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'We all eat together': Cedar Meats worker tells of fear and uncertainty
By Richard Baker, Michael Fowler and Aisha Dow
As workers on the early shift at Cedar Meats in Brooklyn in Melbourne’s west began filing in at 4.30am last Friday, they had no idea COVID-19 had been spreading among them for weeks.
Management broke the news at a 9am meeting. Staff were told that several of their colleagues had returned positive coronavirus results in recent days. Everyone was told to stop what they were doing and go and get tested immediately.
The Cedar Meats abattoir in Brooklyn.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Nathan*, who has worked at Cedar Meats for several years, was one of those at the meeting. He told The Age on Wednesday that even though his test result was negative, he was worried about his friends at work and potentially exposing his family to the virus.
The anxiety of not knowing who is infected and whether you had crossed paths with them was constant, he said. “We work in different sections but we all eat together.”
Nathan said he had not heard anything from Cedar Meats since Friday and had yet to receive his last pay. He was also unsure if he would be receiving any pay or benefits while he spent 14 days in quarantine at home.
“I’ve tried to call but no one is there,” he said.
As Victorian health authorities grapple to work out how things got out of hand at Cedar Meats, differences over who knew what and when have emerged in the timelines offered up by the Department of Health and Human Services and the company.
Cedar Meats said on Wednesday it was first contacted by health authorities about positive tests among its workers on April 27. But the department said it had been working with Cedar Meats since April 24 to conduct contract tracing and on scaling back its operations.
Whatever the case, April 29 brought confirmation of a serious outbreak as more positive tests emerged.
Despite all the drama, Cedar Meats still managed to place an advertisement through labour hire firm Labour Solutions Australia for meat processors and labourers at its Brooklyn site on the same day.
In the United States and Canada, abattoirs have been the scene of several large coronavirus outbreaks. The nature of meat processing requires people to work in close proximity to each other.
Nathan said it was a difficult to ensure social distancing at Cedar Meats. He said workers at the abattoir had their temperatures checked and were encouraged to sit apart in their common dining room.
But little had changed in the area where sheep and goats are butchered. “It’s hard to change when you’re working with machines,” he said.
Nathan said he believed the majority of Cedar Meats' workers who had tested positive for COVID-19 worked in the packing area and were of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds.
Cedar Meats told The Age that 90 per cent of its workforce were permanent Australian residents and that less than 5 per cent were foreign workers. More than half its workers were employed via labour hire firms.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton suggested that some of the affected Cedar Meats workers also lived together, increasing the risk of transmission.
“Yeah, some of them do [live together]. I think this is another feature, again, of the US outbreaks. I think they’ve had an outbreak that had almost 800 workers infected, so they’re really, really dangerous, but there are some who co-habit in this cluster,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
Professor Sutton said it appeared Cedar Meats had taken measures to protect its workers as best as possible.
“But this facility, as I understand, had taken to screening for symptoms in their workforce, spacing to the fullest extent that they could, to have a generous policy to make sure that they weren't turning up to work unwell, and twice daily disinfection. But they are well-known places, a bit like aged care facilities and other close settings, where the risk is just intrinsically higher.”
*Nathan is a pseudonym to protect the identity of the Cedar Meats worker