A 16-year-old has died at a Mississippi poultry processing plant, county coroner says - eviltoast
  • larlyssa@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Pardon my delicate city sensibilities but I don’t think children should be working in meat processing plants surrounded by death and danger.

    • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Have they not read “The Jungle”? Pretty sure this exact sort of thing was addressed a hundred years ago.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        the thing about The Jungle was that we were supposed to read it and think “people need better working conditions” but a shockingly large number of people read it and thought “we need some sort of filtering system in place to keep all those immigrant thumbs out of the sausage”

    • Bimbus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I thought it was actually illegal for him to be working there? Maybe I misread another post.

      • larlyssa@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re right, I hadn’t read that yet at the time I posted this.

        Retraction: It appears that minors are not allowed to be working in meat processing plants, but that he was hired by an external staffing contractor who did not properly adhere to those restrictions.

        • III@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          hired by an external staffing contractor who did not properly adhere to those restrictions

          All by design…

  • Xepher@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    So no real info realesed yet on how he died other than due to an “accident”

    • Hup!@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They won’t be releasing anything until the depositions or criminal investigations force them to disclose all the grisley details.

    • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      That’s a good point. I don’t know anything about poultry processing plants, but is there dangerous (to human) equipment in these facilities, and why would a 16 year old be using said equipment? I remember working at Wendy’s and I wasn’t even allowed to use the chicken fryer at that age.

      • oSillyScope@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Republicans have been rolling back child labor regulations and protections in multiple states claiming it will save us from the labor shortage. I’m surprised it has taken me this long to see a story about the predictably disastrous results of this exploitative behavior. In the US capitalism is winning and the citizens of this country are losing.

      • I worked at a Foster Farms processing facility, and even in just the shipping department there are machines that could take your fucking head off and other things that could crush you if you’re not paying attention (which is hard because it’s also dark and loud). The rest of the plant is just as dangerous, if not more so. It’s one of the reasons I quit.

        • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, my money is on the kid being inside a machine that you’re not supposed to be in, plus not being properly locked out/tagged out. When you’re a kid and the boss says “go clean out the machine”, you don’t really think “hmm, maybe there’s a safer way to do this”, you think “boss says do it, so it must be okay”. You just don’t have the experience.

      • Selmafudd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I worked at what I would call a medium size plant, we processed 80-120k a day. There are a few minor crush hazards but honestly the biggest dangers would be accidents involving forklifts or trucks.

  • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ll say it like this, if a 14 to 17 year old wants a summer job fine, accept and understand that. Now here’s the problem with the article it only describes it as an accident and doesn’t give any information about what actually happened, so keep that in mind. If I had to guess this kid was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, no I don’t mean that to attack the victim here. What I mean is probably a supervisor or someone told him to do something that he is literally not supposed to be doing because he’s too young to do it. Like I’ve worked a warehouse job and we don’t employ anyone under a certain age, but we had a cardboard baler and it says on explicitly no one under the age of 18 is allowed to operate. So that’s what I mean, is like chances are this kid either through their own actions or through being told by a supervisor, was doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Could have been the fall, could have been getting caught up in machinery, we just don’t know. And like this is a rural Mississippi town, I’ve been here actually there’s like a Sonic which I think would be a good summer job for kids, but there aren’t a ton of opportunities. But like something like sexing chicks on a poultry line like that’s a common job, checking eggs for quality that’s something they do and would be a quick and easy summer job for a kid. So while we don’t have the full details of this accident, and don’t get me wrong it’s terrible, it really is. I feel like they’re being a bit sensationalist with the headline here.

    People down voting this clearly haven’t read what I’ve written here, so I’ll say it here for the kind of tldr, there’s a lot we don’t know about this situation, let the proper authorities do there job, I really don’t understand why CNN is even reporting on this tbh, but the news cycle has seemed a little slow lately.

    • Hup!@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You seem disturbingly fine with allowing children who legally aren’t old enough to listen to directions, or assume personal risk, to work in places where not following direction gets you killed.

      accept and understand that

      No, don’t accept and understand that. Question that and investigate the implications with a modicum of critical thinking.

      • bumblebrainbee@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Acknowledging that children are dying in situations they shouldn’t even be in is sensationalist, didn’t you know? We can’t be making people feel things, that’s rude.

    • pale_tony@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Mar-Jac Poultry said the teen died from injuries suffered in what it described as an “accident” in an emailed statement to CNN.

      “On the evening of Friday, July 14 an employee conducting sanitation operations at Mar-Jac Poultry MS LLC’s Hattiesburg, Mississippi poultry processing plant died as a result of injuries sustained in an accident,” the company said. “We deeply regret the loss and send our most sincere condolences to his family and friends.”

      Seems like this child was being employed by this large commercial butchering plant LINK as a sanitation worker. The company, in its own public statement, has only disclosed this as an “accident” hence why no other details have come forward.

      Mopping floors at a local grocery store for extra cash, sure. Working at a large scale commercial poultry plant is likely illegal under both Federal and Mississippi labor laws.

      I’m not piling on. I just want you to get the sentiment your thoughts have echoed to other users. We don’t want kids working in these environments for summer jobs or otherwise.

      This is not a wait and let’s see situation. That child should not have been working at that plant.

      • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Which is really why I feel like no one bother reading anything I wrote to be honest. It’s honestly confusing. One of my main issues with the CNN article was just thin it had no substance to it to bother with reporting on. Like literally what you post it has more information than the CNN article. I think what a lot of people don’t understand is this is a rural f****** place without a lot of opportunities for people that a lot of other places in the US have.