Posted on 12/10/2003 3:11:12 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Twenty - three former employers of the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp. in Keaau were getting job advice and filing unemployment forms Tuesday at the ILWU hall on Lanikauala St. following their layoffs last week.
The 23 workers, more than 10 percent of the company's work force in Keaau, were given 30 - day notices Thursday but told to pack up their things and leave immediately.
The workers, members of ILWU Local 142, will be paid and keep their medical coverage through Jan. 5 under terms of the collective bargaining agreement, which requires a 30 - day notice, said Isaac Fiesta, the union's business agent.
After that they are on their own. Many of the employees are seasonal workers, but several are "bread - and - butter" providers for their families, Fiesta said.
Calvin Shimizu, employed by the company for 23 years, was a factory mechanic. His wife, who also works for the company, was not laid off. They have two boys, ages 15 and 17, still living at home as the family weathers its new single - income status.
"I'm the least senior of the factory mechanics," he said, lamenting the loss of his job Tuesday. "I'm not worried about me so much, I'll find something. But a lot of those ladies, many of them don't have skills. I feel sorry for them," he said.
ILWU social worker Joann Kealoha and representatives of the state Workforce Development Division's "rapid response" team provided advice on coping with the layoffs and where to find leads for new jobs.
Shimizu, 49, said he has no job prospects yet. "We'll see what they have to say."
Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp. processes macadamia nuts and related products, marketed under the Mauna Loa brand, at its factory and visitors center in Keaau.
"I don't know how we're going to manage," said Wilma Revilla, unit chairperson for the union, which has about 210 employees under contract at the company. Revilla was not among those who were laid off.
Handed pink slips were three full - time employees and 20 "intermediate" employees, those who work "off - and - on" during the year, said Fiesta.
"It's sad to say, (but) it's always at the end of the year, during the holidays," Fiesta said. "It's a hardship on the family. Really sad."
Fiesta said the union had no indication that the company was struggling. "I think they are on an upward swing. But this company, from the mainland, they don't give a rip. It's bottom line. Profits. For them it's just cut. What a Christmas present."
Company officials in Keaau referred telephone inquiries to the corporate office in Irvine, Calif., but no one at that office could be reached for comment Tuesday. Telephone messages were not returned.
Fiesta said it may be difficult for the company to maintain its certification from the American Institute of Baking following the layoffs. In the past 10 years the company's Big Island work force has shrunk by more than 50 percent, he said. Floors are dirty in the plant, and "the manpower is not there to clean," he said. "It will affect operations. They are feeling it already."
Shimizu said failure to maintain the company's machinery adequately with the reduced work force could hurt the company in the long run.
"We kind of figured they would downsize," Shimizu said. "At 6:30 that morning we knew." That's when they were told to report to an 8 a.m. employees meeting. "They just said we were terminated. Don't even stay the rest of the day. Just pick up your tools and go.
"It's kind of sad," Shimizu said. After 23 years, "I kind of got used to it."
Shimizu's layoff wrecks a long run for the family as Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut employees. His wife has worked there 27 years as a candy maker.
"I have no idea what I'm going to do," he said. "But as far as my skills are concerned, I can do anything.
"What the hell, it's time to move on."
Hunter Bishop can be reached at hunter@hawaiitribune - herald.com
Company accused over nuts scandal
By Ben Hills
The Sydney Morning Herald
November 24, 2003
Australia's second-largest supermarket chain is investigating how it came to be a victim of a scam involving more than 14 tonnes of fake Australian macadamia nuts.
Documents seen by the Herald show the nut kernels, worth more than $200,000, were imported from Kenya, repackaged in boxes labelled product of Australia and sold to hundreds of shops.
The nuts have been sold in bulk in more than 300 Coles and Bi-Lo shops in NSW and Queensland, as well as other shops and supermarkets.
Coles said it had been made aware of the nut substitution last Tuesday, and was relabelling macadamias in its shops to make it clear to customers that the nuts were a mix of local and imported ones. It said it wanted to revert to Australian nuts "as soon as practicable".
The company at the centre of the scandal, Macadamia Industries Australia, is one of the largest Australian processors of the nuts, which are the only consumer crop indigenous to Australia.
The company's acting chief executive, Stephen Brierley, said MIA had imported the nuts because it could not get enough local macadamias to meet its contract with Coles. The local harvest was down dramatically due to drought.
The false labelling was a packaging error, he said.
"We apologised to Coles for this error. We have got our hands up and told them that it won't happen again."
The documents show that in August the company took delivery of 14,175 kilograms of the kernels, worth $223,000 that had been imported from Kenya by a North Sydney broker, GB-Commtrade Pty Ltd.
Mick Evans, who was recently retrenched from his job as the company's operations manager, said a shipping container of the nuts was delivered to the company's processing works at Wollongbar, near Lismore, on Saturday morning, August 30, when only a handful of staff were working. They were unpacked, and the packaging showing that they were Kenyan produce was immediately burned, Mr Evans said. Staff were told not to discuss the shipment.
Mr Evans said he had protested to company executives, but was told to mind his own business.
The kernels had been mixed with Australian nuts and repackaged into 11.34 kilogram boxes for Coles, each stamped Product of Australia. Mr Brierley denied that the Kenyan nuts had been used in any other brand - the company packs own-brand Pacific Gold macadamias labelled "Australia's finest quality" and the Judy Grainger brand, sold in duty-free shops.
Mr Brierley would not say now much of the Kenyan product had already been sold. The imported nuts that remained in storage would now be exported and not sold in Australia, he said.
Mr Evans said it was hypocritical of the company to pass off imported nuts as Australian as it had been publicly campaigning for the local industry and criticising competitors who had their Australian-grown crop cracked in China to cut costs.
He said the substitution scandal could endanger the livelihoods of more than 1000 macadamia growers, mainly in the northern rivers area of NSW, and risk an export industry in which Australia was aiming at global dominance by 2007.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it was not investigating any macadamia nut substitution, but if anyone had a complaint about false or misleading product information it would look into it.
Macadamia processor shells out support for Aussie nuts
ABC North Coast NSW
Friday, 28 November 2003
A major macadamia processor based in northern NSW says the industry remains committed to the Australian product.
Mislabelling has become an issue of concern after a consignment of Australian and Kenyan nuts were sold to Coles supermarkets as Australian product.
The Macadamia Processing Company's managing director, Don Ross, has declined to comment on the labelling, other than saying it was a commercial decision by "other people".
Mr Ross says the Australian macadamia is the best in the world and his company has no troubles filling its contracts.
"Obviously if we had more product we could supply more people, but we are a conservative company," he said.
"We meet our contracts and we don't need to import it from overseas. We are not interested in importing Kenyan kernel, we would rather be exporting the Australian kernel."
That's exactly what I got out of the title, too.
An Aussie company was recently nailed for fraud with misrepresentation of vitamin tablets. Years ago another scam was revealed when they were caught exporting kangaroo meat, declared as beef, to the US. They're not pioneers in this game.
Horsepuckey...as a veteran of 35 years in the food bidness, I can guarantee that repacking to change origin is epidimic. If an Aussie nut is worth a few pennies a pound more than a Kenyan nut, it will happen.
Well I haven't noticed any reduction in the price of Macadamias here -- but I have noticed a decrease in the size and quality of the ones I buy. I'm not sure where they actually come from, but I really don't like the news that processors are cutting back on maintenance of their equipment.
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