Working as Professionals in an Industrial Culture
Meat Workers in an Industrial Landscape
Veterinarian verifiers are predominantly employed to provide New Zealand primary industry operators with the required veterinary presence across their individual establishments to enable the access to international export markets for their products.
High variability of stock availability and processing patterns of individual establishments necessitate the mandatory presence of veterinarian verifiers at times beyond 8 hours per day, and on shifts at unsociable hours. These hours are outside the direct influence of establishment veterinarians on a day to day basis.
In simple terms, veterinarians working in Meat processing plants are professionals working
Trials in new regulatory approaches have led to Company level Quality inspections
in an industrial environment. In an attempt to ensure the quality of their professional judgement and to put a value on the amount of “unsociable hours” spent in this environment, various protections and entitlements have been built into the Collective Agreement. This in turn led to a perception among operators and others that veterinarians were “clipping the ticket” (since market-based salaries were being paid as well) – and not acting as professionals. This in turn led to the development of a rules based and low trust culture by managers attempting to respond to stakeholder feedback and at times “industrial type” behaviour from verifiers.
In the 2013 negotiations between PVI and VS, a number of these “sore thumbs” for operators were addressed as a prerequisite for moving away from this low trust culture. This has led to a removal of penal time within 40 hours on the 4×10 rosters, the move to only claiming overtime if a 40 hour week has been worked except in certain circumstances, and a more transparent set of entitlements for early starts.
In such situations, there is a judgement required by the veterinarian. The PVI-VS Library has been developed to assist professionals to make that judgement. It does not comprise rules but “essence” and “principles” that the professional can apply to the situation in front of them and decide for themselves. Often it is a matter of making an on balance decision about what to charge for overtime or expenses taking into account the “swings and roundabouts” relevant to the situation. The veterinarian judgements are to be lightly monitored by management – the decisions need to be sustainable when challenged by others.
Our Library Resources
In March 2014, the Director of VS, Chris Kebbell, and PVI President Paul Mitchell signed off an MOU Library MOU MPI-PVI -version 1 . Topics so far include (not all completed as yet):
PVI delegates with MPI leaders developing the Careers Pathway framework in August 2014
Appointment Assistance – version 1
Patterns and changes to HOW – version 1
Professional Development version 1
Unsociable Hours & Early Start Payments Variations
Both managers and verifiers are now using the library which is permissive of a change towards a high trust model of management suitable for professionals.