Hand washing is REALLY important

According to a post on Stuff, a worker at a Silver Fern Farms meat plant in New Zealand lost her job for not washing her hands.

At first sight, this may appear to be a draconian decision, but the company had written procedures in place, stating that if a worker touched dropped meat, they should wash their hands before handling other meat being prepared for packaging.  Meat that has fallen onto the floor can be contaminated by many different bacteria and by other organic material.  Handling this fallen meat and the area around the dropped meat table could contaminate the worker's hands and hence other meat being packaged.

If the worker had been properly inducted into the plant, she would have been made aware of the requirement to wash hands after retrieving meat from the floor and transferring it to the dropped meat table.

The real problem is that the company has a meat export licence that almost certainly has stringent hygiene requirements incorporated.  Thus failing to observe the written procedures in relation to dropped meat could have put the licence, and the livelihoods of all other workers at the plant, at risk.