MBIE wants pay guarantees for halal slaughtermen in New Zealand

Tuesday, 20 October 2020

Silver Fern Farms head of sustainability Justin Courtney says without halal slaughtermen the business can’t supply the “crucial' Middle East market.

New Zealand's meat industry may lose the ability to export to lucrative Middle East markets if an agreement over pay for halal slaughtermen cannot be reached.

Some 80 skilled halal processing workers and at least 260 other essential meat workers are due to leave New Zealand next year when their Essential Skills Work Visas expire – potentially slowing down production at 42 halal processing plants throughout the country.

More than 45 per cent of New Zealand’s total red meat exports are halal certified, but the sector relies heavily on migrant workers as there simply aren’t enough Kiwis trained to carry out halal slaughtering.

Under current immigration policies, migrants who earn below median wage ($25.50 an hour) are considered low-skilled workers and must step down for 12 months before being allowed to apply for the same three-year work visa again.

Meat Industry Association chief executive officer Sirma Karapeeva said increasing demand for halal export products had created a high need for certified practising Muslim processing people.

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“While we recruit as many as we can domestically, it significantly falls short of our need. That means we have no option but to look to migrants to fill some 150 roles each year.”

Meat Industry Association chief executive officer Sirma Karapeeva says the industry prefers hiring New Zealanders, but there simply aren’t enough Kiwi halal slaughtermen to keep up with demand.

Silver Fern Farms head of sustainability Justin Courtney said the halal meat workers came with a unique skill set, allowing the company to sell to the Middle East, as well as Muslim customers in New Zealand and around the world.

Its migrant halal slaughtermen were paid under a union agreement on the same terms as its local seasonal staff in those roles, Courtney said.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment acting immigration policy manager Andrew Craig said slaughterers were generally paid above median wage, but their pay included piece rates, which were not guaranteed and therefore not taken into account when Immigration New Zealand calculated a job’s pay rate.

The ministry was working with the industry to find ways to provide certainty of a median wage at the point of applying for a visa, he said.

The stand down requirement would not be applied to halal slaughterers for the next six months while a solution for recognising minimum future earnings was worked through, Craig said.

“Generally, employers who are concerned about losing workers, who are in New Zealand, due to the stand-down period, can support these workers to get Essential Skills visas without a stand-down period by paying at or above the median wage, provided there are no New Zealanders available to do the work,” he said.

Sector agreements were currently paused, but the Government continued to monitor and review immigration settings, he said.

Karapeeva said the industry was asking INZ and MBIE to work piece rates into visa criteria.

Piece rates were a long-standing agreement in the meat industry and the unions were supportive of the structure, she said.

“We wouldn’t want to be messing around with a formula that works for our workforce,” Karapeeva said.

“Pushing for a blanket increase would be difficult.”'

Blue Sky Pastures chief executive Todd Grave said it restarted halal slaughtering in August and the company had managed to recruit the halal slaughtermen needed for this season.

Most of them were New Zealand citizens, he said, but he still shared the industry’s concerns about access to skilled migrants.

“[The] ability to recruit them and then the ongoing visa renewal requirements are difficult, resource-consuming and uncertain,” Grave said.

Since 2002, Karapeeva said, the industry had been granted an annual approval in principle to bring 145 halal processing people from overseas to fill the sustained shortfall.

“We are actively working on a workforce development strategy to widen the training pipeline in New Zealand, but this relies on certainty of production and our existing halal workforce is a critical aspect of this,” she said.