CA Chicken Processor Hit With Large Fines In COVID-19 Deaths

LIVINGSTON, CA — California's workforce regulators issued several citations and levied $292,700 in fines to Foster Poultry Farms and the staffing agencies it used in connection with the coronavirus-related deaths of nine Merced County Foster Farms workers.

Cal/OSHA launched its investigation into Foster Poultry Farms after learning that one of its employees had died from coronavirus complications at one of its facilities in Livington, the agency said.

Cal/OHSA fined Foster Poultry Farms a total of $181, 500 on six different proposed penalties, the agency announced in a news release Monday. The state proposed fines of $103,100 for five violations at its Livingston plant and another $78,400 for three violations at the distribution center, officials said.

The fines were leveled at the company's facilities in Merced County, where Cal/OSHA said the company failed to protect workers from COVID-19.

Foster Poultry Farms, which faced persistent COVID-19 outbreaks at several facilities, is among the largest poultry companies on the West Coast.

The company told Patch in an email that it had "no response on this matter."

Cal/OSHA launched its investigation into Foster Farms after learning that one of its employees had died from coronavirus complications at one of its facilities in Livington, the agency said.

Cal/OSHA also imposed $111,200 in fines on four staffing agencies. Two of those staffing companies, Human Bees and Marcos Renteria Ag Services, have already filed an appeal, according to Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson for Cal/OSHA, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Violations were issued to Human Bees for its "failure to timely report work-related fatalities," Cal/OSHA said.

Within one of the penalty breakdowns, Cal/OSHA said that Foster Farms "failed to effectively communicate about COVID-19 in the work place, including infections, outbreaks, and fatalities of employees to all workers who were exposed or potentially exposed."

The state agency was told that an employee had died from complications of the coronavirus and that there also wasn't a "timely report" of the deaths of employees.

Additionally, three more people who worked at another Foster Farms plant in Fresno also died, the Times reported. Nearly 400 workers at Foster Farms' facilities have tested positive for COVID-19 since last fall, and at least nine have died, ABC30 reported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it identified multiple outbreaks at meat and poultry processing facilities in the U.S.

In December, while the outbreak at Foster Farms' Merced County facility was being widely reported, a company spokesperson defended Foster Farms. In an emailed statement to the Times, Ira Brill said that the rise in cases could be attributed to "significant increases in Merced County."