Indiana Manipulated Report On Amazon Worker's Death To Lure HQ2, Report Says

An anonymous reader quotes a report produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting: When an Amazon worker was killed by a forklift in a Plainfield warehouse in 2017, the state of Indiana's investigator found the company was at fault. The state cited Amazon for four major safety violations and fined it $28,000. But an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found that, as Gov. Eric Holcomb sought to lure Amazon's HQ2 to Indiana, state labor officials quietly absolved Amazon of responsibility. After Amazon appealed, they deleted every fine that had been levied and accepted the company's argument -- that the Amazon worker was to blame.

The investigator on the case, John Stallone, had arrived at the warehouse a day after 59-year-old Phillip Lee Terry was crushed to death. He was so troubled by the pushback he was getting from higher-ups that he secretly recorded his boss, Indiana OSHA Director Julie Alexander, as she counseled the company on how to lessen the fine. He said pressure to back off came from as high up as the governor's mansion. The governor's office and Indiana labor officials declined interviews. In statements, they both called Stallone's account false. Stallone said Indiana Labor Commissioner Rick Ruble told him to back off on the Amazon case -- or resign. Stallone went on to quit and report the incident to a federal OSHA official.

"Stallone told the federal official that 'someone higher than Director Alexander' wanted the Amazon case to go away 'in the hopes it would keep Indianapolis in the running for their new HQ location,'" reports Reveal. "The governor's office denied the meeting with Stallone and the labor commissioner took place, with press secretary Rachel Hoffmeyer writing, 'The Governor never gets involved in Department of Labor cases.'"

A year after Terry's death when Indianapolis was one of 20 finalists for the Amazon headquarters deal, Indiana officials quietly signed an agreement with Amazon to delete all the safety citations and fees. "The agreement said Amazon had met the requirements of an 'unpreventable employee misconduct defense,'" reports Reveal. "The official record now essentially blames Terry for his own death." Ultimately, Amazon ended up choosing Arlington for its second headquarters.