Family devastated,plant fined $2,500: Poultry worker's death casts light on safety oversight

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1444182/

Saturday, April 26, 2008; Posted: 04:10 PM

WILKESBORO, Apr 26, 2008 (The Charlotte Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- Every night, Thomas Okrenuk returned home tired and sore, scratches covering his arms. But the 49-year-old father of two rarely complained about the chicken plant where he worked.

For Okrenuk, the Tyson Foods plant provided a steady paycheck. He'd been laid off from a nearby cheese factory before landing the job hanging live chickens on moving hooks.

Two days after Christmas in 2003, Okrenuk was on a conveyor belt, working to free a stuck cage filled with live chickens. Without warning, a forklift operator, unaware Okrenuk was there, put another rolling cage on the belt and gave it a push. Okrenuk, a quiet man who loved camping and fishing for trout, was crushed between two 2,700-pound cages.

When officials with the N.C. Occupational Safety and Health Division investigated his death, they discovered that Tyson's managers knew about the hazards, but failed to eliminate them. The fine: $2,500.

"I've lost everything," said Okrenuk's widow, Debbie, a mother of two. "What did they lose? ... I believe it's not a big enough fine that it will even faze them."

On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate committee is scheduled to examine how weak enforcement and low fines have done little to motivate companies to address deadly workplace hazards.

The hearing follows Observer stories that focused on working conditions in the poultry industry, where thousands of workers are hurt each year as they cut and package chicken and turkey. The stories showed how feeble OSHA enforcement, minimal fines and dwindling inspections have allowed companies to ignore hazards that can kill and injure workers.

FULL story at link.

[melody]

1. Golly, chicken plants having unsafe working conditions -- how unusual

OSHA should be f'ing ashamed of themselves but, being run by sociopaths, they won't be.

[Cresent City Kid]

2. While we were watching Iraq...

... the Bush administration was quietly dismantling our ability to protect people from business, be it worker safety or consumer safety.