THE PRESS TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1984. Automation in meatworks

Press, 21 August 1984, Page 20

THE PRESS TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1984. Automation in meatworks

The chairman of the Meat Board, Mr Adam Begg, might have given the impression last week of being out of touch with his industry. He said, in a prepared address, that there was evidence of a growing awareness among meat workers that the golden years of the industry are over. Workers in the industry, he said, were realising that a concerted approach was necessary to ensure the survival of the industry. Would that this were generally so. Unfortunately for Mr Begg and for the industry, the leaders of its two biggest unions were making headlines at the same time by decrying a suggestion that increased automation and greater use of technology could reduce the prohibitive labour costs and union featherbedding that are strangling the industry. The trigger for the union leaders’ remarks had been an address the previous day by the executive director of the Freezing Companies Association, Mr Peter Blomfield. Mr Blomfield had spoken to a meat industry seminar of the ability of robots to do many of the tasks in, the freezing works that at present are done by people. If Mr Blomfield had sought to bait the unions, he could scarcely have found a more sensitive issue or one on which the unions’ response would have been more predictable. The mention of words like “automation” and “new technology” seem to elicit an automatic, almost programmed reaction from meat workers’ representatives. The unions have adopted a policy of strenuously resisting the introduction of new technology except on their own terms. By coincidence or by design, these terms in most instances would absorb the savings that otherwise could . have been expected from introducing more efficient methods. Without these savings, New Zealand has little chance of maintaining a competitive edge for the meat exports on which so much of this country’s overseas income depends. Costs have to come down in New Zealand if these exports are to compete in price with produce that is heavily subsidised and is also spared the burden of long-distance freight charges. The oftenquoted advantages of processing meat further

in New Zealand might be dissipated unless labour can be channelled to the skills of further processing and can be replaced in the mundane tasks by machines. The $2OO million-a-year deal announced by the Meat Board last week, for instance, is possible only because an automated meat production system, pioneered overseas, will be used to turn 2.4 million lamb carcases into 20,000 tonnes of boneless lamb for the United Kingdom market. The success of ventures such as this, and the realisation of the full potential of technological advance in the meat industry, will depend on the co-operation to which Mr Begg aspires. His hopes might seem to have been dashed by the union leaders’ pronouncements; but the truth is that workers’ attitudes to new technology are by no means as inflexible as these comments might suggest at first glance. The level of opposition or acceptance varies from district to district, but the overcapacity in some sectors of the industry has shown many workers the hard economic facts. They have learned, for that even the most modem beef house will remain silent all season if its operation is uneconomic. The introduction of new technology can be as smooth as it is inevitable. Reasoned discussion and negotiation should prevail. Some things must be said, for the record as it were; but anything that obliges the parties to adopt publicly an entrenched or extreme position should be avoided, because public declarations are so much harder to amend without loss of face. Few people think well when backed into a corner, most just react. Given time, and favourable examples, even the most uneasy workers might be persuaded that ways can be found to provide new jobs within the industry when automation is introduced. Some parts of the meat industry have already, come to terms with machines, and more should manage to do so if a blanket resistance on principle is avoided. If the process is taken step by step, and if satisfactory examples are set as changes are made, the whole industry may survive more or less intact.