The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has reached a settlement agreement with Mar-Jac Poultry in which the poultry company would be required to pay $164,814 in fines and implement enhanced safety measures to protect employees from machine-related workplace hazards.
The agreement follows an investigation by the DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) into the failure by Mar-Jac Poultry to use required safety procedures that would have kept a teenage worker from being fatally caught in a machine, the DOL stated in a press release.
Duvan Tomas Perez was cleaning machinery at the company’s plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and died while on the job on July 14, 2023. He was a 16-year-old Guatemalan immigrant and middle school student.
“Tragically, a teenage boy died needlessly before Mar-Jac Poultry took required steps to protect its workers,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer. “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.”
In addition to abating all violations cited by OSHA, Mar-Jac Poultry must implement the following enhancements:
- 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.
