Welcome
This is a website built by Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Newcastle and Northern Branch (AMIEU) to support Occupational Health & Safety in the Meat Industry.
The development of this website was managed by the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union Newcastle and Northern Branch as part of a project funded under the WorkCover NSW WorkCover Assist Program. Any views expressed are not necessarily those of WorkCover NSW.
The OHS Website provides resources and information relevant to the meat processing industry including: meat retail and smallgoods, poultry processing, dairy manufacturing, ice and cold storage and distribution industries.
Please use the contact forms to request information, propose ideas or give us feedback. Your feedback is valuable as it will assist in assuring that the information provided is easily accessible and relevant to the industry.
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Your feedback is wanted!
Please give us your feedback on the handbook enclosed with your journal.
If you haven't got a copy of the handbook please click here to view online.
Alternatively if you would like one, please contact Tracy on (02) 4929 5496 or by email.
You can click here to fill in the form online.
Or you can print a feedback form off and send it into us (details are on the form).
Click here for the PDF version.
Safety Tips for Meat Workers
The AMIEU "Safety Tips for Meat Workers" handbook is now available in the following four languages:
If you would like a hard copy of one of these handbooks please email us your name and address. (Postal addresses in Australia only please).
Visiting worker dies in ice fall
BY DAN PROUDMAN The Newcastle Herald 07 Apr, 2011
A build-up of ice is being blamed for the death of a Taiwanese national who was crushed in an abattoir freezer yesterday in front of his helpless friends.
The dead man, identified by friends as Oskar Lin, 29, was cleaning out a "blast freezer" at the large Primo Smallgoods site at Scone when a five-metre-high ceiling gave way and fell on him about 7am.
Mr Lin, who had been working at the plant for just over a month, was killed instantly as two friends working just metres away watched.
Risking life and limb to feed the nation
Ruth Williams The Sydney Age January 30, 2011
The death of 17-year-old meatworker Sharga Taite was another black mark in the grim safety record of Victoria's abattoirs.
BEFORE dawn one Friday late last year, a 32-year-old abattoir worker was cleaning a knocking-box at the Tabro Meat site near Wonthaggi. Somehow the machine controlling the box, which restrains cows so they can be stunned then slaughtered, started up.
The man was crushed.
With severe chest injuries and collapsed lungs, he was rushed by helicopter to The Alfred hospital, but he could not be saved.
Photo: Sharga Taite
'There's a lot of things in life you need a thumb for'
Ruth Williams The Sydney Age January 30, 2011
ANDREW de Koster used to love drawing, sometimes spending hours engrossed in his art. ''Art was my thing - cartoons especially,'' he says. ''I could draw a cartoon in a matter of seconds.''
But now the 19-year-old struggles to use a pen. Turning a key, handling a zipper, throwing a ball and eating with a knife and fork have all become difficult - since he lost part of his thumb to a bandsaw while working at a Victorian abattoir.
Mr de Koster was 17 when a job placement agency pointed him to the Wodonga meatworks, operated by private company Norvic Food Processing. He started off packing meat, then was put on the bandsaw, a powerful machine used to cut up entire carcasses. It was heavy work, but he didn't mind. ''To me it was a job,'' he says. ''It was money in the bank.''
Apprentice's death sparks union anger
GEORGIA LONEY, The West Australian January 31, 2011
Unions have questioned whether Harvey Beef failed in its duty of care towards a teenage apprentice fitter who was dead up to three days before being found crushed by machinery on Friday.
Harvey man Dean Simpson, 18, was found by a co-worker about 2pm on Friday in the roof space of the coolroom of the abattoir.
Operations at the State's biggest abattoir remain suspended today after 300 workers were sent home at 3pm on Friday.
Mr Simpson's body was removed from the site on Saturday.