The meat industry has welcomed the Immigration Minister's review of the 457 short term skilled migrant worker visa.

It will be led by industrial relations commissioner Barbara Deegan.

Many employers are concerned it's too hard to get workers under the visa, while unions say it's being used to exploit the pay and conditions of migrant labourers.

The visa currently provides for a minimum salary level of $41,850 per year or $21.18 per hour.

Meat Industry Council chief executive Kevin Cottrill says a labour agreement the meat industry has struck with the Federal Government could be a template to improve the overall system.

Meanwhile the trade union movement has welcomed the inquiry.

The general secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union John Sutton says the deregulation of the visa program under the Howard government allowed abuse of both the system and worker's rights.

"[They] were grossly exploited in terms of not just bad safety, bad accommodation, many of them having their wages ripped off. Middle men taking fees and commissions out of their wages, sometimes their bank accounts were controlled by their employer or by middle men" he said.

"You'd be talking for hours to document all of the range of abuses that we've been seeing in recent years."

The AMIEU has also very successfully highlighted the abuses of the visa by meat companies and even now there are still meat companies not paying the minimum salary level and some involved in various scams and schemes to profit from the migrant workers.