Some workers who returned jubilantly to the chains, tables and freezers at the Affco Wairoa meat plant yesterday may be on the job less than a fortnight because of a possible early seasonal drop in the works' kill.
The news was conveyed to staff about 8am, barely two hours after they emerged across the carparks in the pre-dawn dark to man their stations for the first time since being locked-out amid an industrial dispute 13 weeks ago.
The return to work was signalled last week by a deal brokered by iwi leaders in about 60 hours of employer-union meetings in Auckland, and a plant ratification by Wairoa staff on Monday.
A staff member said the drop in the kill would not normally take place until August or September, but it had not been a normal year.
Meatworkers Union Affco Wairoa branch president John Hubbard, a freezing worker since 1979 when he was taken on at the then Waitaki plant aged just 15, said that while it was disappointing, it was too early to be negative.