Yesterday, Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group general manager Hana Halalele, who is also Waitaki’s deputy mayor, said the group had seen an influx of concerned Pasifika workers from the meat processing plant seeking support.
The plant is majority owned by NZ Binxi (Oamaru) Foods, a subsidiary of Chinese-owned Heilongjiang Binxi Group Co Ltd. It was originally set up as Abco Meats, with mainly farmer and butcher shareholders, to buy, upgrade and operate the former Oamaru borough abattoirs in the 1970s.
Pasifika workers make up a large chunk of the plant’s employees. In June last year, the plant lauded the fact it had no worker shortage, thanks to the 88 Pasifika workers who had all come to New Zealand on Pacific Islands visa schemes.
At that time, Oamaru Meats had close to 300 staff, including the Pasifika workers who were under the 2022-23 Pacific Quotas Programme, which oversees the Samoan Quota and Pacific Access Category visa schemes.
When contacted, Mrs Halalele said OPICG had a good relationship with the plant and she encouraged management to be as transparent as possible. She had not been formally notified of the proposal.
"It’s our people’s livelihoods. It’s huge, it’s massive. Hopefully the company will reach out and make the most of what we can do," she said.
Mrs Halalele said it was a "natural space" for OPICG to "do whatever we can" to work with the company and its employees, including exploring other career pathways.
She was concerned about the implications on the work visa holders and hoped there would be opportunities with other accredited employers to transition any affected workers.
She said it again raised the wider issue around broadening workforce development. A polytechnic presence was needed in the town to help provide workforce opportunities not just for Pasifika but the wider community. That support had been needed for a long time and it was time to "ramp things up", she said.
The worker spoken to by the Otago Daily Times said it was a matter of "riding out the storm" until market conditions returned - "like everyone else". Tough market conditions since Covid-19 meant the plant had been struggling and it was "just not that viable at the moment". They described it as "more of a refitting" than a restructure.
They believed the company - which had made "massive" improvements at the plant - had handled the proposal well. While it was yet to be ascertained who would lose jobs, they said the migrant workers had been treated extremely well.
Financial statements filed to the Companies Office earlier this month for the year to December 31, 2022, showed revenue of $105.8 million with a net profit for the year of $1.6m. That compared to revenue of $102.8m and a net profit of $2.6m the previous year.
