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'Strike' win by growers over chicks
5 Sep 2003
Victorian chicken growers have claimed victory after threatening not to accept delivery of 400,000 day-old chicks. The growers claim that the state's five processors have agreed to price rises of between 3 per cent to 5 per cent a bird. The Victorian Farmers' Federation's chicken-meat group, representing about 200 chicken growers, said there had been "significant movement" by the processors.
The VFF and the Australian Workers' Union have pushed for the re-regulation of the state's $540 million-a-year chicken-meat industry.
The VFF overturned an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruling allowing processors to collectively negotiate fees with growers, claiming that processors had too much bargaining power. The ACCC authorisation expired on September 4 and the chicken growers claimed they would be on legally shaky ground and would turn away trucks delivering chicks.
The legal row looks set to continue. A spokesman for Victorian Agriculture Minister, Bob Cameron, said there was a collective bargaining system in the industry before the VFF won an appeal in the Federal Court. The VFF has now put a stop to that system, he said.
The VFF had told the Government it would be illegal for the processors to receive chickens on to their properties once the ACCC authorisation expired, but they have now changed that view.
The Government is concerned that the regulatory system advocated by the chicken growers is similar to that in NSW, where many farmers are leaving the industry.
Australian Financial Review, 5/9/03.
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