STAFF SHORTAGES AFTER 80 PER CENT FAIL DRUG TEST

The meat industry wants to bring in seasonal workers from the
Pacific Islands to meet a labour shortfall caused partly by up to 80
per cent of local applicants failing drug tests.

The industry has begun tripartite meetings with the Government and
unions about a scheme similar to the new, recognised seasonal
employer scheme for horticulture, which allows horticulturists to
bring in up to 5000 workers from the Pacific for up to seven months a year.

Meat Industry Association adviser Robyn Deacon said the labour
shortfall in the meat industry was smaller _ about 1000 in a
workforce of 24,000.

But the industry faced the same challenges of finding seasonal
labour in near-full-employment rural areas. The meatworks' recent
shift to drug testing all job applicants had heightened the problem.

Hamilton-based Affco, which runs 10 meatworks from Moerewa in the
north to Awarua near Invercargill, started testing three years ago
and said the number of job applicants who failed the test varied
from area to area.

"At times it can be as high as 80 per cent," said human resources
manager Graeme Cox.

Christchurch-based Anzco Foods said the numbers failing its drug
test were "on the increase". "It can get as high as 80 per cent ...
" said human resources manager Heather Burton.

The country's biggest meat company with 25 works, Dunedin-based
PPCS, reported a lower rejection rate of 24 per cent of job
applicants and said some were rejected for reasons other than the drug test.

The other big chain, Invercargill-based Alliance Group with seven
plants in the South Island and one at Dannevirke, uses a saliva test
which picks up drugs used only in the previous two days, in contrast
to the other three companies, which use urine tests. Alliance human
resources manager Kerry Stevens said: "It hasn't been an issue for
our company or a reason for the labour shortage."

NZ Meatworkers Union president Mike Nahu said the union opposed
bringing in migrant labour and believed the main reason for the peak
labour shortage was not drugs but the trend to open and shut killing
chains when stock numbers rose and fell.

"I just had a call 10 minutes ago that one of the sheds is laying
its night shift off.

Years back, even if you were on the bottom chain, you still operated
for an eight-month season. Now you might get one month."