OSHA Issues $1 Million In Fines Over Deaths Of 6 Poultry Workers In Georgia huffpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from huffpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Before tragedy, Foundation Food Group was looking to ‘start a new chapter’ Foundation Food Group at the Memorial Drive entrance. - photo by Scott Rogers
Foundation Food Group was fresh off a merger between two Hall County companies and looking “to start a new chapter” in its short history when tragedy struck on Thursday with the deaths of six workers due to a nitrogen leak.
“We’re excited to start a new chapter for Foundation Food Group, our customers, industry partners and our employees,” said Jerry Wilson, president and CEO of the poultry processing company, in a press release announcing the merger on the company’s website.
2021/02/02 07:08 ATLANTA (AP) Immigrant advocates say they fear workers at a Georgia poultry plant where a liquid nitrogen leak killed six people may not come forward to federal investigators for fear of arrest and deportation. Speaking at a news conference, lawyer Shelly Anand called Monday on the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work together to guarantee any of the workers in the country illegally be shielded from deportation. Anand, executive director of the Atlanta-based immigrant rights nonprofit Sur Legal Collaborative, called on both federal departments “to find a way to protect these workers by granting them deferred action or continued presence.”
It’s not clear if any such protection will be forthcoming, though. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor did not immediately answer questions Monday about whether workers who are talking to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the Department of Labor, would be safe from deportation.
Of the six workers who died Thursday after the nitrogen leak at the Foundation Food Group plant northeast of Atlanta, five were Mexican citizens. It’s unclear if any of them were in the country illegally. But that and other plants in Gainesville, the hub of Georgia’s mammoth poultry industry, rely on a heavily Latino workforce - often a mix of people with and without legal status.
Foundation Food Group supplies poultry to retail, foodservice
A liquid nitrogen leak at a poultry plant owned by Foundation Food Group in the US state of Georgia has killed six workers.
The incident occurred last Thursday (28 January) at the company s Gainsville facility – five people died at the scene and another in hospital.
A message posted by Foundation Food Group (FFG) on its Facebook page read: We are deeply saddened by the loss of our friends and team members. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and our community during this most difficult time.
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board deployed to the scene reported six fatalities with another nine taken to hospital, noting in a statement that three of those were in critical condition and six in fair condition .