curtail production of others. It鈥檚 affecting clients聽, and supermarket meat shelves are largely bare.
The Australian Chicken Meat Federation said last week breast fillets, drumsticks and chicken wings will be hard to find for at least several weeks.
The response of employers and government has been to relax health protocols for meat workers, reducing isolation times and keeping them on the line if they have been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19, or indeed even if they have the virus themselves.
Teys Australia told COVID-positive staff at its Naracoorte beef abattoir in South Australia on January 9 they were required to work 鈥溾.
This crisis in the industry was entirely predictable. Employers and the government should have seen it coming. Now, having failed to pursue reforms that could have helped mitigate it, they are grasping at quick fixes that compound the underlying problem.
It鈥檚 as if nothing has been learned from the outbreaks of COVID-19 in meat-processing facilities in Australia and elsewhere since 2020.
Meat works as transmission hotspots
In 2020, meat-processing facilities ranked alongside cruise ships and health-care facilities as hotspots for COVID-19 transmission in Australia. Abattoirs were the major initial source of infections for the June infection wave in Melbourne that led to Victoria鈥檚聽.
Things were the same elsewhere. In the US, researchers聽聽meat-processing plants were associated with 6-8% of COVID-19 cases and 3-4% of deaths from early 2020 to July 2021. This is a highly disproportionate number given the industry employs less than 0.15% of the US population.
In that time, according to an analysis published by聽, 90% of the plants owned by the five biggest meat-processing companies had COVID-19 cases.
The experience in other countries reflects this to a greater or lesser degree 鈥斅爓ith infection outbreaks in聽,听,听,听.
High-risk environment
Numerous studies have shown聽聽in meat-processing plants are ideal for spreading COVID-19.
罢丑别听聽of food-processing facilities increase viral transmission, while the poor air quality increases the prevalence of respiratory disorders, which means workers are more susceptible to illness if infected. The rate of asthmatic symptoms among chicken-processing workers, for example, has been estimated as being聽聽that of all adults.
These risks are heightened by working in close proximity to others on production lines where the work is physically demanding and the pace hectic.
Insecure work, exploitable workers
The poor working conditions are exacerbated by the prevalence of labour-hire practices that make it difficult for workers to stand up for their rights.
Few workers are employed as permanent employees. Statistics from a聽聽by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation put the percentage of the workforce on casual contracts at 20%, with no sick leave benefits and the ability to be sacked 鈥渙n any given day part-way through a shift鈥. The rest were 鈥渄aily hires鈥, able to be sacked with a day鈥檚 notice.
Submissions to the Senate鈥檚聽聽suggest industry employment practices have not improved since then.
The submission from the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union argues Australian processors have sought to replicate the industry in North America in using a migrant workforce to undermine wages and conditions, on the basis non-English-speaking migrants are vulnerable to exploitation, and to manipulation and intimidation over visa status concerns.
Real reform needed
Putting meat workers in greater jeopardy should not have been the solution to the poor working conditions and practices that have made meat-processing facilities high-risk vectors for COVID-19 transmission.
These conditions were well-documented and understood. This current crisis should have been foreseeable, even allowing for the Omicron variant.
Other major meat-producing countries have taken structural legal reforms and collaborative initiatives to address these risks.
滨苍听, sub-contractors and casual workers are paid the same wages as directly employed staff, and meat plant workers receive up to five weeks paid holidays a year.
In 2020, Germany聽聽the subcontracting of workers for core businesses in the meat processing industry in 2020.
It鈥檚 not too late for Australia to follow these examples and make meaningful reforms that can reduce the likelihood of this mistake being repeated, by ensuring better working conditions across the meat industry.
[Ema Moolchand is a PhD Candidate at RMIT University and Shelley Marshall is an Associate Professor and Director of the RMIT Business and Human Rights Centre, RMIT University. This article was first published聽in January 24 and is reprinted under a Creative Commons licence.]