{"id":177191,"date":"2019-11-28T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T01:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/11\/28\/capitalism-at-its-finest\/"},"modified":"2019-11-28T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T01:01:00","slug":"capitalism-at-its-finest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/11\/28\/capitalism-at-its-finest\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism at Its Finest"},"content":{"rendered":"
In an effort to improve their (in retrospect non-existent) chance to land Amazon’s HQ2, Indiana regulators downplayed the online retailer’s responsibility for the death of one of their employees<\/a>:<\/div>\n

When an Amazon worker was killed by a forklift in a Plainfield warehouse in 2017, the state of Indiana\u2019s investigator found the company was at fault. The state cited Amazon for four major safety violations and fined it $28,000.<\/p>\n

But an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting<\/a> has found that, as Gov. Eric Holcomb sought to lure Amazon\u2019s 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\u2019s argument \u2014 that the Amazon worker was to blame.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like being at a card table and having a dealer teach you how to count cards,\u201d Stallone said.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

It began in September 2017, when Amazon announced<\/a> a search for a second headquarters, saying it would invest more than $5 billion and bring as many as 50,000 jobs to whichever city won<\/a> the sweepstakes.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Indiana OSHA issued four serious safety citations, for a total fine of $28,000. Stallone sought more, but he was getting pushback. On Nov. 20, 2017, Stallone joined his boss, Julie Alexander, the Indiana OSHA director, as she called Amazon officials. He secretly recorded the conversation, which is legal in Indiana, and shared the recording with Reveal.<\/p>\n

During the call, Alexander told the Amazon officials what she\u2019d need from them in order to shift the blame from the company to \u201cemployee misconduct,\u201d according to the recording.<\/p>\n

And she walked them through how to negotiate down the fines. \u201cWe sometimes like to consider grouping citations to lower the penalty amounts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She suggested Amazon could partner with her agency as a \u201cleader in safety\u201d to kick off a program promoting best practices in the logistics industry.<\/p>\n

After hanging up with Amazon, Alexander said: \u201cThey\u2019re wanting to probably take this offer and go back and look and say, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re partnering with Indiana. We\u2019re going to be the leader.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

She told Stallone, \u201cI hope you don\u2019t take it personally if we have to manipulate your citations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Some days after the conference call with Amazon officials, Stallone said Indiana Labor Commissioner Rick Ruble pulled him into his office. The governor was there, too, standing by the commissioner\u2019s desk, according to Stallone.<\/p>\n

He recalled that Holcomb told him how much it would mean to Indiana if the state won the Amazon headquarters deal. Then, Stallone said, the commissioner told him to back off on the Amazon case \u2014 or resign.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The same day Stallone sent his whistleblower email, Amazon\u2019s corporate offices in Seattle gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Indiana\u2019s governor. It was years before Holcomb would next face reelection, and Amazon hasn\u2019t donated to him before or since.<\/p>\n

A year after Terry\u2019s death, Indiana officials quietly signed an agreement with Amazon to delete all the safety citations and fines. The agreement said Amazon had met the requirements of an \u201cunpreventable employee misconduct defense.\u201d The official record now essentially blames Terry for his own death.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that that Amazon did not have to ask anyone to do anything for them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This is just the nature of “business friendly” politicians and their administrations.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It doesn’t matter if the politician is a Republican or Democrat, though Holcomb is a Republican, these folks will literally sacrifice the blood of their citizens on the alter of profit.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an effort to improve their (in retrospect non-existent) chance to land Amazon’s HQ2, Indiana regulators downplayed the online retailer’s responsibility for the death of one of their employees: When an Amazon worker was killed by a forklift in a Plainfield warehouse in 2017, the state of Indiana\u2019s investigator found the company was at fault. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[617],"class_list":["post-177191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-amazon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}