A study has been launched to investigate the workplace hazards meatworkers face in the South.
Meat processing is New Zealand’s largest manufacturing sector, worth $12.2 billion to the economy and employing 28,000 people. But it is a hazardous work environment and has multiple health risks.
University of Otago Va'a o Tautai Centre for Pacific Health postdoctoral fellow Dr Jane Taafaki has been given a Health Research Council grant of nearly $400,000 to investigate the workplace hazards that thousands of meatworkers face.
"Pacific peoples are overrepresented in this industry and experience high rates of injury and work-related harm — a trend which is a growing concern in rural towns," she said.
The first-of-its-kind study would take a Pacific approach to investigating the connection between the risk exposures in these kinds of manual labour industries and workers' health.
Taking place in meat plants in Oamaru, Balclutha and Pareora, the study would examine the type and extent of workplace injury and illness, and how they relate to wider concepts of wellbeing, perception of workplace safety, risk exposures, and absenteeism.
"We really want the outcomes of the project to be useful and informative to both the industry, as well as agencies like Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand, WorkSafe and ACC, so that there are positive outcomes for the workers and industry alike."
