The Labor Protection Agency fined a group of companies nearly $ 1 million after the deaths of six poultry workers in Georgia in January.
The workers at Foundation Food Group died after a liquid nitrogen leak at her Gainesville facility. Announcing the fines, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said Friday that the company is placing “profits above safety” and ignoring basic responsibilities that could have prevented the leak.
“Six people went to work … and never came home,” Walsh said on a press call. “Make no mistake, this was a very avoidable tragedy.”
OSHA cited three other companies for safety issues after an investigation: Messer LLC, which supplied industrial gas to the plant; Packers Sanitation Services LLC, which cleaned the facility; and the FS Group, which provided and maintained mechanical equipment there.
In total, OSHA issued 59 quotes to the four companies for a total of $ 998,637. However, these are initial penalties that companies can appeal and attempt to negotiate lower fines.
These are substantial penalties by OSHA standards as the agency only stipulates light fines by law. Walsh said the amounts were relatively large in this case, but “not enough”. In fact, the total initial fines are only $ 166,000 for each worker who dies.
Walsh called on Congress to increase OSHA fines to alert dangerous employers.
“We have seen too many companies cut corners,” he said. “Workers still die in this country every day.”
ELIJAH NEWS via Getty Images
Nicholas Ancrum, Vice President of Human Relations for the Foundation Food Group, speaks at a news conference following the fatal liquid nitrogen leak.
Poultry farms use liquid nitrogen to freeze the chicken they process. It is colorless and odorless and often does not let workers know when they are exposed to it. According to OSHA, three maintenance workers entered a freezer at the Gainesville facility on Jan. 28 and were “instantly overwhelmed” by nitrogen. They were followed by other workers.
Five workers, including the three maintenance workers, died instantly, while a sixth worker died on the way to the hospital. At least a dozen other workers were hospitalized.
According to OSHA, the maintenance workers who first entered the freezer were not trained in handling liquid nitrogen.
Kurt Petermeyer, a regional administrator for OSHA, said at the press conference that the Foundation Food Group had been without a safety director for more than a year and that senior management at the company had “made no effort” to find other employees with safety responsibility could take over created by the vacancy.
The Foundation Food Group fines include six “premeditated” citations, a more severe category that carries higher penalties. An employer who has committed willful violations has either knowingly broken the law or acted “with simple indifference” to the safety of workers.
Foundation Food Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the quotes.
OSHA has investigated an apparent second leak – this one from ammonia – that occurred a few weeks after the liquid nitrogen disaster. The leak prompted workers to file a complaint with OSHA. Foundation Food Group tried to block the agency’s investigation into the second leak, resulting in one Litigation with OSHA in federal court.
Petermeyer did not want to say whether the company was cooperating at this point in time. He noted, however, that OSHA has had difficulty finding some workers for interviews, likely because many are undocumented and fearful of getting into trouble.
“We continue to struggle to get support from workers for fear of retaliation or even threats of deportation,” he said.
Call to all HuffPost super fans!
Register for membership to become a charter member and help shape the next chapter of HuffPost
