Poultry processor hit with proposed $212,646 fine after second worker, a teen, killed by machine

Editor’s Note: The following story contains disturbing content.

The US Department of Labor is proposing a $212,646 fine against a Mississippi poultry processor after a 16-year-old sanitation worker was pulled into a chicken deboning machine and killed. The child became the second worker killed in just over two years at the plant.

The same facility was cited by the Department of Labor for unsafe working conditions after an adult worker’s shirt sleeve got caught in a different machine, which pulled him in and killed him in 2021.

In the most recent incident, the teen contract worker employed by Georgia-based Onin Staffing was sanitizing the machine at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Mar-Jac Poultry plant on July 14, 2023, when they were caught in the rotating shaft and sprockets and pulled in, according to a report from the DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“Following the fatal incident in May 2021 Mar-Jac Poultry should have enforced strict safety standards in its facility,” OSHA regional administrator Kurt Petermeyer in Atlanta said in a statement Tuesday. “Only about two years later nothing has changed and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk. No worker should be placed in a preventable, dangerous situation, let alone a child.”

OSHA cited Mar-Jac Poultry with 14 “serious” and three “other-than-serious” violations in response to the latest death. The total fine was based on a formula in federal statute that assigns a monetary value for each of the 17 violations based on their severity.

Federal safety investigators found that comprehensive safety procedures were not in place to disconnect power to the machine and prevent it from unintentionally starting during cleaning, the DOL said.

Mar-Jac Poultry, which could not immediately be reached for comment, operates facilities in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Onin Staffing could not be reached for comment. Mar-Jac Poultry told NBC News in October that the company has followed all safety procedures in the incident involving the teen worker.

An attorney for Mar-Jac told NBC News at the time that the company had “thoroughly investigated the accident and has not found any errors committed by its safety or human resources employees. It has learned many lessons from the accident and has taken aggressive steps to prevent the occurrence of another accident or hiring underage workers.”

“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’s Petermayer said.

The DOL said the poultry processor currently is also under a separate child labor investigation by its wage and hour division. It said the company has 15 days to respond to the citation and penalties or contest the agency’s findings.