A poultry processing plant has received a fine and been the recipient of Department of Labor action after a 16-year-old died of fatal injuries.
“Tragically, a teenage boy died needlessly before Mar-Jac Poultry took required steps to protect its workers,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer in Atlanta.
Mar-Jac Poultry MS LLC, was the subject of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation.
It looked at a horrific incident that the company failed to avoid. The Hattiesburg poultry company failed to apply industry-standard safety measures that “would have kept a teenaged worker from being fatally caught in a machine as they cleaned it in July 2023.”
Hattiesburg poultry processing plant investigated by OSHA
The company has been fined $164,814 in fines and new safety measures must be implemented under the watchful eye of OSHA to avoid a similarly harrowing workplace event.
These enhanced safety measures will hopefully protect their employees from well-known machine hazards. They are:
- Add another properly trained supervisor to the sanitation shift.
- Provide workers exposed to lockout/tagout and machine guarding hazards with updated training.
- Require the plant’s manager and safety director to complete OSHA’s 30-hour general industry training and plant supervisors to complete OSHA’s 10-hour training.
- Institute a system for assigning, identifying and issuing locks to authorized employees performing lockout/tagout functions and update programs and training to reflect this requirement.
- Conduct a risk and hazard assessment to evaluate the safety exposures and hazards associated with current lockout/tagout procedures for the sanitation shift. The assessment must include a review of any incidents, including near misses, injuries and unexpected start-ups or malfunctions of machinery.
- Perform monthly lockout/tagout safety audits for the sanitation shift for one year and provide proof to OSHA, including what steps the employer is taking to reduce hazards in response to the audits.
“This settlement demands the company commit to a safer workplace environment and take tangible actions to protect their employees from well-known hazards. Enhanced supervision and increased training can go a long way toward minimizing risks faced by workers in meat processing facilities,” Petermeyer concluded.
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