The “shameful operating conditions” in Irish food factories are facilitated in part through fraudulent contracts designed through agencies to pay taxes in Ireland and leave thousands of foreign employees invisible in Ireland, trade union officials say.
This occurs when the Health and Safety Authority admitted to conducting only nine unannounced inspections of meat processing plants during the pandemic and issuing ZERO enforcement orders to improve fitness guidelines.
An emergency consultation from Dail’s Covid-19 committee heard evidence of shocking practices in Ireland’s meat processing industry, which is at the center of a series of coronavirus outbreaks that 3 counties will be locked up last week.
Some 1,450 employees of Irish meat processing plants have become inflamed with the virus since the start of the pandemic, and more than three hundred of these cases have occurred in the past two weeks in Kildare, Offaly and Laois counties.
The number of instances in the 3 counties has led the government to introduce a local blockade with strict health measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
There have been five conglomerates of more than a hundred instances in meat processing plants since the start of the pandemic, and trade union representatives now do not easy to do more to combat poor employee conditions, leading to a “perfect storm” for Covid transmission. -19 Fix
Greg Ennis of SIPTU told the committee that staff were sharing beds in tight spaces with an incident of 40 employees living together in a space in Co Offaly.
He said an employee will sit down and, after a certain number of hours, get up to allow the resident to fall asleep in the same bed.
These are also inadvertently evicted and can have their homes replaced at the last minute without realizing it.
He said staff were petrified by the concept of contracting the virus because nine out of ten meat factory employees have no sickness benefits and will not have a source of income if they are forced to isolate themselves for two weeks.
Representatives of the Irish Meat Industry later told the Dail Committee that an investigation into meat processing plants revealed that only 20 percent of them are covered by a poor health wage.
Greg Ennis of SIPTU said: “We simply can no longer compromise protection against a rampant profit search.
“We have already noticed the tragic death of an employee in a meat factory on the island of Ireland, we do not want to see another. The meat may be perishable, but the staff will not be.
“Covid-19’s emergence in the Irish meat processing industry has been incredibly complicated for our members.
“Everyone is still petrified by the concept of contracting the disease, but they feel they have to walk the tightrope every day and, in many cases, they pass on to the paintings even if they don’t feel good.
“We have had many porners who highlight the nature of meat processing at the level of government and employers.
“Now is the time for these entities to put their cash where they are and recognize the desire for industry staff to have a legally established living wage, sickness, and pensions.”
The trade union official also revealed how the virus test was done to the staff of a Kildare plant after an outbreak before being sent back to the factory to process the perishable meat.
This staff continued to paint for 4 days until the effects of their tests were despite everything they were sent through the fitness service.
Nora Labo, an independent staff union, told the committee that staff at a dairy plant in Cork had been ordered to repaint after informing their boss that they had symptoms of Covid-19.
He also explained that some foreign staff members had left Ireland to make a stopover with their families and that on their return they had been threatened by their employer with wasting their jobs if they were in two weeks’ quarantine through the government after a trip abroad.
Meat processing plant staff are paid a little over $10 an hour and some members raise cash to help their colleagues who have been forced to isolate themselves because they will not have a poor health wage.
Unions are asking the Health and Safety Authority to carry out prompt checks on meat processing plants to detect poorly functioning situations for staff.
HSA CEO Sharon McGuinness said she has performed 3,820 controls across industries since the pandemic began.
He said he had won 21 court cases for unverified fitness measures at meat processing plants and said most of his inspections were unannounced visits to the sites.
However, HSA’s boss remained red after being questioned about the issue through Sinn Fein’s David Cullinane and admitted that only 39 meat factories were inspected by the Covid-19 crisis and that NEUF of them were called unannounced.
Mr Cullinane said: “We have known for more than 4 months that meat plants are outbreaks of viruses and transmission.
“There are 149 meat processing plants approved through the Ministry of Agriculture. Only 39 of them were inspected through the HSA, and only nine of those inspections were announced.
“While it is vital to recognize that the ad is regularly served at short notice, when it is done the day before, it allows more than 16 hours in advance. The vast majority of inspections deserve to be unannounced, than a minority.
“No notices or prohibitions have been issued after an HSA inspection of these plants.
“These are transmitted if a violation is detected, so we will have to make the HSA have not detected any violations.”
IWU’s Nora Labo also described how a large number of foreign staff from countries like Romania are being exploited through employment agencies that rent them on “fake independent” contracts that allow corporations to redirect their cash through Poland to pay taxes in Poland. Ireland.
She said: “There were several painters, all Romanians, who for years were disadvantaged by their social security rights in Ireland, but a job company hired them to paint in several meat factories in Munster.
“This company hired all those Romanian citizens as self-informed contractors in Poland, so all their contributions were sent to Polish and non-Irish taxes and it was our union that discovered many of those cases and filed many court cases with the WRC. .
“For many years, they all have no annual leave, are not entitled to sickness benefits, child benefits, or PPS numbers, and were de facto invisible in Ireland.”
Greg Ennis of SIPTU said: “The industry is a complex network of transient workers, freelancers, poor working conditions, business losses with profits at the expense in this case of workers’ health. It’s a scandal in itself.”
The president of the Irish Trade Union Congress, Patricia King, told the Dail that she had “trafficked in all departments and ministers” for years to get them to attack those suspicious agencies, but nothing has been done.
Meat Industry Ireland refuted union claims about transitional staff and stated that only 2% of staff are hired through agencies, the vast majority through factories.
The head of the Nora Labo union also explained that non-English speaking foreign staff receive messages from corporate and fitness facilities about the virus and practices that are not translated.
He explained how these language barriers are a specific challenge for staff in China, Brazil and East Timor, as lack of communication means that staff do not know how they want to replace their face masks.
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