Full production at the two canneries resumed last week, with StarKist Samoa on Monday and COS Samoa Packing after their annual two-week shutdown for the Christmas holiday. During the downtime, both companies underwent annual maintenance checks and upgrades of equipment and facilities.
COS Samoa Packing's general manager, Herman Gebauer said about 85 percent of the company's workforce has returned to work while the rest, mostly fish cleaning division “is still missing in actionâ€. “We usually give the individuals that did not return to work on schedule, 5 days to do so and if they don't then they are permanently placed on missing in action,†he said.
StarKist Samoa's Taeaoafua Dr. Meki Solomona said production “is moving smoothly, as people are slowly trickling back to work which is usual at the beginning of the year after the two-week holiday.†He said usually the fish cleaners take their time to return to work but estimates that about 85 to 90 percent of the workforce are back on duty.
The canneries usually have a hard time with workers returning on time after taking the two week Christmas break and just a couple of years ago, the canneries had to search for production workers because of the same problem. The majority of the canneries’ workforce are from Samoa and many of them return home for the holidays and at times, return very late or never return at all. “Before the two week break our workers were reminded of the return to work scheduled and we even issued announcements on Radio 2AP in Apia and the local radio stations," said Gebauer, of actions the company took to ensure the full workforce returned as scheduled. To alleviate the workforce shortfall in the fish cleaning, Gebauer said they hired 60 new workers on Tuesday.
Taeaoafua said StarKist Samoa also reminded workers on when production would return, including public announcements. “We give workers at least a week to return,†said Taeaoafua and noted that the MV Lady Naomi's extra voyage already arrived bringing the rest of the workers from Samoa.