Death on the Night Shift at Frozen Pizza Factories in Chicago

On a brilliant day three years ago, a grieving crowd gathered on the South Side of Chicago to bury Adewale Ezekiel Ogunyemi.

In Nigeria, Mr. Ogunyemi had not earned enough working in a bank to support his mother, wife and two daughters. So in 2019, he flew to the United States on a tourist visa and obtained fake identity documents. He then signed on for temporary work at several staffing agencies in the Chicago area.

Shy and laid-back, he was often assigned to do night jobs. One agency, Snider-Blake Personnel, sent him to scrub machines at Rich Products Corporation, which makes food products that have been sold at stores like Walmart and distributed by suppliers like Sysco.

One night in July 2021, workers at Rich heard a scream. Rushing to an area of the plant where the dough for frozen pizzas rises, they found Mr. Ogunyemi, who was 42, tangled in a machine that helps the dough ferment. His right arm had been pulled through the conveyor and wrapped around his head. His chest was crushed. The fire department had to free him from the machine, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Staffing agencies, like the ones Mr. Ogunyemi worked for, have become ubiquitous in America’s on-demand economy. Companies turn to the firms to find workers for factories, warehouses and distribution centers, where jobs are often difficult to fill.