For all employers, and especially manufacturers and producers, beware of becoming a serious violator under OSHA regulations. “Case Farms” faces $861,000 in fines for continued safety problems cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency announced. Case Farms is a fully integrated poultry farming and processing group of over 3200 employees and 475 grower farms with plants in North Carolina and Ohio. OSHA’s latest visit to the poultry processor's facilities in February 2015 alone resulted in delivery of 55 citations, including two willful, 20 repeat, 30 serious and three other-than-serious safety and health violations, prompting the agency to add Case Farms to its Sever Violator Enforcement Program.
The February 2015 inspection that resulted in the Aug. 13, 2015 citations found:
• Amputation hazards
• Fall hazards due to non-functioning fall-arrest systems, unprotected platforms and wet work surfaces.
• Lack of personal protective equipment.
• Numerous violations of electrical safety standards.
• Improperly stored oxygen cylinders.
• Lack of emergency eye-wash stations.
In OSHA’s August 13, 2015 press release, David Michaels, OSHA’s assistant secretary of labor, called Case Farms “an outrageously dangerous place to work,” calling attention to the more than 350 violations cited in the past 25 years and documented in its announcement.
OSHA and its North Carolina division have inspected Case Farms 66 times at its plants in North Carolina and Ohio. Citations were issued in 42 of those inspections, the feds said.
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