Mar-Jac Poultry withdraws contest of citations
16 August 2024
2 minute learn
The US Division of Labor has reached a settlement settlement with a Hattiesburg poultry processing plant that requires the corporate to pay $164,814 in fines and implement enhanced security measures to guard their staff from well-known machine hazards, in line with a government-issued press launch.
The settlement follows an investigation by the division’s Occupational Security and Well being Administration into the failure by Mar-Jac Poultry to make use of required security procedures that will have stored a teenaged employee from being fatally caught in a machine as they cleaned it in July 2023.
Along with abating all violations cited by OSHA, Mar-Jac Poultry MS LLC should implement the next enhancements:
- Add one other correctly educated supervisor to the sanitation shift.
- Present employees uncovered to lockout/tagout and machine guarding hazards with up to date coaching.
- Require the plant’s supervisor and security director to finish OSHA’s 30-hour common business coaching and plant supervisors to finish OSHA’s 10-hour coaching.
- Institute a system for assigning, figuring out and issuing locks to licensed staff performing lockout/tagout capabilities and replace packages and coaching to mirror this requirement.
- Conduct a danger and hazard evaluation to judge the protection exposures and hazards related to present lockout/tagout procedures for the sanitation shift. The evaluation should embody a evaluation of any incidents, together with close to misses, accidents and sudden start-ups or malfunctions of equipment.
- Carry out month-to-month lockout/tagout security audits for the sanitation shift for one 12 months and supply proof to OSHA, together with what steps the employer is taking to scale back hazards in response to the audits.
“Tragically, a teenage boy died needlessly earlier than Mar-Jac Poultry took required steps to guard its employees,” mentioned OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer in Atlanta. “This settlement calls for the corporate decide to a safer office atmosphere and take tangible actions to guard their staff from well-known hazards. Enhanced supervision and elevated coaching can go a good distance towards minimizing dangers confronted by employees in meat processing amenities.”
OSHA provides small and medium-size employers no-cost security session providers to help them in growing a complete security program to stop incidents that may trigger critical and deadly accidents.
Headquartered in Gainesville, Georgia, Mar-Jac Poultry has raised reside birds for poultry manufacturing since 1954 at amenities in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi for meals service prospects within the US and overseas.
