Chickens

Until the dramatic events of Friday night, the Baiada Poultry dispute in suburban Melbourne had not had the publicity of Qantas. That’s a shame because the gutsy fight by low-paid Baiada workers is just as important in the fight for fair treatment at work.

Media coverage has focused on the clashes between police and workers, but has ignored the basic issues at stake. A couple of hundred low-paid workers have been forced to take legal industrial action because their employer has refused to bargain with them.

They are taking collective action in an attempt to stop the spread of insecure work – and ensure that Baiada workers on low wages have some certainty around their jobs and basic rights to sick leave and holiday pay.

Continue reading "Baiada is playing chicken with livelihoods and lives" »

“I held her underwater until I knew she was dead”  said a woman.  The rest of us nod, squirreling away this method as a future possibility.

I am among mothers congregating at the school gate, waiting for the bell.  We look like the type of congregating mothers who give congregating mothers a bad name.  The gutter stretching behind us is littered with abandoned 4WDs - doors resting open - some pregnant with healthy prams.  A toddler, resigned to boring talk at this time of day, is spinning inconveniently on the footpath. 

Another woman presses for more detail - keen to know if there was a struggle before drowning.  No, she was weak from disease.  Our voices jockey to make the next disclosure of killing.

Continue reading "How to murder a chicken and other poultry facts" »

As a farmer it is my duty to let backyard chook fanciers in on a secret. No chook ever died in credit. That’s why the only chooks that have ever been on our farm have been dead, plucked and ready to cook.

Chooks as pets are the flavour of the month. They are small, they eat leftovers and the eggs they lay are delicious, making them ideal pets for inner-city backyards.

But if you look at the economics, each egg will cost many times more than the amount you pay for a barn-laid dozen and food producers don’t provide homes for poultry or livestock that doesn’t earn its keep.

Continue reading "Chooks lull us into false sense of food security" »