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Issue date: 18 January 2022
Teys Australia welcomes resumption of supply to Woolworths
Teys Australia welcomes Woolworths’ announcement that it will resume receipt of meat processed at our Naracoorte facility from this Friday.
The health and safety of our people is our first priority. At all times, our Naracoorte facility has operated to the highest standards and in line with the requirements of SA Health and Worksafe SA.
Teys Naracoorte has remained operational during this period, meeting strong demand from domestic customers. The following arrangements continue to apply at Teys Naracoorte, reflecting the requirements of SA Health and protecting the health and safety of our team:
- RATs are available for all employees.
- There is no team member working on site who has tested positive within the last seven days as per the SA Health protocol.
- Any employee who has tested positive via a PCR or RAT must have met a minimum of seven days in isolation, be feeling well and asymptomatic to be eligible for return to work under SA Health’s requirements.
- Employees returning to work under these requirements are working entirely separately from other workers and must return home immediately after their shift is complete. All meal breaks are taken separately under isolation protocols.
- Any employee who has tested positive either via PCR or RAT and has not met the minimum seven-day isolation requirement or is not feeling well is not eligible for work and will remain in isolation.
- All employees and visitors at the plant are required to be fully vaccinated.
- We use full PPE whilst in the workplace, practice social distancing and work to high levels of personal hygiene.
Similarly, Teys Australia works strictly according to the requirements of the local authorities in every State we operate. We are working hard to respond to the constantly evolving challenges of the pandemic and to meet the ongoing demand of Australians for high quality food.
Teys Australia CEO Andrew MacPherson said:
“At all times the health and safety of our people is our primary focus. We have worked closely with our team through this period and provided them additional support as required, including access to telehealth consultations. We remain very proud of our team in Naracoorte and at all our operations across Australia, all of whom are working to keep quality food on the table for Australians during a difficult time.
“We would like to thank and acknowledge those important stakeholders that we have directly engaged with through this process in ensuring food security while never compromising on the health and safety of our teams, namely our employees, our customers, SA Health, SafeWork SA, the Federal, State and Local Governments.”
To view a PDF of this update click here
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Issue date: 17 January 2022
Further to our statement of 15 January, Teys Australia’s Naracoorte plant continues to operate to meet strong demand from domestic customers.
Teys Australia is immensely proud of its dedicated team of essential workers who are keeping quality food on the table for Australians during an extremely challenging time.
In line with SA Health’s requirements, the following arrangements currently apply at the site to protect the health and safety of our team:
- Daily rapid antigen testing (RAT) for all employees not working under the SA Health exemption protocol.
- No team member on site has tested positive within the last seven days.
- Any employee who has tested positive via a PCR or RAT must have met a minimum of seven days in isolation, be feeling well and asymptomatic to be eligible for return to work under the SA Health exemption protocol.
- Each employee’s exemption is individually managed by SA Health and is subject to checks and verification by SA Police.
- Any employee who has tested positive either via PCR or RAT and has not met the minimum seven-day isolation requirement or is not feeling well is not eligible for work and will remain in isolation.
- Those essential workers who are eligible for an exemption are working entirely separately from other workers and must return home immediately after their shift is complete.
- All employees and visitors at the plant are required to be fully vaccinated.
- We use full PPE whilst in the workplace, practice social distancing and work to high levels of personal hygiene.
Teys Australia continues to work closely and responsively with the relevant health authorities and adheres to all requirements for essential workers.
To view a PDF of this update click here
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Issue date: 15 January 2022
The health and safety of Teys Australia’s people always comes first. We are working hard to respond to the constantly evolving challenges of the pandemic and resulting food security concerns. At all times we have fully conformed with the requirements of health authorities.
Our team has a critical role to play for food security across the country and in each jurisdiction we operate, Teys Australia works strictly according to the requirements of the relevant health authorities. We continue to work closely and responsively with health departments across several States.
In South Australia from Monday, no team member on site will have tested positive within the last seven days. SA Health has approved a limited return to work for asymptomatic individuals in roles critical to maintain supply, on the condition those individuals are feeling well and have isolated for seven days. If they meet these conditions, they must still be separated from other workers until 10 days after their diagnosis. This is comparable with the arrangements that apply in NSW and Queensland. Requirements are continually changing across jurisdictions and we are responding immediately to each of these changes as they occur.
Contrary to misleading claims made in the public domain, no worker has been, or will be, forced to work if they are unwell. In fact, we are specifically instructing our workers not to present for work if they feel unwell or they do not meet the strict requirements of the relevant State health authorities.
In addition, we have never unlawfully denied anyone access to paid sick leave when they are entitled to take it. In fact, we pro-actively took steps to establish access to telehealth appointments for our staff to obtain medical certificates to support sick leave applications.
More broadly, our policies and procedures include regular undertaking of rapid antigen tests for all our team and all employees and visitors at the plant are required to be fully vaccinated – our workforce achieved full vaccination status prior to Christmas and the rollout of booster shots is now underway. We use full PPE whilst in the workplace, practice social distancing and work to high levels of personal hygiene.
It is disappointing that certain interest groups have been making misleading and factually incorrect claims in the public domain, because these claims detract from the hard work being done by our dedicated team in all states.
Teys Australia is immensely proud of the incredible job being done by our dedicated team of critical workers to keep quality food on the table for Australians during an extremely challenging time.
To view a PDF of this update click here
