this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
345 points (98.3% liked)

News

23409 readers
3268 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Family of 16-year-old worker killed cleaning a machine at Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg files lawsuit.

all 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 145 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

The more you read the article the worse it gets.

  • A 16 year old died while cleaning a machine.
  • local laws prevent anyone under 18 from working with machinery
  • This is the third person to die at this factory in 3 years.
  • there have also been 3 amputations and a hospitalization from a severe fall in the same time period
  • all of these violations have amounted to $212,000 in proposed fines from OSHA

I cannot comprehend how a company can have multiple deaths, amputations, and severe safety infractions in a few years and only face a small amount of proposed fines.

[–] motor_spirit 35 points 9 months ago

Well we'd hate to ruffle any feathers and upset some job creators, they might seek better tax deals elsewhere

It's also hard to draw reasonable conclusions quickly without people of color to blame.. give it time, give it time

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

That second point isn't exactly right.

Federal child labor laws prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from working in meat processing plants

See, I though I came to correct you that they cannot operate heavy machinery, but he was only cleaning it while it was supposed to be out of operation.

But if the article has it right, it was illegal for him to have been working in the building at all. That's a whole other situation than I previously understood it to be.

[–] workerONE 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is more proof that laws aren't enforced and that children in the workplace aren't safe.

[–] AngryCommieKender 18 points 9 months ago

Not just children. Workers in general aren't safe with those sort of track records

[–] gibmiser 24 points 9 months ago

The McNuggets must flow!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago

The more I read, the more fucked it got. I love that the meat plant is blaming the hiring contractor for hiring a 16 year old but the contractor is blaming the meat plant for not following safe cleaning instructions. Turns out they are both guilty as fuck and should be shut down.

[–] stoly 16 points 9 months ago

Because of lobbyists working over decades.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

3 deaths??? Jesus Fuck do they not have lock out tag out laws south of the Mason Dixon line?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sure they have lockput/tagout. You sit through an hour long video, then sign a sheet where you promise to obey the safety rules. Then when you actually try to do things by the book, your supervisor asks you "what the fuck are you doing?" and says "we don't have time for that". One place I worked had a peg board with everyone's lock and key for lockout/tagout; all of the locks had about a 1/4 inch (@ 6 mm to our European friends) of dust on them from lack of use.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well put. Your comment hit shockingly close to home for me and describes really well exactly what you'll find in tons of small to mid sized privately owned manufacturing facilities.

Super short story of my experience with this:

Worked at my family's owned machine shop for years. Toward the end of my time there, unbeknownst to anyone outside of ownership, the company went through a series of LEAN manufacturing and general procedural changes. Hindsight being 20/20 its glaringly obvious they were prepping to sell to an investor group.

One of these changes was the addition of an actual maintenance department (tell tale sign I teach people now is that when places add a "department" and the department is a single dude or dudette they're fluffing their tinder picks for more sellers to swipe right). So up to this point for the previous idk all the years I was alive up to that point, all maintenance on the Mazacs was done by whoever ran the machine until they couldnt at which point Mazac would be called to send out a rep.

So one day I come in to the machine I spent 1000x's more time inside than the time spent inside all the females ive been inside of put together was padlocked for lock out tag out. Start times were staggered depending on department and maintence didnt come in for another hour. I read the maintenance report, saw it was a coolant line problem I've fixed dozens of times. Went to maintenance cage, grabbed the dude's key, unlocked the lockout tag out, fixed the problem and had the machine running before maintenance punched in for the day.

Hot damn was that a mistake. Got a big write up, management calls a meeting with me making claims they were doing me a favor by not firing me. The issue wasnt the unauthorized unlocking of rhe machine because I was trained for lock out tag out procedures. The issue was that I unlocked a machine that was lockout tag out'ed by another person.

Whole fucking thing didnt sit well with me. By this time there was no secret if the sale, managment was transitioning, and the whole thing felt like a flex by management to make a show and used me as their public tar and feathering.

So stubborn as mule me reads the whole section of the osha manual for lock out tag out. Pulled the training records. Put everything together and went into the person's office responsible for the whole shitshow that was the special meeting to demonstrate that I wouldnt get special treatment. Laid out for him how the company failed to follow mandated training schedule, never assigned trained lock out tag out personel with assigned tags, then once they started assigning tags they never assigned tags to the previously trained team members and lastly never provided adequate resources on the policy and procedural changes for employees to reference.

Half way through this very aggressive conversation the dudes office had the newly appointed GM with almost every other member of management from the meeting.

Despite the classic internet meme where everybody stood up and cheered, its honestly the closest i could imagine to having people cheer lol. Noone chimed in most just took it in but there were enough faces with shiteating grins thst in the moment I felt certain I successfully threw what he thought was the perfect opening move for his new promotion right the fuck back in his face.

The most satisfying part wasnt telling him somthing along the lines of, "The cognitive dissonance it takes to schedule a special meeting with attendance from every single department lead and fucking manager there just to fuckin tell me Im not getting special treatment shows how unfit you are at this role." Naaaa the best part was shortly after the meeting I resigned, then about a year later I'm told, "Have you checked out your old production manager's new youtube channel?" I respond wtf you talking about, "You didnt know [insert anonymous name] got fired and started his own youtube channel hes calling consulting videos but really its just him talking to a camera the same stupid ideas and methods that got him fired. But you gotta check it out cuz the last video he posted this week his wife walks uo behind him and just start shaking his titty! He even puts into the comment an apology that he couldnt rerecord it because of how great the 45 mins of recording was upto that point!"

To this day my heart melts with joy knowing someone I called dumb was proven by a jury of our peers to be undoubtedly as dumb as I said he was.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

What the fuck

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

If the hawks nest tunnel taught us anything is that it's ok to knowingly kill hundreds of workers as long as you profit before any charges can be brought up

[–] CaptainSpaceman 4 points 9 months ago

Regulation is for those who cant afford good lawyers

[–] acceptable_pumpkin 4 points 9 months ago

The solution should be to jail all the owners and executives, force a sale of the company and set an example for anyone else who thinks about doing the same thing.

[–] RizzRustbolt 47 points 9 months ago

You mean a 16 year-old working at a poultry plant?

Yes, that should never have to happen.

[–] merdaverse 18 points 9 months ago

Nothing has changed, and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk

Just a normal day for capitalism

[–] Sorgan71 14 points 9 months ago

I feel like thats the case for most child deaths

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

There is a long rich tradition of underage children dying in meat processing plants. While this is absolutely tragic, anyone who has looked into this can tell you it's absolutely nothing new.

But, people want meat. So they look away, try not to think about it and nothing changes. Something to consider over your next cheeseburger.

[–] optissima 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is a long rich tradition of underage children dying in meat processing plants.

Yeah, we need better child labor laws and meat processing plant regulations, and those keep being overturned.

While the easy concept of "what if no meat industry" is easy to imagine, and I am for it, it's not realistic and would simply move the industry to a 3rd world country and transfer through there. Why don't vegans ever consider a 90% approach: if you get people to consume something that is 90% not meat, that's the equivalent getting 90% of the group vegetarian. Then it's an easier sell for vegetarianism, and as we develop lab meats, less must replaced.

Also, jw, would you be willing to eat human meat if they consented before hand and were disease free. I have a 93% yes rate, and I usually ask friends of friends when I meet them.

[–] NFord 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why don't vegans ever consider a 90% approach

It would still require animals that have been genetically engineered to produce as much mass as quickly as possible to exist. Less suffering is good, but the real goal is to end this cruel and unnecessary system.

[–] FlyingSquid 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And it's a noble goal, but it's also one that many (not by any means all) think could easily happen overnight as if adopting a vegan lifestyle were as easy and unproblematic as it gets. Humanity has been eating meat as a significant portion of our diet since long before homo sapiens evolved. Getting people to suddenly stop en masse is just not going to happen. You're fighting thousands of years of culture and genetics.

Weaning people off of meat is far more likely to work. Yes, it means more animal suffering in the mean time. But the fewer people you can convince to eat less meat, the more animals will be slaughtered.

[–] NFord 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How far along are you? I wish you the best on your journey.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Personally im pretty far. I eat far less meat than i used to growing up. I no longer eat veal, nor is meat the staple of my each and every meal. There are many many dishes i now make that do not feature meat at all. My meat intake is probably less than 50% of what it once was. For my SO, the change is less dramatic, but also noticeable.

For me, i noticed that simply the conscious effort to decrease how much meat i consume was an easy effort to expend, and it soon turned into a game id be playing with myself, trying to see where i can limit or cut out animal byproducts.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 9 months ago

I don't eat meat, but I do have dairy and eggs and shellfish. It's as good as I can do for now.

[–] Sp00kyB00k 3 points 9 months ago

It is not about the meat, it is about the safety regulations that should have been in place.

Capitalism will exploit unless there are reasons not do so. If the monetary risk is high enough, such as a % of total revenue in fines which should be more than the profit made, there is less of an inclination to perform such practices. Or death for the whole directive board, you know.

[–] fne8w2ah 4 points 9 months ago

Conservatives' secret wet dream exposed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

third to die in a 3 year period. Jesus christ it's a poultry plant, it's not supposed to be a dangerous job, why is this place still allowed to be open.