A federal investigation has found that the operator of a specialty frozen pizza manufacturing plant in Illinois could have prevented the death of a 29-year-old sanitation worker by following proper machine safety procedures. OSHA CSHOs learned the sanitation worker suffered fatal injuries while working on the overnight shift under the supervision of the Pizza Company in December 2022. OSHA determined the woman — a temporary worker provided by a Staffing LLC in Waukegan — was using compressed air to clean a spiral conveyer as it moved to cool pizza when her head became caught in the machinery. The agency found that temporary workers had not been trained or given the authority to stop equipment from moving before cleaning.
The tragedy occurred just weeks after a November 2022 incident at the same facility where a worker performing maintenance on a sauce depositor suffered an amputation. This led OSHA to assess the pizza company for $290,191 in proposed penalties. In October 2021, another employee suffered the amputation of a fingertip while trying to clear a jammed pizza conveyor.
The December incident led OSHA to cite the Pizza Company for 16 willful egregious violations, the agency’s most severe; one willful violation; and 12 serious violations, including five serious instance-by-instance violations of two standards on different machines.
OSHA issued $2,812,658 in penalties and has placed the company in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program.