Sumner Business Cited After Worker Dies Of COVID-19

SUMNER, WA — A Sumner business enterprise is going through tens of thousands of dollars in fines soon after a state investigation states it flaunted COVID-19 security protocols, killing 1 staff.

The Washington State Section of Labor & Industries has cited Shining Ocean Inc., a Sumner-based mostly fish processing plant, a combined $56,000 for knowingly and fatally endangering its personnel. In accordance to L&I, the employee’s demise can be traced to a November 4, 2021 staff members meeting, in which only a few or four of 23 personnel attending wore a mask— irrespective of the state restrictions which, at the time, expected masks in get the job done configurations. The assembly caused 16 of the 23 employees to be contaminated with COVID-19, a single of whom was killed by the virus.

Notably, the firm president was one particular of the dozens of employees who did not mask up, and brazenly told L&I investigators that masking had not been enforced at the business enterprise and that it was their “personal selection” whether to mask up or not.

“This transpired when COVID fees and hospitalizations were being significant and the requirement to have on masks was nonetheless in put,” mentioned Craig Blackwood, assistant director of L&I. “Management got complacent about workplace basic safety, and it price tag a worker his daily life.”

L&I says the great is primarily steep in aspect simply because Shining Ocean administration understood the hazards of COVID and knew the state’s regulation essential them to don masks, but flaunted the principles anyway and cost an staff their daily life. L&I says Shining Ocean has also been marked down as a “severe violator” and will be subject to greater scrutiny going ahead to make sure the business does not endanger any much more life with its negligence.

Revenue from the good will go to the workers’ payment supplemental pension fund, which supports staff and households of people who have died on the work.

This article initially appeared on the Bonney Lake-Sumner Patch