JACKSON, ma’am. — A Mississippi poultry plant’s failure to follow safety protocols led to the death of a 16-year-old worker who was pulled into a machine, federal regulators said Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found numerous safety violations in its investigation into the July workplace accident that caused the death of Duvan Pérez, a Guatemalan teenager and contract worker at the Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg. a press release.
“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machines they use can be if safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death,” said Kurt Petermeyer, an OSHA regional administrator. “The company’s inaction directly led to this situation. terrible tragedy, leaving many to mourn the avoidable death of this child.”
After the accident, Labor Department officials said Pérez’s death was a reminder that children remain vulnerable to exploitation in the American workplace.
OSHA did not mention Pérez by name, but the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity — a nonprofit organization focused on immigration-related issues — previously identified Pérez as a contract worker at the plant.
Mar-Jac did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. The company, which has facilities in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, has 15 business days to dispute OSHA’s findings.
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has also opened an investigation into child labor at the factory.
In 2022, the ministry discovered that more than 3,800 children had worked illegally at 835 companies in various sectors. In April, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said the Department of Labor had reported a 69% increase in the number of children working illegally in the U.S. since 2018.
Federal workplace safety officials launched an investigation into Pérez’s death on July 14 after Mar-Jac, a Georgia-based poultry production company, said the teen died while “performing sanitation work.” OSHA investigators discovered that Pérez died during a deep cleaning of a machine in the plant’s deboning area. He became stuck in the rotating shaft of a still-powered machine and was pulled in, officials said.
Before authorities arrived at the plant, Perez’s coworkers had tried to remove him from the equipment, which reached the ceiling of the plant, according to police records obtained by The Associated Press in July.
Investigators said factory managers should have ensured workers turned off the machine’s power and followed steps to prevent the machine from inadvertently starting during cleaning. They cited Mar-Jac for 17 workplace violations and proposed a $212,646 fine.
Perez was the second employee in just over two years to die while working at the Hattiesburg plant. An amputation also took place in the factory during that period. OSHA previously cited Mar-Jac Poultry for four safety violations in three separate incidents in 2020 and 2021.
“Only about two years later, nothing has changed and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting employees at risk,” Petermeyer said.
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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.