1991: 25 dead when NC workers cannot escape fire - Exits locked to prevent thefts of chicken parts

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/15/us/meat-plant-owner-pleads-guilty-in-a-blaze-that-killed-25-people.html

Meat-Plant Owner Pleads Guilty In a Blaze That Killed 25 People
Published: September 15, 1992

ROCKINGHAM, N.C., Sept. 14 — The owner of a chicken processing plant where 25 people died in a fire last year pleaded guilty today and was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison.

In a surprise plea agreement, the owner of Imperial Food Products Inc., Emmett J. Roe, admitted 25 counts of involuntary manslaughter. As part of the agreement, the state dropped charges against two managers at the plant, James N. Hair and Brad M. Roe, the owner's son.

The agreement averted a criminal trial in one of the nation's worst industrial accidents.

Twenty-four workers at the plant, which cooked chicken for fast-food chains, and a delivery man died Sept. 3, 1991, after hydraulic fluid from a conveyor belt under repair sprayed over a gas-fired chicken fryer at the company's plant in Hamlet, N.C. A fireball filled the plant with dense, toxic smoke. Fifty-six workers were injured, and more than 150 others were left without jobs because the plant closed. No Sprinklers or Alarm

State officials have said that the plant, the leading employer in Hamlet, 60 miles southwest of Fayetteville, had no fire alarm or sprinkler system and that its exits were unmarked and doors were locked when the fire occurred. North Carolina's occupational-safety agency said a shortage of inspectors and inadequate resources had prevented the state from inspecting Imperial Food in the 11 years the company has operated.

After the fire, the state fined the company, whose headquarters is in Cummings, Ga., $808,150, the largest such fine the state had ever levied.

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"The plant manager gave us something under the table to look the other way and not ask questions..."

Thanks for setting me straight.

:toast:

:hi:

No Unions needed.

It's sickening that Unions are under attack. Here in Michigan Labor Laws barely get enforced anymore, MEOSHA and OSHA are no longer able to practice enforcement. We need Unions now more than at any time in the last 50 years. The decline of the middle class coincides with the decline of Union membership.

Marking 80 years of progress?