U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is urging the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to conduct a comprehensive investigation into an accident that resulted in a fatality at the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Guntersville, Alabama, earlier this month.
While the plant where the incident occurred is not in the congressional district of DeLauro, D-Connecticut, she has a history of questioning the safety of meat and poultry plants in the United States.
The accident occurred on the morning of January 6. According to a report from the Sand Mountain Reporter, the victim, Gabriel Seth Brutley, died when a freight elevator had fallen three floors with Brutley, a forklift and a pallet of goods.
DeLauro recently wrote a letter to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor Lauren Sweatt, asking for a thorough investigation of what happened. In her letter, she brought up other incidents that have occurred at the plant in recent history.
“This tragic fatality comes after several other troubling incidents in recent years, according to OSHA’s own records. In 2016, the plant was cited for violating basic safety precautions after a worker suffered an amputation. Since July 2017, the plant has reported three severe injuries; none of which resulted in any OSHA plant inspection. And, this past spring, the plant was cited for now following OSHA’s process safety management standard for highly hazardous chemicals,” DeLauro’s letter read.
She also questioned whether line speeds at the plant were safe.
“Despite this appalling track record on workplace safety, in April 2019 the plant sought, and received, a special waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase the speed of their poultry slaughter line. Increased line speeds can impact all workers in the plant, and, as you are aware, there is a growing body of data documenting the association between faster line speeds and worker injuries,” DeLauro wrote.
“I have concerns regarding the agency’s commitment to investigating this matter, in light of the fact that OSHA currently has the fewest number of inspectors in recent history. All workers have a right to a safe workplace, and no worker should ever have to sacrifice their life for a paycheck. The agency must make sure that this fatality, and all worker fatalities, receives the resources and comprehensive attention it deserves.”
In 2017, DeLauro led an effort to convince U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that line speeds at poultry plants should not be increased, saying any attempt to increase line speeds would have detrimental effects of food, worker and animal safety. The USDA would go on to determine that plants could obtain poultry processing line speed waivers that would allow them to operate at speeds of up to 175 birds per minute.
