HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WHLT) – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited a Hattiesburg poultry plant for additional safety and health violations.

According to OSHA, Mar-Jac Poultry has been cited for:

• Inadequate access to toilet facilities, “exposing employees to health hazards such as, but not limited to, urinary tract infections, incontinence and/or bladder, bowel and kidney infections.”
• Lack of lockout tagout devices affixed to appropriate machines.
• Missing machine guarding at the “gizzard table” to protect workers from nip points, rotating parts, flying chips and sparks.

These violations resulted in $46,553 in penalties against Mar-Jac.

The poultry plant has been under fire after the death of a 16-year-old boy at the facility on July 14, 2023.

Mar-Jac denied any wrongdoing in the death of Duvan Perez. They admitted Perez was killed at the facility, but they denied any liability in connection to his death.

The family of Perez filed a lawsuit against Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC, and Onin Staffing earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that Perez was killed due to Mar-Jac ignoring safety regulations and not turning off machinery during sanitation. The suit also claims Onin Staffing was negligent in illegally assigning the 16-year-old to work at the plant.

The company was previously cited by OSHA in January 2024. In addition to OSHA’s investigation, the department’s Wage and Hour Division has an open child labor investigation and the matter is currently pending.