Imperial Food Products

Conditions at the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, may have been among the worst in the nation but nothing prepared the workers for the nightmare that began Tuesday morning,... 

The fire at Imperial Food Products was the worst industrial accident in North Carolina history. Outraged labor leaders, members of Congress, civil rights advocates, and others interviewed portrayed the loss of life as the needless result of laxly enforced health and safety regulations. During the 11 years the Hamlet, North Carolina, plant had... 

Even if OSHA had discovered the serious fire hazards at Imperial Food Products it still might not have forced compliance soon enough to prevent disaster. As shown by its treatment of the Pymm Thermometer Company, the second largest manufacturer of mercury thermometers in the United States, OSHA inspectors are often reluctant to close a company down or even impose dramatic fines when they find serious violations of health and safety standards. 

The Imperial Food Products plant opened its doors ten years prior to the fire. Over those ten years, the plant never had an inspection by the state, local, or federal inspectors. The town of Hamlet was not required to make inspections, although it was up to the municipality to enforce fire regulations. Ironically, every day the plant was in operation, there was a federal inspector on site to make sure the chicken processed was acceptable for consumption. Locking a fire door is a violation of North Carolina s fire code, a misdemeanor in this case. The state fire code requires all municipalities to have a fire inspector, even though a minimum number of inspections is not specified. Under the occupational safety regulations, a locked exit door constitutes a serious violation and because management locked fire exits knowingly, it would have been a willful violation (Diamond, 1991, p. 7A). 

Emmett Roe, the owner of Imperial Food Products, was sentenced to 19 years and 11 months in jail as part of a plea bargain that let his son Brad, the plant s operations manager, stay out of prison. The sentence was for illegally locking plant doors and not having a sprinkler system, leading to the death of the 25 workers. 

Pesticide Resistance and World Food Production Conway, G. R., Ed. Imperial College Centre for Environmental Toxicology London, 1982. 

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