This interview is based on a WECT investigation, available here.
Kelly Kenoyer: Connor Smith with WECT, thank you so much for joining us.
Connor Smith: Yeah, thanks for having me.
KK: So what happened at the Smithfield plant this past Saturday?
CS: Yeah, we don't have a whole lot of details at this point, but we do know that Smithfield told us they found an employee unresponsive on Saturday, pronounced dead, and we don't know who that person is. We don't know a cause of death. We do know that Smithfield notified OSHA, of course, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, so they're now looking into this, opening up another investigation, death investigation at this facility. But again, we're still working to learn a lot about just the specifics of what even happened this weekend, and it might be months before we get those answers.
KK: And this is the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel. Can you tell me a bit about this facility?
CS: Yeah, it's the largest pork processing plant in the world – 5,000 employees, obviously a small community up there in Bladen County, but certainly plays a big role in that community. This is a big facility, but it also has a lengthy history of some issues and some workplace health issues at the facility.
KK: Yeah, you dug into some of the records there. Can you tell me about the pattern of injuries and deaths that you found at this plant?
CS: Yeah. I mean, I wanted to look into this because this is the second death at this facility in the last seven months. And to be honest with you, looking through OSHA records, workplace fatalities are not super common, which is a good thing. But to have two and seven months at the same plant is alarming, and so that kind of led me to start looking into this a little bit more.
We looked through the investigation into what happened in June: a 36-year-old employee also found dead at the facility at that point in time. Smithfield didn't tell us a whole lot. Now we're learning that they were actually hit with two serious penalties as a result of that OSHA investigation. They had to pay over $33,000 as a result of that death. And obviously not saying there was any criminal wrongdoing, the death was ruled accidental, but OSHA still came in and said, ‘You guys need to improve some processes, and some things are not working here. Your employees are not safe.’
They found issues mainly with wiring, design, protection, components, equipment, different things. The specific issues, they don't go into too much depth, but we do know that there were some issues found from that death. We also know, I mean, we were digging through plenty of other issues at Smithfield in recent years. In January 2023, an employee was found dead in the parking lot. No penalties from OSHA as a result of that, but they did look into that as well.
And then back in October 2018, a 55-year-old man from Clarkton was found dead at the facility, and OSHA came in and investigated that, and hit Smithfield with $70,000 in penalties. So there's definitely a history. There's a lot of other smaller penalty citations that they've been issued just in the last decade as well. So this is – it is a disturbing trend that we're seeing at this specific facility.
KK: Do we know the actual cause of death in any of these incidents?
CS: Not really. I mean, we know in June — that the investigation from the June 2025 death is still ongoing. We do know the victim. We do know the penalties, but we don't know exactly what happened, the specifics of that death. We do know, in 2018, this employee, 55-year-old Michael Jessup from Clarkton. He was removing a bent wheel from a trolley chain drive, [and was] struck in the head, [and was stuck] between a frame and a fixed beam. So he was just caught, obviously in a really unfortunate and tragic situation, died, and so then that led to the OSHA investigation. They came in, had to fix some things after that $70,000 penalty. It was a penalty that was listed as the control of hazardous energy.
KK: So you mentioned these civil penalties. These are five-figure penalties for the death of some of these employees. Do you think those fines are sufficient to actually deter that kind of behavior, those failures by the company to protect their employees?
CS: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I know, looking through some of these penalties over the last decade, is that Smithfield will actually negotiate these. So some of these, they'll come in, and it'll initially be a willful penalty, and then it will be settled, and it will come down to a serious penalty, they won't have to pay as much. To me, that's kind of interesting, that OSHA's content, seemingly, with letting that happen and not making Smithfield pay the initial full price, and then we come out of this. So initially, you know, in 2018, for example, that came in as a $75,000 penalty was reduced, they only had to pay $70,000 — so I think we're seeing, as this continues to happen, I'm not sure that those penalties are having the impact that maybe OSHA would hope they have.
KK: Well, Connor Smith, reporter for WECT, thank you so much for coming in today.
CS: Yeah, thanks for having me.
