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Bumble Bee Foods and two of its employees were charged by California prosecutors on Monday for violating safety regulations that resulted in the death of a worker who was cooked in an industrial oven along with tuna.
According to Los Angeles Eyewitness News, Jose Melena, a member of the maintenance staff, was working in a 35-foot-long oven at the company’s Sante Fe Springs location. While he was in the oven, his co-workers loaded it with 12,000 pounds of tuna and turned it on. The oven heated to 270 degrees during a two-hour process to cook and sterilize the tuna.
Once the oven was opened, Melena’s body was found. Bumble Bee’s Operations Director Angel Rodriguez and former Safety Manager Saul Florez were charged with three counts of violating Occupational Safety & Health Administration rules. The charges specify that Bumble Bee and two men violated the following rules: “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.” Both Rodriguez and Florez may face up to three years in prison and earn fines up to $250,000 if convicted of the charges. Bumble Bee Foods will face a maximum fine of $1.5 million.
Bumble Bee was previously cited by California’s occupational safety agency for not assessing the danger employees face while working in large ovens and fined the company $74,000. The company has repeatedly appealed these penalties and said it improved its safety program. In a statement about its $1.5 million fine, Bumble Bee claimed:
“We remain devastated by the loss of our colleague Jose Melena in the tragic accident. We disagree with and are disappointed by the charges filed by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.”
Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said the prosecutors and investigators from her office have pursued industrial accidents in order to prosecute illegal or deadly work practices used by corporations.
