Workers were not employed directly by the abattoir owner Jan Pendarvis, but by 3 contractors engaged by the owner. The contractors had most to lose from an award based tally system according to union accounts. According to AMIEU official Allan Anderson "the reason why he (Pendarvis) succeeded was that he employed three contractors and the three contractors were viewed by the Court as being the employer, but in the essence they were really J Pendarvis's employees and J Pendarvis was, of course, the third party that was in fact effected by that industrial dispute. And, as such, they found against us that we had to pay the damages that he had incurred during that industrial dispute..."