After Federal Investigation, Union Brass Admits Tyson’s Responsibility for Camilla Explosion

On July 10, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that Tyson Foods will be fined $16,550 for causing the boiler explosion at its poultry plant in Camilla, Georgia which injured several workers and killed a truck driver’s wife last December. Inspectors found that the explosion occurred due to inadequate maintenance and the company’s lack of adherence to internal procedures and guidelines.

In response, Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) representing the poultry workers, stated, “What we’ve learned today is that Tyson Foods was in fact at fault for our members’ near life ending injuries.” Previously, RWDSU representative Chelsea Connor had described the explosion as “just an unfortunate tragedy” and that “Tyson has been nothing but working with us through this process.”

While it took the union bureaucracy a 6-month DOL investigation to recognize Tyson’s fault in causing the explosion, deaths and injuries caused by boiler explosions have frequently been found to directly result from companies’ inadequate maintenance procedures. In 2017, federal investigators announced similar findings following the boiler explosion at Loy-Lange Box Company’s St. Louis factory that killed 4 workers and pedestrians in the surrounding area. A Philadelphia school district’s refusal to address maintenance issues at an elementary school led to a boiler explosion that burnt the lower half of a maintenance worker’s body in 2016.

Appelbaum also stated that “the only thing made clear today is that OSHA lacks the power, urgency and resources needed to truly hold large corporations accountable.” Such characteristics of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been made clear by OSHA’s repeated failures in enforcing safety measures onto companies which refuse to alter practices even after multiple OSHA citations, on top of the recent nomination of a former monopoly executive to head the anti-worker agency.

Appelbaum ended his response by stating, “RWDSU members at the Camilla facility and across the poultry industry deserve real safety protections, real enforcement and real respect for their lives and labor.” The union bureaucracy has yet to take action in response to the explosion.

Photo: Tyson plant explosion in Camilla, GA. Retreieved from Reddit.

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