The unkindest cut

No entitlements for 310 axed abattoir workers

THE 310 workers left jobless after Young’s Burrangong Meat Processors’ abattoir went belly-up will not immediately receive their entitlements.

The workers were stood down on-the-spot when the plant went into receivership on Tuesday afternoon.

A spokesman for receivers PPB says the workers will not get their last week’s pay “at the moment”.

He says it will take some time before the money to pay out staff to be generated.

“What happens is there is stock and there are accounts receivable,” the spokesman told Sydney media.

“We will realise the stock and collect the accounts receivable and the employees will have first bite of the cherry over that.

“In the meantime, we organised for Centrelink to come up and assist them.”

The employees will be eligible for support from the GEARS scheme – a general employment entitlement redundancy plan.

The collapse of the business was due to a combination of reasons, the spokesman says.

These include drought, high stock prices, a strong Australian dollar and the company putting in a methane plant to aid its environmental compliance that cost more than the reported $4 million.

The receivers will advertise the assets and PPB has already been contacted by interested parties, the spokesman says.

The Mayor of Young, Stuart Freudenstein, say he is hopeful a new operator will take over the meat processing factory.

“Hopefully we can find another operator to run the abattoir,” he told Sydney media.

Cr Freudenstein says Young’s unemployment rate is low compared with other regional towns, but has grown by 1 per cent each year for the past seven years.

“Our local papers have a good sprinkling of positions vacant,

so up until this happening, we’ve got a pretty healthy economy,” he says.

The Mayor’s son James, 34, is one of the workers affected by the closure.

“He’ll go wherever the work is; he’s quite prepared to move elsewhere if he needs to,” says Cr Freudenstein.

The business has also employed a large contingent of Afghan refugees.

“That was very successful, the community welcomed them and we have a multi-culture group that supported them and helped them assimilate into the community,” the Mayor says.

Meanwhile, the principal of meat processor Fletcher International Exports Pty Ltd, Roger Fletcher, reportedly says the sheep industry is changing and abattoirs need to change with the times too.

Mr Fletcher told regional radio that Burrangong Meat Processors had a unique business model.

“They are processing for other customers, and when there is a little shortage of stock and a strain on them it, would put a bigger strain on the company,” he is quoted.

“They are one of the only multi-species plants left technically, I suppose, in Australia, in a sense where they do sheep, cattle, pigs and goats. And I think that’s a difficult situation.”

Mr Fletcher says the abattoir at Young had its own set of challenges.

“They’ve been going for quite a few years, but we’ve got a very difficult time in beef processing and it’s a difficult time in sheep processing,” he says.

“We’ve (Fletcher International) made some changes of ours, cut our production back so we could manage it sensibly, and that’s what we’re doing and a lot of other plants have done that. Outside of that it catches them on the side.”