Labor News & Commentary January 21, 2024 "directly to blame" for a 16-year-old's death

By Will Ebeler

Will Ebeler is a student at Harvard Law School.

In this weekend’s news and commentary, news media companies continue to cut jobs; OSHA finds that poultry-processing company is “directly to blame” for a 16-year-old’s death; and a new study finds that workplace wellness programs have no measurable benefit for the employees who participate.

On Friday, Greg discussed the walkout planned by the L.A. Times Newsroom Guild to protest the newspaper’s upcoming layoffs that will affect roughly 20% of the paper’s newsroom. Also last week, two more news media companies announced significant layoffs. First, on Wednesday the publishing company Condé Nast announced that it would be combining two subsidiary companies together, with accompanying layoffs. It will be folding the music criticism site Pitchfork into the men’s magazine GQ. Condé Nast declined to say publicly how many employees were laid off at either company; in November it laid off 270 workers, or 5% of its total workforce. In addition, on Friday workers at Sports Illustrated learned that a significant portion of staff would be laid off. For the last four years the magazine has been published by the company Arena Group under a licensing agreement reached with the magazine’s owner, Authentic Brands Group, but Authentic Brands Group terminated that license last week. The union representing Sports Illustrated employees said the layoffs would affect “a significant number, possibly all” of the magazine’s staff and called on Authentic Brands Group to “ensure the continued publication of SI and allow it to serve our audience in the way it has for nearly 70 years.”

Last Monday, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited a poultry company for its role in the death of a 16-year-old boy last July. OSHA found that Mar-Jac Poultry was directly responsible for the boy’s death after he was pulled into a machine at its slaughterhouse in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The boy was cleaning a machine in the plant when he was caught and pulled into it. The Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity identified the boy as Duvan Tomas Pérez, who immigrated to the U.S. from Guatemala six to seven years ago. According to the Department of Labor, companies are prohibited from employing minors to clean meat-processing machines because the work is too dangerous. OSHA said that Pérez was contracted to work at the plant by a third-party staffing company. Pérez’s death is a tragic reminder that despite the high-profile crackdown on child labor by the DOL last winter, companies continued to hire immigrant children to do dangerous work. OSHA cited the company with 17 violations and proposed to fine the company more than $200,000. The company has 15 business days to respond to the proposed fine.

FULL story: https://onlabor.org/january-21-2024/