Tuna company, 2 employees charged in death of worker in oven

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Tuna company, 2 employees charged in death of worker in oven
By BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press | April 27, 2015 | Updated: April 27, 2015 7:25pm

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bumble Bee Foods and two employees were charged Monday by Los Angeles prosecutors with violating safety regulations in the death of a worker who was cooked in an industrial oven with tons of tuna.

Jose Melena was performing maintenance in a 35-foot-long oven at the company's Santa Fe Springs plant in October 2012 when co-workers loaded it with 12,000 pounds of canned tuna and turned it on.

Temperatures reached 270 degrees during a two-hour process to cook and sterilize the tuna. The body of Melena, 62, was found when the oven was opened.

The company, its plant Operations Director Angel Rodriguez and former safety manager Saul Florez were each charged with three counts of violating Occupational Safety & Health Administration rules that caused a death. The charges specify that the company and the two men willfully violated rules that require: implementing a safety plan; rules for workers entering confined spaces; and a procedure in place to keep machinery or equipment turned off if someone's working on it.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Tuna-company-2-employees-charged-in-death-of-6227121.php

[Omaha Steve]

1. The equipment should have been locked out (made inoperable before he went in!)

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Would Have Been Simple To Do

If an electirc oven, the breaker could easily have been locked out. The door could have been locked open. And, even if a gas oven, the valve to the gas line could have been locked closed.

I think 2 or three lock-outs and this wouldn't have happened.

[FreakinDJ]

28. Notice MANAGEMENT was charged for the death

I'm sure they directed LOTO procedures Not to be followed

[NickB79]

29. Someone died in my mom's place of work because he didn't LOTO a few years ago

Climbed inside a piece of processing equipment at a turkey slaughtering factory without performing a lock-out tag-out on it. It didn't sound like it was a quick way to go, either

[AuntPatsy]

2. No words..

[XemaSab]

8. My thought exactly

[boston bean]

4. I wish I hadn't read this.

Holy hell what a way to go.

[sheshe2]

5. I think I am going to be sick now.

Dear Gawd.

[mimi85]

9. I AM sick now.

Just when you think you've heard it all.

[BrotherIvan]

6. How horrible

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. That's one way to get canned.

[mimi85]

10. That's supposed to be funny?

again.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. It was supposed to be tasteless....

I think it left a bad taste though.

[840high]

12. Horrible.

[midnight]

13. O for the love of sanity...

[ErikJ]

14. Video of the plant in SD.

[Quantess]

15. Blame the workers, not the work environment, sure.

Those workers had pressure to "keep it moving". That's my guess, anyway.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. The Company Is Being Charged Too

I see your point, but the workplace isn't skating on this.

[appalachiablue]

16. Too horrible, sick now. Time to call it a night.

[Ed Suspicious]

17. Holy Fuck. Lockout tagout!

[Oldtimeralso]

18. As the OP states too many OSHA violations

Lockout-Tagout procedures not followed.
Confined Space procedures not followed, Should have had another person there.
Having taught these courses this is very sad. I am glad I retired, with the pressure to meet deadlines many safety procedures are violated.

[Hoppy]

22. Am I correct that the primary lockout responsibility was on the decedent?

[jmowreader]

23. You are

[longship]

19. Throw the book at them. They cooked their own goose.

No pun intended.

Disgusting.

[Alkene]

20. dear god

[DesertDiamond]

21. I can't even bear to think of this. Similar incident when a man slipped into a sausage making

machine in July of 2011, but at least that wasn't due to someone's negligence.

[Sunlei]

26. 15,000 state violations & it takes OSHA 2 years to even craft charges!close the plant when there is

a serious injury or death. OSHA is so weak vs corps.

[Javaman]

27. Upton Sinclare rolls in his grave. nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. Bumble Bee Tuna, two former employees charged in 2012 death at Santa Fe Springs plant

I hadn't seen this thread. I'm moving my post here and deleting my thread.

Bumble Bee Tuna, two former employees charged in 2012 death at Santa Fe Springs plant

By Sandra Molina, Whittier Daily News
[email protected]
@molinaSGVN

Posted: 04/27/15, 5:21 PM PDT

The Los Angles County District Attorney’s Office Monday charged Bumble Bee Foods LLC and two of its former employees with “willfully violating worker safety rules, allegedly causing the 2012 death of an employee who became trapped inside an industrial oven at the company’s Santa Fe Springs plant.”

The investigation and subsequent charges stemmed from the Oct. 11 death of Jose Melena, 62, of Wilmington, who was a father of six and a six-year employee of the tuna plant at 13100 Arctic Circle Dr. ... An autopsy performed after the body was discovered inside an industrial pressure cooker determined Melena died from burns, Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner officials said.
....

Citations issued by Cal-OSHA in May 2013 stated, “Melena, whose job was to load the ovens with large baskets stacked with tuna, had entered one of the ovens to make a repair or make an adjustment on a chain inside the machine. Melena had been assigned to load a particular oven on the morning of his death. He entered the 54 inch-by-36 foot oven to make an adjustment to a chain inside. He left a pallet jack he used to load the tuna into the oven outside the oven.

“Sometime before 5 a.m., (another employee) noticed the pallet jack was not being used,” according to the Cal-OSHA findings read. “He assumed that (Melena), the basket pusher who normally operated the pallet jack at this time, was in the bathroom,” according to the citation. “(The employee) proceeded to use the pallet jack.”

Today is Workers Memorial Day.

Presidential Proclamation -- Workers Memorial Day, 2015

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 28, 2015, as Workers Memorial Day. I call upon all Americans to participate in ceremonies and activities in memory of those killed or injured due to unsafe working conditions.

[Judi Lynn]

31. Thank you. Overwhelming. n/t

[Recursion]

32. My God that's horrifying (nt)