INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
It strange that no matter how hard Amazon denies that its warehouses are terrible, dangerous places to work, the reports to that effect
Not only that, but now a whistleblower alleges the company worked with Indiana officials to erase a workplace safety violation that cost a
man his life.
Reveal News reports the whistleblower account of Phillip Lee Terry death in 2017 and the subsequent efforts to shift blame
from Amazon to the deceased
The full report is worth reading; it implicates Amazon, the head of Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and even
the governor.
The short version is this: Terry died on the job in a forklift accident
An investigation conducted by the whistleblower, John Stallone, found that Amazon had failed to provide adequate safety training
Citations were issued and $28,000 in fines proposed
But Stallone boss, IOSHA director, directly contacted Amazon and discussed how they might reduce those fines and place the blame on
Terry.
Amazon warehouse workers in Minnesota plan to strike on Prime Day over labor practices
Stallone knows this because he was in the
room and recorded the conversation, which Reveal News listened to
Amazon told TechCrunch that it &worked directly with [IOSHA] during the inspection and in follow-up discussions to provide Mr
Terry training records.& When I asked directly whether the company disputed Stallone account of the call, the representative suggested I
contact the Indiana state government instead.
A few days later, Stallone said, he was called into the office of Indiana Labor Commissioner,
Rick Ruble, and found the governor, Eric Holcomb, there as well
He was told to stop pursuing the case, according to Stallone account, because of — you guessed it — Indiana aspirations to host Amazon
HQ2.
Stallone soon quit, and a year later, the fines were reversed and all four safety violations were struck from the record
Instead it is listed as an &unpreventable employee misconduct,& meaning Terry was legally responsible for his own death — counter to the
conclusions of the investigation, which had Terry coworker on the record stating Amazon had failed to provide proper training.
Governor
Holcomb retaliated with a statement denying any involvement with a Labor Department case, denying he ever had the meeting Stallone
describes, called the allegations &fabricated& and the report &irresponsible and deliberately misleading… heinous lies.&
It hard to
imagine why Stallone would fabricate such a meeting, when other efforts by state officials to quash these violations and fines are on record
It has not yet been shown beyond the two competing claims whether the meeting indeed took place, but presumably it was informal anyway,
which provides the governor plausible deniability.
How Amazon HQ2 could disrupt government IT, for the worse
This would all be harder to
believe if we hadn&t seen the frenzy of servility Amazon HQ2 announcement provoked nationwide
Or if the allegations of poor working conditions at Amazon warehouses hadn&t continued to pile up in the meantime
Reveal investigations related to the whistleblower case show an alarmingly high number of injuries at Amazon facilities.
In a statement,
Amazon said that it takes &an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small,& leading to higher numbers than other,
similar work environments
As usual, workers at the warehouses dispute Amazon account, recalling systematic efforts to under-report and increases in injuries coming
from automation.
One thing is certain: Ordering from Amazon during the holidays adds pressure to a warehouse system that by many accounts is
already operating at superhuman levels — with very human costs
Perhaps shopping local is a better move this year.
What is this weird Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?
