The Occupational Health and Safety Administration this week fined a Mississippi poultry processor $212,646 – an amount set by law – after a 16-year-old was pulled to his death inside a deboning machine last summer.
Mar-Jac Poultry MS LLC in Hattiesburg failed to follow standard lockout/tagout procedures that are supposed to keep machines turned off when a worker is cleaning them, OSHA said in a bulletin.
“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said in a statement. “The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death.”
OSHA had previously cited Mar-Jac after a 2021 incident in which an employee’s shirt sleeve was caught in a machine and he was pulled in, pinning the man and killing him. Another worker died at the Mississippi plant in 2020, according to news reports.
“Mar-Jac Poultry should have enforced strict safety standards in its facility,” Petermeyer added. “Only about two years later, nothing has changed and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk.”
The agency did not identify the 16-year-old killed last July. But news reports and a immigrant advocacy group said he was Duvan Thomas Perez, who came to the United States from Guatemala about six years ago.
Minors are barred from cleaning meat processing machines because regulators have deemed the job to be too dangerous, the New York Times reported. Georgia-based Mar-Jac has been under investigation for child labor violations since 2021, the news site noted. The poultry company had not responded by Wednesday to requests for comment from the Times.
The company has 15 days to comply with the latest citation, request an informal conference with OSHA or contest the agency’s findings, OSHA said in its bulletin.
It’s unlikely that Perez’ family members would be eligible for workers’ compensation fatality benefits. Mississippi, like most states, limits death benefits to spouses or children of the deceased worker.
Related: Teen’s Death in Poultry Plant Shows Child Labor Remains a Problem, Feds Say
OSHA Fights Mar-Jac Over Right to Inspect Facility
Topics Workers' Compensation Mississippi
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