The Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration was flooded with complaints about safety issues during the pandemic, but an IndyStar investigation found the agency “dedicated to ensuring Hoosier workplace safety and health” repeatedly let down workers who reached out for help.
Workers repeatedly alerted the agency to crowded factories, managers pressuring sick employees to work and disregarding safety practices.
In its defense, IOSHA told IndyStar the lack of federal standards for dealing with COVID-19 made it difficult to cite companies.
Even so, experts said the agency could have used a general safety standard to do more to ensure worker safety during the pandemic.
Here’s what you need to know about the investigation:
IOSHA didn’t inspect thousands of complaints
IOSHA conducted inspections on less than 1% of the more than 6,000 complaints it received related to COVID — the worst rate in the U.S., according to IndyStar’s analysis of federal complaint data.
Many of those complaints came from major factories and retailers where workers got sick.
Some were hospitalized. Others died.
A deadly outbreak at meatpacking plant
At least four workers died in an outbreak at a Tyson plant in Logansport, where about 1,200 tested positive for COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. The deaths followed repeated complaints about worker safety during the early days of the pandemic.
The Logansport plant drew more worker complaints than any of the company’s other facilities in the country, according to federal data. Tyson plants were inspected at least 50 times over COVID-related issues by federal OSHA and several other states, but IOSHA never inspected the Indiana facility.
IOSHA sometimes missed key information
When IOSHA did conduct inspections, many done remotely,it sometimes missed key information and regularly agreed with the companies’ version of events after interviewing employees handpicked by management.
IndyStar found cases where IOSHA ruled deaths were not related to an employee’s work despite evidence to the contrary — including the employers’ own determination that their workers died after getting sick at work.
Funding for IOSHA stagnant, inspectors down
The pandemic exposed long-standing problems within the small state watchdog agency, including inadequate staffing and funding, limits imposed by lawmakers on what IOSHA can do, and the agency’s business-friendly approach to enforcement.
IOSHA had 81 inspectors in 1986, when Indiana became independent from the federal government. By April 2020, when IOSHA was inundated with an unprecedented number of worker complaints, the agency was down to 45 inspectors. That’s far below the 70 the federal government recommended.
Meanwhile, state funding for the agency has remained basically stagnant for the last 15 years at about $2.5 million.
Read more from this investigative series on Oct. 19 on IndyStar.com.
