Dealing with Covid in milk factories

Union general secretary Chris Flatt says part of these ongoing discussions relate to sick leave and how people can isolate if they get sick.

He notes that, like in the cities, there are multi-generational households in rural areas and that presents its own challenges.

"The Government has talked about some support around this as well, but we need to ensure workers can isolate and be off work and not feel pressured to go back to work early," he told Dairy News.

"A lot of our collectives have good sick-leave provisions. From what we have seen overseas, we need to prepare for huge amounts of sick leave to be taken," he says.

At the same time, Flatt says they have to look after people and make sure that they are not doing too much, and that their collective employment agreement terms are complied with.

"But at the same time recognising there may need to be some flexibility on certain sites because we could have large numbers of workers just being on sick leave.

"We have been through the discussions in the last 24 months, making sure that in lockdown people are safe... but I am now looking ahead to see, what does that look like in terms of supply lines, such as picking up milk?"