Tragedy Strikes Mississippi Poultry Plant as 16-Year-Old Worker Fatally Injured in Deboning Machine

Hattiesburg, Mississippi - In a devastating incident that has left the community in mourning, a 16-year-old worker at Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC plant lost his life after being sucked into a deboning machine on July 14, 2023. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has placed blame on the Mississippi slaughterhouse for the young worker's death, citing lax safety standards as the cause. This is the second work-related fatality at the facility in just over two years.

The victim, identified as Duvan Perez, was a contract worker employed by Onin Staffing, LLC. He was deep cleaning the deboning area when the accident occurred. Despite a manager being on-site, proper safety protocols were not followed. The "lockout/tagout" procedure, which involves disconnecting power to the machine during the cleaning process, was not initiated. As a result, Perez was pulled into the machine he was sanitizing, sustaining fatal injuries.

Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC has been hit with $200,000 in penalties, with OSHA citing 14 serious and three other-than-serious violations. The company has a history of safety lapses, as it was previously cited by OSHA in 2021 after another worker's shirt sleeve got caught in a machine, resulting in their death. OSHA Regional Administrator Kury Petermeyer expressed disappointment in the company's failure to enforce strict safety standards after the previous incident. He emphasized that worker safety should never be treated as an afterthought.

The Department of Labor has launched a child labor investigation against Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC. It is illegal in Mississippi for minors to be employed in packing or processing meat and poultry, as well as working with power-driven machinery. The company has not commented on OSHA's decision, but their attorney, Larry Stine, stated that Mar-Jac Poultry thoroughly investigated the accident and found no errors committed by its safety or human resources employees. Stine added that the company has taken aggressive steps to prevent future accidents and the hiring of underage workers.

Tragically, it was discovered after Perez's death that he had been hired under the identity of a 32-year-old man. He hailed from the village of Tuimuca in Guatemala, according to media reports in his home country. The exploitation of underage workers is a growing concern in the United States, with the Department of Labor finding that over 3,800 children were illegally employed by 835 companies in the last fiscal year.

This incident highlights the need for stricter safety regulations and enforcement in the workplace, particularly in hazardous industries such as meatpacking and poultry processing. The Department of Labor's investigation serves as a reminder that children are still vulnerable to exploitation in the United States. The loss of Duvan Perez's young life has sparked outrage and a call for justice, as no worker, especially a child, should be subjected to preventable dangers in the workplace.