Inspectors with the U.S. Division of Labor’s Occupational Security and Well being Administration cited Case Farms for a number of security violations at its plant In Winesburg, Ohio.

Officers from OSHA opened a follow-up inspection underneath the company’s Extreme Violator Enforcement Program on the Winesburg facility on August 7, 2023. OSHA discovered machine guarding and trip-and-fall hazards within the facility’s dwell grasp division that had been considerably just like violations cited in a earlier case.

OSHA cited the firm for 3 repeat, seven severe and 4 other-than-serious violations for not utilizing required lockout/tagout procedures, not coaching employees in such procedures, a scarcity of machine guarding to guard employees from contact with working machine components and exposing employees to fall and electrical hazards. The processing plant faces $393,449 in proposed OSHA penalties.

The corporate has 15 enterprise days from receipt of the citations and penalties to conform, request an casual convention with OSHA’s space director, or contest the findings earlier than the unbiased Occupational Security and Well being Evaluation Fee.

“Case Farms Processing continues to disregard federal security rules to guard employees on the job. Returning to a facility to seek out related violations recognized in earlier inspections demonstrates a callous disregard for the protection of employees,” OSHA Space Director Larry Johnson in Columbus, Ohio, mentioned in a press launch. “Case Farms exposes its Winesburg workforce – principally employees with restricted English proficiency – to life altering accidents. The firm should come into compliance instantly with the regulation.”

Case Farms is headquartered in Troutman, North Carolina, and staff 3,500 employees nationwide and 576 staff at this Winesburg, Ohio facility that course of about roughly 140,000 chickens each day.

These citations come simply two months after the corporate was honored for clocking 3 million work hours with no lost-time accident at its Winesburg complicated.