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 Instead, the state arm of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) summarized Cabezola's concerns in an email to
company management, reviewed the UPS response and closed the file.
Over the next two months, a COVID-19 outbreak infected more than 40
Tucson UPS workers - including a manager who eventually died - and
caused delivery delays throughout southern Arizona, according to
interviews with six Tucson UPS workers and local union officials of
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Cabezola's complaint to the regulator, along with that of another
worker in May, had "zero effect," said Karla Schumann, head of the
local Teamsters union representing UPS workers. Asked about the
outbreak, UPS expressed regret about the manager's death and said it
has strengthened protocols requiring social distancing and
sanitation since the early days of the pandemic.
The UPS outbreak is among dozens of cases identified by Reuters
where OSHA largely disregarded workers who reported lax pandemic
safety practices, according to agency records.
Reuters identified the workplace outbreaks through federal, state
and local government data and news accounts detailing infections and
deaths. The news agency examined the regulatory response through
OSHA data on complaints filed by workers and records of resulting
inspections.
Reuters identified 106 U.S. workplaces where employees complained of
slipshod pandemic safety practices around the time of outbreaks -
and regulators either never inspected the facilities or, in some
cases, waited months to do so, according to the OSHA records. The
agency never inspected 70 of those workplaces, where at least 4,500
workers were infected by the coronavirus and 26 died after
contracting COVID-19, according to the Reuters analysis.
The workers' regulatory complaints came from a cross-section of
companies that included some of America's best-known firms,
including Tesla Inc and Tyson Foods Inc .
As of mid-December, just 12 of the 106 facilities have been
penalized in response to workers' complaints. The complaints came
from a wide range of workplaces, from meatpacking plants and
factories to e-commerce warehouses and nursing homes. Their
employees alleged failures to enforce social distancing and
mask-wearing; managers pressuring sick employees to work; and a lack
of notification to employees about co-workers' infections.
The 106 cases represent a sample of how OSHA has responded to the
public health crisis. Reuters was unable to conduct a comprehensive
examination of how the agency responded to safety complaints,
infections and deaths because most state and local governments do
not track or publicize data on workplace outbreaks.
UPS spokesman Matt O'Connor said the company's safety practices have
evolved over time as health authorities updated public guidance
about COVID-19 and as personal protective equipment became more
available after early shortages. The company, he said, had
appropriate infection-control protocols in place at the time the
manager died. He said UPS takes "swift action" in response to
workers' reports of lax safety practices.
The federal agency's acting leader, Loren Sweatt, said in a
statement that the allegations in the cases the news organization
cited do not reflect the totality of OSHA's efforts to keep workers
safe and "unfairly disparage dedicated OSHA inspectors across the
country."
Trevor Laky, a spokesman for Arizona's OSHA affiliate, said the
agency was not aware of the Tucson UPS manager's death until Reuters
inquired about it in December.
All companies are required to report work-related deaths to OSHA.
O'Connor, of UPS, said the firm did not report the manager's death
from COVID-19 - amid a workplace outbreak - because its own contact
tracing determined that the manager had not been in close contact
with infected employees.
Laky, of Arizona OSHA, said the agency has no plans to investigate
the matter further after UPS told regulators that the death was not
work-related.
OSHA is the nation's workplace safety watchdog, tasked with
preventing on-the-job injuries and illnesses. Federal OSHA enforces
workplace safety in about half of the states, while OSHA-affiliated
state agencies carry out those duties in the rest of the country.
State OSHA agencies are overseen by state governors and the federal
agency and must, at a minimum, enforce federal workplace safety
regulations.
When OSHA agencies receive worker complaints, officials decide
whether to conduct inspections that can lead to fines and
requirements to address dangerous working conditions. But regulators
never inspected nearly two-thirds of the 106 workplaces where
Reuters identified outbreaks, according to the OSHA data on worker
complaints and agency workplace inspections.
Some of the remaining workplaces received an inspection months after
the disease struck, often following negative publicity over
outbreaks that sometimes included deaths. Of the 106 workplaces
examined by Reuters, 27 had workers who died from COVID-19. OSHA
inspected fewer than half of those 27 workplaces - despite agency
guidelines saying COVID-19 fatalities should receive top priority.
Overall, federal and state OSHA agencies have conducted 44% fewer
workplace inspections between March - when coronavirus started to
spread widely in the United States - and the end of December,
compared to the same period in 2019. The declining inspections came
despite what one OSHA official, during congressional testimony in
May, called a big increase in worker complaints because of the
pandemic.
Even in workplaces that OSHA has designated as "high exposure risk"
for COVID-19 infection - mostly healthcare facilities - few
complaints lead to inspections. OSHA has closed out complaints from
about 1,800 hospitals and nursing homes nationwide, but only about
15% of them have been inspected so far during the pandemic, the
Reuters review of OSHA data shows. OSHA fined about one in five of
those inspected facilities.
In a written statement, federal OSHA said that protecting workers
from the pandemic is the agency's "top priority," and that it has
conducted 1,396 COVID-19 inspections as of mid-December in
workplaces with more than 618,000 employees. The U.S. agency said it
investigates every complaint and has closed out more than 80% of the
more than 13,000 COVID-19 complaints it had received through
mid-December. That figure does not include the complaints made to
state OSHA affiliates.
A Reuters review of state and federal OSHA case files on worker
complaints, obtained through public records requests, shows those
investigations were often cursory and rarely resulted in
inspections. Instead, officials typically emailed employers a
complaint summary, as they did with UPS, and asked for a response
within a week. If the employer responded, the agency closed out the
case.
Researchers at Harvard University's school of public health found a
correlation between a rise in OSHA complaints in a specific region
and a rise in COVID-19 deaths within four weeks in the same area.
The peer-reviewed research, published in November, found that OSHA's
failure to respond to such complaints "is a missed opportunity" to
stop disease transmission in workplaces and the community at large.
NO COVID-19 STANDARDS, LOW FINES
The coronavirus pandemic has presented OSHA with a steep challenge
in fielding thousands of additional complaints. And OSHA has
historically been starved of investigative resources - a trend that
continued during the Trump administration. The federal agency
currently has fewer inspectors than it did in 1975.
Still, some former OSHA officials say the agency's hands-off
response to the pandemic reflects a notable divergence from the
past, even compared to prior Republican administrations that also
favored a light touch on industry regulation.
"This is the sort of workplace crisis that OSHA was invented to
address," said David Michaels, who led the agency during the Obama
administration and is now a professor at George Washington
University's school of public health. "OSHA needed to be more
forceful and creative to use the tools it has, but it decided not
to."
Former OSHA officials, along with public health experts, labor
groups and lawmakers, argued beginning in the spring that OSHA
should issue an emergency temporary standard requiring employers to
follow specific infection-control practices such as mandating social
distancing, requiring masks, and removing infected workers while
providing them pay. OSHA issued no such standards, which critics say
has made it difficult for the agency to hold employers accountable
for pandemic-related violations.
OSHA said in a statement that it "has the regulatory tools it
needs," citing general standards developed before the pandemic for
respiratory protection and personal protective equipment in a wide
variety of potentially hazardous situations. But none of the
existing standards lay out specifics for handling an infectious
disease such as COVID-19.
Five current and former OSHA employees told Reuters that the agency
never developed an aggressive and focused strategy to respond to the
pandemic. An OSHA field employee told Reuters that cases related to
the pandemic often get slowed down by multiple layers of approval in
regional offices and in Washington. The relatively small number of
violations the agency has issued take months to process, the
employee said.
"I'm not proud of what we've done," the person said.
The ineffectiveness reflects an overall neglect of the agency by the
administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the employees said.
The administration has left many of the agency's top leadership
positions filled by "acting" managers. OSHA has gone without a
Senate-confirmed administrator for Trump's entire four-year term.
"What you're seeing with COVID is a function of not having a
leader," said Kelly Schnapp, a former director of OSHA's Office of
Science and Technology Assessment, who left the agency in 2019.
White House spokesman Judd Deere dismissed the suggestion that U.S.
safety regulators had failed to properly address the pandemic. "OSHA's
mission and focus has never wavered: Protecting America's workers on
the job," he said in a statement.
[to top of second column] |
 Out of 1,396 federal OSHA
inspections related to COVID-19, the agency has
issued citations from 273 of those cases through
mid-December, averaging about $13,000 each. That
includes fines for meat-packing giants
Smithfield Foods Inc and JBS USA, which have had
severe outbreaks. Smithfield received a penalty
of $13,494 for a violation at its Sioux Falls,
South Dakota plant, where four workers died and
nearly 1,300 workers were infected. JBS'
citation was for $15,615 at its Greeley,
Colorado plant, where six died and 292 tested
positive. Both companies are appealing the
fines. Some of the federal OSHA
citations came with no fines at all. The largest penalty ever issued
by OSHA was an $81.3 million fine to BP Products North America Inc
in 2009, following a 2005 refinery explosion in Texas that killed 15
workers and injured 170 more.
GUTTING REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
In late September, OSHA weakened its guidelines for when employers
must notify the agency about workers who are hospitalized with
COVID-19. Previously, employers were required to notify OSHA of all
"work-related" hospitalizations of employees with COVID-19.
Then the agency changed its guidance to require notification only in
cases where an employee is hospitalized "within 24 hours of an
exposure" to the coronavirus at work. The guidance gutted the
notification requirement for two reasons: Coronavirus symptoms -
much less hospitalizations - do not occur within 24 hours of virus
exposure, according to public health experts, and the exact moment
of infection is impossible to determine.
Since the new guidelines were announced, OSHA data shows, the
average number of reported hospitalizations since October were 40%
less than the average number reported from late March through
September. The numbers have remained low despite the uncontrolled
spread of the virus through much of the country over the last two
months.
OSHA acknowledged to Reuters that employers are unlikely to report
COVID-19 hospitalizations under the revised reporting rules. But it
denied changing the rules, saying it was only clarifying existing
regulations. Michaels, the former OSHA leader under
Obama, is now on President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 task force. He
said the weakened reporting standards make it that much harder for
OSHA to identify dangerous workplaces.
"By deciding to collect less information, OSHA then has less ability
to respond," he said.
Biden pledged during the campaign to strengthen workplace standards
for controlling the virus, and to boost the number of OSHA
inspectors.
CASINO WORKERS IGNORED
In Las Vegas - which has hosted millions of tourists during the
pandemic - workers at 25 different resorts across the city sent more
than 60 complaints to Nevada OSHA about lax virus safety protocols
between June and September.
To date, Nevada OSHA has conducted one COVID-19-related inspection
of a Vegas casino - the Aria Resort. The case, prompted by a
complaint about inadequate enforcement of mask-wearing and social
distancing, is still open. MGM Resorts International, which operates
Aria, declined to comment on the inspection but said it has strong
health and safety measures.
Workers at the
Cosmopolitan casino filed complaints to Nevada OSHA seven times from
June through August, alleging that the hotel wasn't following state
mandates on requiring guests to wear masks and keeping the casino at
half capacity. Employees also alleged managers pressured them to
work despite unsafe conditions.
"Employees have been informed that if they refuse to take a shift,
they will then be terminated," read one complaint from late August.
"Over 70 employees have tested positive and have quickly returned to
working."
The Cosmopolitan did not answer questions about the total number of
infected employees, and county health officials said they do not
track workplace outbreaks. A state report from last summer, however,
showed the Cosmopolitan ranked highest on a list of possible
exposure points to COVID-19 in southern Nevada between June and
July, based on interviews with those who were infected.
At the D Las Vegas casino, a worker complained in July that "fifty
percent of the employees at the D have tested positive," yet "the
employer is not notifying potentially exposed employees."
Representatives of the Cosmopolitan and the D Las Vegas said they
have strict health and safety protocols in place to protect workers
and guests. The Cosmopolitan said they worked with Nevada OSHA to
investigate COVID-19 complaints and have received no citations.
Angela Ciciriello, a spokeswoman for the D Las Vegas, said many of
the complaints came earlier in the year, when the industry was still
working through safety protocols for guests and workers. "It was an
evolving process, and I think we handled it the best we could," she
said.
Nevada's OSHA affiliate also has not inspected Tesla Inc's mammoth
battery factory near Reno, where workers complained of unsafe
conditions between March and November. In a September report, county
health authorities found that 117 COVID-19 cases since June were
linked to the facility, which is a joint venture between Tesla and
Panasonic Corp of North America. Tesla workers complained nine times
to OSHA about pandemic-related issues, and Panasonic workers filed
10 complaints.
Tesla workers said in complaints that groups of four to five workers
were required to remain in close proximity to maintain production,
and that mask wearing wasn't being enforced.
"People are working and have COVID-19," read a Tesla worker's
complaint from late July.
Tesla managers were aware of the illnesses and required employers to
work anyway, the complaint alleged.
Nevada OSHA has not conducted an inspection of the facility. Teri
Williams, a spokeswoman for Nevada OSHA, did not answer questions
about the agency's handling of workers' complaints about the casinos
and the battery factory. She said in a statement that the agency
"has had to accomplish a tremendous amount of work with a small but
dedicated staff" during the pandemic.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Panasonic spokeswoman
Dannea DeLisser said in a statement that the company investigated
all complaints related to the factory and has "robust" health and
safety protocols for its employees.
COMING TO WORK SICK
At Tyson Foods Inc, testing in late April revealed nearly 900
employees in Logansport, Indiana, had contracted COVID-19. Workers
at the pork-processing facility had flagged problems weeks before
the outbreak. Workers sent in 13 complaints to OSHA, detailing what
one filing described as "packed" working conditions, a lack of
protective gear and people with fevers continuing to show up for
shifts.
Indiana OSHA never inspected the site for COVID-19 problems, and it
closed the complaints after getting documents from the company in
response to agency emails.
The state agency said in a statement that all but two of the
complaints were anonymous, which made it difficult to follow up with
workers. The agency said Tyson provided documents showing that the
company worked to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Gary Harris, 62, a loading dock worker at the Tyson hog processing
plant in Logansport, said workers were left in the dark for weeks
about the extent of the virus. Most workers started raising alarms
to management when they noticed how many people were absent.
"They just started coming up missing, and that grew the fear,"
Harris said.
Cass County - the rural stretch surrounding the Logansport facility
- went from having few COVID-19 cases to recording among the highest
number in the state by late April. Harris called the Tyson plant a "superspreader"
and said there was friction between Tyson workers and others in the
community, who blamed the workers for the spread.
Tyson did not answer questions from Reuters about its workers' OSHA
complaints, but said it has invested $540 million since April in
safety improvements across all its U.S. plants, including
temperature checks, health screenings, random testing and plexiglass
dividers for workstations. The company said it has worked closely
with local health officials and OSHA, and has "consistently met or
exceeded guidance" from health authorities.
'AVOIDABLE' OUTBREAK
In the two months after UPS driver Cabezola complained to OSHA on
March 27, the virus quickly spread throughout the facility. Managers
often failed to inform employees who had worked near infected
colleagues, said Carlos Toledo, a Teamsters union representative for
the Tucson facility.
"The outbreak we had was avoidable," said Mike Sanchez, a worker who
was out sick for three months due to complications from the virus.
UPS spokesman O'Connor said the company consistently told workers to
stay home if they were sick and that it has appropriately informed
employees about coworkers' infections - assertions that were
disputed by two UPS workers and two union officials.
Workers said UPS only started enforcing mask-wearing requirements
and taking other precautions after taking criticisms from the union
in local media and after a manager, Dan Amaro, died of COVID-19 in
June. But those efforts have gotten more lax in recent months, said
employee Nick Quijada. "They've definitely let it slide," he said.
Arizona OSHA officials have still not inspected or visited the UPS
facility, and the agency told Reuters it has no plans to do so.
(Reporting by Chris Kirkham and Benjamin Lesser; Editing by Janet
Roberts and Brian Thevenot)
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