MGA pushes to ease COVID-19 restrictions causing severe worker shortages

NATIONAL

Mid-way through January 2022, MGA together with other industry leaders attended a crisis Food Supply Food Security meeting with Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Bruce Billson, Federal Minister for Social Services and Acting Small Business Minister, Ann Ruston.

This is one of many such state and federal food supply and security meetings and task forces which MGA attends and shares the predicament of our members around Australia.

This crisis meeting was held for the federal government to better understand the food supply and security risks caused be severe workforce challenges (unsustainable absenteeism) experienced by our businesses, and within our suppliers’ businesses, around the nation. These risks stem from workers being required to be COVID-19 tested and isolate, even when asymptomatic. Some members report that 40% of their staff are unable to attend work. This has placed significant pressure on food and grocery businesses to open doors and trade.

Members report drastic actions have been needed in stores, including opening later, closing earlier, closing at lunchtimes, closing full days at a time, closing various departments such as deli, meat, bakery and so on.

It is not just our stores but the entire food supply line from farm, to market, to manufacturing, to distribution centres, to all the freight services required to deliver goods to our stores. Deliveries of fresh food and groceries are days behind, and when deliveries arrive, the challenge is to find workers to get food onto the shelves for consumers to purchase. MGA together with other industry groups are advocating to overhaul coronavirus isolation rules and free up supplies of rapid antigen tests, warning political leaders about the risk to the supply of essential products caused by chronic staff shortages. Like recent announcements concerning shorter quarantine rules for critical and essential workers, MGA and industry groups ask that food and grocery workers, as well as, freight and transport workers, be included in the shorter quarantine rules. This could open access to more than one million workers.

The food supply and security issue can only get back to normal if states work together and have a simple, unambiguous, and consistent approach to this very serious matter. MGA has called for clear and nationally consistent guidelines on how to manage the re-entry of close contacts back into the workplace. Discussions also concerned the chronic shortage of rapid antigen tests (RATs) despite federal government assurances that it would supply ten million tests to the states in late January 2022. Health Minister Greg Hunt said recently the federal government was looking to supply the states with ten million tests by late January. Coalition MPs have been told the government has secured seventy million tests to arrive this month and next.

MGA pushed back on members having to source and pay for RAT kits to test staff upon arrival for the commencement of shifts.

Our businesses simply do not have the human resources, as the large chains do, to allocate people in our stores to enforce RAT staff protocols and record each test. The cost of the RAT kits is also prohibitive given the razor thin margins businesses operate under. MGA has requested the federal government supply free of charge RAT kits for three months, or at the very least, subsidise the cost of the RAT kits for family and private businesses. MGA believes a simple temperature check of each staff member prior to a shift commencing could be a very achievable solution and provide necessary detections and protections in the workplace. Something must be done urgently by the federal and state governments. The industry has never confronted a food supply challenge and worker shortage crisis such as what confronts us now from farm to food and grocery business shelves.

MGA will continue to work closely with federal and state governments to get workers back into the food supply chain, not to mention our own food and grocery stores.

There are more meetings to follow, including a Food Supply and Security meeting with the Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews. MGA will keep members informed of news as it comes to hand.

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