Bumble Bee forced to pay $6M for worker cooked alive
(NEWSER) – Bumble Bee Foods will fork out $6 million for the horrific death of an employee cooked alive in 12,000 pounds of tuna fish, NBC News reports. Announced Wednesday by prosecutors, the plea agreement is California's biggest ever for a workplace safety violation. It consists of $3 million to buy new automated ovens, $1.5 million to the state government and courts, and $1.5 million to the family of Jose Melena, 62, who died at Bumble Bee's Santa Fe Springs plant in 2012. He was working in a 36-foot-by-54-inch oven — likely fixing or altering a chain inside, the Whittier Daily News reports — when a co-worker assumed Melena was in the bathroom, dumped in tuna, and turned on the oven. An autopsy concluded Melena died from burns in the 270-degree pressure cooker.
"This is the worst circumstances of death I have ever, ever witnessed," Deputy District Attorney Hoon Chun tells the AP. "I think any person would prefer to be — if they had to die some way — would prefer to be shot or stabbed than to be slowly cooked in an oven." Former Bumble Bee safety manager Saul Florez pleaded guilty to breaking lockout rules and was hit with three years' probation and $19,000 in penalties and fines. The sentence for Bumble Bee's director of plant operations, Angel Rodriguez, includes fines and community service. Meanwhile, Chun says Melena's family has a civil attorney and could still sue Bumble Bee, CBS Los Angeles reports. "Certainly, nothing will bring back our dad, and our mom will not have her husband back, but much can be done to ensure this terrible accident does not happen again," says the family in a statement. Read more on the accident here.
This article originally appeared on Newser:
SirEDCaLot on November 23rd, 2019 at 13:02 UTC »
This is why 'lock out tag out' is a thing.
Wherever heavy equipment that could harm or kill a human is used or repaired, there is supposed to be a 'lock out tag out' system. Anyone who is working on the equipment will shut off the power, and then lock the circuit breaker off with their own padlock. A gadget like this is used so multiple workers can each put their own padlock like this. Thus, until each and every worker has removed their own padlock, it is physically impossible to turn the machine back on.
This is taken VERY seriously. As in, I've heard of cases where workers forget to remove their lock and leave for vacation, and the company brings them back from vacation to remove their own lock because removing someone else's lock, no matter how sure everybody is that the person is out of the equipment, is simply not done if there's any way around it.
That system has been in place everywhere in the developed world for a great many years. The fact that it wasn't in place here shows a serious lack of any sort of safety culture at Bumble Bee. Sounds like they seriously deserved this fine.
Biiox on November 23rd, 2019 at 12:05 UTC »
This reminds me of the time a guy fell in a tank of acid and died at a Coca Cola factory in Bnei Brak, Israel.
thatgirl829 on November 23rd, 2019 at 11:46 UTC »
In 2017 they pleaded guilty to price fixing after being charged with forming a cartel with Chicken of the Sea and Starkist Tuna and now they've filed for bankruptcy.