A fire broke out at 7 p.m. on January 3 in Australia`s largest family-run meat processing line. The picture shows a side of the disaster site in the early morning of the 4th, the scene is still thick smoke, firefighters in the fire.
Headquartered in (Murray Bridge), South Australia, Thomas Foods (Thomas Foods International) is Australia`s third-largest meat processor. Firefighters reportedly saved more than half of their equipment hours after a fire broke out at a huge slaughterhouse on the south bank of the Murray River, 76 kilometers from Adelaide. Losses are now valued at tens of millions of Australian dollars, and some of the buildings need to be pushed down to allow firefighters to get into a complete fire.
A spokesman for the South Australia Fire Services Department (MFS) said experts had confirmed that the fire was caused by a worker accidentally welding a garbage bin and that Mars splashed on high flammable walls, which were 100 meters long and 80 meters wide after they were ignited. The huge 4-story building spread rapidly. Experts also estimate that the fire will continue to burn until Friday.
The fire also left the vast majority of its 1400 employees jobless in the near future. At the start of the New year, as Murry Bridge`s biggest employer, the disaster hit the whole city.
Steve, a worker in charge of herding sheep into the house at Slaughterhouse, told reporters that he had worked for the company for more than three years, that the family of four lived on his salary and a small allowance, that his daughter was disabled and needed full-time care from his wife.
"two shifts in the factory, I work at night. At about 7 o`clock, they were told to leave the plant immediately, and all the staff retreated to the main road (a kilometer away), not knowing what was going on inside, only seeing the fire and the smoke. " "the factory is gone," he said. "it`s very likely that you`ll lose your job."
Charknm, who works as a cashier at a nearby gas station from India, is currently studying as a graduate student in information engineering at (Charles Stuat University), University of Charlister. "in the evening, fire engines roared past," he said. I`ve never seen so many cars at the same time, so I guess the fire was serious. If the factory can`t start, then many people will face difficulties. It`s really hard to find a job right now. "
Thomas Foods, founded in 1988, is one of six Australian beef producers to export its products to China, in addition to all major supermarkets in Australia, and to more than 80 countries in North America, Europe and the Middle East. The annual output exceeds 1 billion Australian dollars.
The company, which has slaughterhouses across Australia and employs 3000 people, has been in trouble for the past two years.
In 2013, Yu-Hsiang Hsiao), a 21-year-old worker from Hsinchu, Taiwan, came to Australia with a temporary technical visa (Yu-Hsiang Hsiao), worked alone at the slaughterhouse studio in Murry Bridge), the Advertising Daily reported. Carelessly falling into a 65-degree sodium hydroxide pool containing water and caustic soda was trapped for as long as 10 minutes before being rescued, resulting in severe burns to 32% of the lower body skin.
After many operations in Australia, including skin grafting, the victim returned to Taiwan, but his health is still "far-reaching adverse reactions."
Big Mars, a labor agency, was fined A $ two hundred and forty thousand in 2016 by the South Australian Industry Magistracy for failing to provide workers with the necessary training to cause the serious injury. Thomas Foods has also been accused by the South Australian work Safety Agency (SafeWork SA) of violating the work Health and Safety Act, (Work Health and Safety laws).
Australia`s Weekly Times (The Weekly Times) reported on Nov. 30, 2017, that Thomas Foods was caught in a "Labor Gate" scandal.
At the slaughterhouse in its new state of Tamworth, more than half of its employees are temporary foreign technicians on 457 visas to Australia, most of them from the mainland, Taiwan and South Korea. After a four-month survey, the meat processing industry union (Meat Workers Union) found that the short-term workers were placed in a room with up to 20 people living in groups by intermediaries. As a result, the council ordered the workers to move away and close the overcrowded rooms.
Thomas Foods employs 3/4 of its employees as immigrants, the union said, leaving local Australians unable to find low-skilled, entry-level jobs.
