Meatworkers Union organiser Eric Mischefski has hailed the handling of the closure of the Ovation meatworks boning plant at Waipukurau, with the loss of more than 300 jobs, as a "model for the rest of the industry to follow".
He said the quick decision, high level of communication and support offered,
had allowed workers to move on with their lives with dignity.
After consulting with the union, the closure was made official on June 29 and 306 redundancy payments would be made on July 6.
A resource centre was set up in the EIT Learning Centre in Waipukurau to provide advice and support for workers.
Mr Mischefski said the union would direct workers to good employers offering jobs and about a dozen had been hired already.
Many were expected to find jobs with Silver Fern Farms meatworks in nearby Takapau, which employed up to 1000 workers at the height of the season, or at Ovation's Feilding plant.
The Waipukurau plant was originally a joint venture in 1985 between the New Zealand Meat Board and Bernard Matthews, a successful turkey farmer in the UK, to bone out lamb carcasses for the production of lamb roasts. That was when the national sheep kill was much higher and lamb carcasses were being rendered for meat and bone meal.
It was bought by a group of local investors in 1994 who had the rights to use the name Bernard Matthews for five years after which it rebranded to Ovation. The company operated two other sites in Gisborne and Feilding.
Recent carcass supply came from Ovation's Feilding plant and an independent supplier in Hastings, which had said it would bone its own carcasses.
The company had strong markets in Europe, USA, and Asia.
