Episode 32



Freezing Works



This episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, I talk about Freezing Works, a New Zealand occupation, basically an abattoir or slaughterhouse where the meat is frozen at the end and exported overseas.





Download Episode directly here



My intro was from No Agenda episode 104.



I'll start with a quote.



The meat processing industry is in a constant state

of change. These changes will continue to meet the

requirements of the 21st Century. The meat plant of

100 years hence will probably feature a high degree of

automation. But this will be beyond our lifetime.





If we

focus upon the immediate future the meat plant of the

21st Century will probably incorporate many of the

current trends or developments.

Operating margins will remain small with the

emphasis upon high productivity and enhanced revenue.

We may see the rise of the mega-plant linked with a

national or international network of specialised added

value operations.

The international demand for meat and proteins is

expected to grow. The challenge of the meat plant will

be to meet this demand and produce a range of products

to the exact requirements of the customer.





'In the public eye, the Freezing Worker is one of the

lowest status individuals in our society. A rough,

irresponsible layabout who jeopardises the economy for

sheer greed and goes on strike at the drop of a hat. He

earns high wages for very simple work. He's at a key

point in the economy, responsible for processing one

or our biggest export commodities. He can hold the

country to ransom. So runs the popular myth.

No-one who has not seen what a freezing works is

like, and the kind of jobs freezing workers do is in a

position to criticise. The industry carries mass

production to its extreme. A freezing works is a giant

dis-assembly line along which carcasses and organs roll

with a deadening inevitability while the men scuttle to

keep up. The machine is truly king. A butcher on the

chain must carry out the same operation over and over

again, day after day until the season ends. Not for him

the carpenter's pride in his skill, the watersiders variety

of tasks, the shearers' sense of completing a meaningful

job. Instead endless, mindless, meaningless work, often

standing in the same place all day using a dangerously

sharp knife, surrounded by hundreds of other men doing

the same thing, and by the unedifying sights and smells

of freshly dismembered animals.'



Kerr Inkson of Otago

University, 1977



I had to look up the term Watersider, it means a person who loads and unloads ships, a dock worker.



In Southland , there are a few different Freezing Works, or "The Works", as they are known colloquially. Freezing Works are common in New Zealand rural areas, farmers grow animals like cows, sheep and pigs, and they are sent off to The Works to be killed. When you go past a Freezing Works, they are quite large factory buildings, normally white, and with lots of metal frames outside, where the animals were kept. Trains or trucks will bring the animals in, they will go through pens, to be stunned and then murdered, or in Freezing Works terms, Slaughtered, inside. Their skin is removed for leather, bones are cut and pulled out, heads cut off, tongues cut out, their muscles sold as meat. Their organs are snatched out and thrown in stainless steel trays for inspection, if they are fit for sale, then they are sold for people to eat. Intestines are used as the casings for sausages, the intestines are like socks that get stuffed with low grade meat, to make sausages. I've read that glands are sold, some powdered up and sold overseas as a health thing, some such as testicles, are probably bought in an attempt to spice up the bedroom. In old photos I've seen, you know from the 80's, hairy old men, without gloves on , are wringing out the intestines to make sausage casings, I assume that nowadays they have to wear gloves at least. The intestines go through a wringer, and get washed.



A little about the history of meat exported from New Zealand. Canning of meat was started in 1869 in New Zealand, only the best meat was canned. In 1874, american cooled meat was sent to Britain, natural ice kept the meat cold.





The first ship to carry frozen meat from New Zealand to the United Kingdom was The Dunedin. The Dunedin used 3 tonnes of coal a day, through a steam powered refrigeration machine, to cool The Dunedins hold, down to 4 degrees celsius. The ship was rigged up for refrigeration in 1881, and its first journey, from Oamaru New Zealand, thats in Otago just north of Southland, left for London on the 15th of February, 1882. It took The Dunedin 98 days to arrive, on the 24th of May.





"It is difficult to realise that only about thirty-five years have elapsed since one of the most important of the world's industries was inaugurated, resulting in the enormous and increasing trade of the present day. And yet the whole of this great industry, and to a very great extent the general prosperity and advancement of New Zealand, hangs on the slender piston rod of a refrigerating machine".



M A Elliot The Frozen Meat Industry of New Zealand - NZ Journal of Science and Technology, May 1918.











How the Freezing Works, work.



The animals are brought in, they are

















To do this episode, I read a book about the Alliance Freezing Works here in Southland, the books name is A Cut Above, the book came out in 1985, two years before I were born.



A Cut Above was pretty difficult to read in parts, I read it every day at work while the other people around me ate meat, and I had my normal sandwiches. I'd ask questions to my dad, since he worked at Alliance, and he would casually explain things. Theres lots of disgusting sounding jobs, and sections of the Freezing works. Places like " the fellmongery" , which sounds like something from The Lord of the Rings, its where the wool is taken off sheep.



I'll read a few passages that stood out to me.



Just to explain this first quote, from the 1950s until the mid-1970s New Zealand was a highly protected economy

<read from A Cut Above RE Boiler>

Ok, hearing that nowadays, with our Free Trade Agreements and all, the idea that the government can deny the right of a company to import a crucial device from overseas, it sounds nuts to me! I asked some older friends, and they could agree that it was the right thing to do, "new zealand jobs" and all, but I dont think its a good plan to just ban imported goods, and instead churn out inferior, and more expensive local versions. Imagine if we could only have New Zealand made computers, that had to have every part made in this country, we'd have to spend billions to reinvent every component, and then still be behind! I dont think I'd want to swap my Apple iPhone for a Kiwifruit brand, Choice-as phone, would you?







This part of A Cut Above is about one of many strikes and protests.



<city slaughter reading>



I couldnt believe that happened when I read the book, the farmers were angry that the freezing works were overloaded, they couldnt deal with extra sheep at the time, so the farmers were being forced to hold onto their animals for longer than they wanted. The farmers went crazy, in my opinion, and brought the animals right into Invercargill city, from their farms, and set them free in the main streets, I cant imagine what that must have been like to see. Scared sheep were running about on busy roads, I guess the farmers would have been having a great time, laughing as police struggled to control the animals that must have been running in front of cars, and in every direction. The farmers managed to get the sheep under control, they took them somewhere close to the Invercargill prison, they dug ruts in the ground for blood to flow through, and started killing sheep in public, out in front of tv crews. Thats horrible, the animals were made about as scared as possible, running free on city roads having lived on farms all their lives, the police couldnt deal with it, it would be scary for drivers not wanting to hit an animal, all while the farmers would have been enjoying themselves. Then, to start killing the animals in public, they show no respect at all for the lives of the sheep, they wanted to protest by driving into Invercargill, setting them off on the streets, so they did it. They want to kill the sheep, so they get them back ,take them to another public place and kill them out in the open, on camera, just to get attention. What was their complaint? That they had to wait for the freezing works to kill their animals, and they couldnt be bothered having these poor sheep kept alive that long.





One more section from A Cut Above.





"Continued industrial stoppages in the freezing industry had not escaped the notice of the new National Government which had been elected to office on promises of being tough with irresponsible unions. Late in 1976, it was to demonstrate some theoretical muscle when it introduced the Industrial Relations Amendment (No. 3) Act.



The act obliged those in the industry to give three days notice of industrial action, and they faced fines of up to $150 if they did not kill out sock either