Women want firm to respect their right to reject vaccination

The National National
Female employees from Mainland Holding Limited’s processing plant at the company’s headquarters calling for a fair consideration on their choice not to get the Coronavirus vaccination. – Nationalpic by GLORIA BAUAI

By GLORIA BAUAI
WOMEN working for Mainland Holding Limited’s (MHL) subsidiary, Tablebirds, want their right to decline vaccination to be respected.
Judie Abraham, Ellen Jimbu, Anna Siona and Catherine Garret are a few of the workers who approached the media to air their grievance on behalf of at least 100 female employees in the chicken processing plant.
“We’ve been dedicated to MHL for 10 years, even more and we only ask if our individual choice can be respected,” Abraham said.
Abraham, who works in the kill section, has five children, four of whom are in primary school.
She does not want to be vaccinated after seeing that some of her colleagues who received the vaccine feeling weak.
“I cannot afford to be weak because our job demands physical energy,” she said.
“We are expected to reach a target of at least 20,000 or more chickens in a 7am-to-7pm shift.”
According to Garret, who also works in the kill section, one person can kill up to 7,000 chickens, to achieve the target of 40,000 in a full 24-hour shift.
Garret, who has been working with Tablebirds for 14 years, said without proper safety-wear like aprons and dust masks, they were covered in chicken excrement, blood and waste by the end of shift.
“It’s a very hot, smelly and disgusting job that only strong women like us can and have endured,” she said.
Jimbu, who has been working as a cutter with Tablebirds since 1995, said workers individually cut six whole chickens into required pieces in one minute.
Siona, who works in the wrapping section, said almost all their machines were spoilt which meant women stood for the entire 11 hours, manually killing, cleaning, cutting, packing and wrapping chickens.
Nebare Ku, a crocodile catcher from MHL’s crocodile farm, confirmed that the farm and the processing plant at 6-Mile has been closed for two days now.
He said a human resource officer Elijah Monope received the petition on behalf of the company and they were waiting for a response.
Ku said if there was no response from the management, the workers would petition the provincial government to intervene.
MHL in response to questions sent by The National said: “No comments from the CEO’s (chief executive officer) office.”