Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc. is a poultry production company headquartered in Gainesville, Georgia. Established in 1954, it operates processing plants, feed mills and hatcheries in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.
Headquartered in Gainesville, Georgia, Mar-Jac Poultry is an integrated poultry production company that operates processing plants, feed mills and hatcheries in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.[1] Established in 1954, the company as of 2023 produces two million birds and 8,500 tons of feed per week. Its poultry products are shipped worldwide, primarily serving the food service industry. As of 2024, it is the largest employer in Walker County, Alabama.[2]
On October 9, 2018, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it reached a settlement with Mar-Jac Poultry, Inc.[3] The settlement resolves a long-standing lawsuit filed by the DOJ alleging that Mar-Jac Poultry violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by discriminating against work-authorized non-U.S. citizens when verifying their work authorization. DOJ filed its complaint on July 14, 2011, after investigating a charge that a worker filed. The complaint alleged that from at least July 1, 2009 to at least January 27, 2011, Mar-Jac Poultry routinely required work-authorized non-U.S. citizens to present a document issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), such as a Permanent Resident Card or Employment Authorization Document, to prove their work authorization, but did not require specific documents from U.S. citizens. On March 3, 2017, the court found that Mar-Jac was liable for a pattern or practice of this type of discrimination against non-U.S. citizens Respondent hired between June 16, 2010, and February 9, 2011, leaving monetary and other remedies for future resolution. Under the settlement agreement, Mar-Jac will pay a civil penalty of $190,000; pay $1020 to a refugee the company fired when he did not produce a DHS-issued document to reverify his work authority; pay up to $23,980 in back pay to compensate other affected employees and applicants; train its employees on the INA's anti-discrimination provision; and be subject to departmental monitoring for two years.
On May 31, 2021, 48-year-old Bobby Butler died while working in the evisceration department.[4] OSHA cited Mar-Jac Poultry following the incident in which an employee's shirt sleeve was caught in a machine and they were pulled in, pinning their body against the support and the machine's carousel, resulting in fatal injuries.[5]
On July 14, 2023, 16-year-old Duvan Pérez from Guatemala died while cleaning equipment a deboning area of the plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.[6] The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that the contract worker employed by Onin Staffing, LLC was performing a deep clean of the deboning area at the Mar-Jac Poultry MS, LLC plant. While sanitizing the still-energized machine, the teen was caught in the rotating shaft and sprockets and pulled in, sustaining fatal injuries. Investigators found that – despite a manager's supervision in and around the area prior to and during the fatal incident – lockout/tagout procedures were not utilized to disconnect power to the machine and a lockout/tagout device was not used to prevent the machine from unintentionally starting during the cleaning. OSHA regional administrator Kurt Petermeyer remarked that, "Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death. The company's inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child's preventable death." As a result, OSHA cited Mar-Jac Poultry with 14 serious and three other-than-serious violations.
On May 1, 2024, the United States Department of Labor allegedly found additional cases of child labour at a plant in Alabama, with "children working on the kill floor deboning poultry and cutting carcasses".[7]