Kiwis ‘don’t want meatworks jobs’

A shortfall of 2000 workers across the export meat industry is costing millions of dollars in potential lost earnings, says Alliance Group chief executive David Surveyor. ‘‘The reality is that at our Lorneville plant [Invercargill], on any given day in the season will have 100 people not turning up for work because of vacancies or absenteeism. If you take that and multiply it across all our plants that is about $20 million of value being lost that is not coming back to the co-operative’s farmerowners,’’ Surveyor said.

‘‘So it is a huge prize if we can get access to enough people to run plants at an optimum level.’’

Alliance wants to bring in 100 overseas workers for its Southland plants to combat the labour shortage.

Alliance employs about 4500 seasonal employees throughout New Zealand, including more than 2000 in Southland. OtagoSouthland Meat Workers Union secretary Gary Davis said the union would strenuously oppose the move, with hundreds of Southlanders applying for jobs and being rejected.

Surveyor denied that recruiting overseas workers was a bid to keep pay rates low. ‘‘We pay the same wages to people, whether they are from overseas or locals.’’ It was more expensive to recruit people from overseas as the company needed to facilitate their entry to New Zealand. ‘‘So we would much rather have locals.’’

Canterbury Meat Workers Union secretary Bill Watt said the region had several meat processing sites employing hundreds of people. ‘‘So there is big demand for workers and with a low population base things are stretched.’’

David Surveyor