On the afternoon of May 8, 20-year-old Kaise Grospeck was attempting to remove an obstacle from a conveyor belt at an Amazon distribution center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was en route to the malfunctioning area in a high lift when he struck his head on the conveyor and became trapped in the machinery, according to a safety order issued on September 18. He died from injuries caused by indirect force.
Safety Investigations and Limited Penalties
After an 11-week investigation, Indiana safety officials found that Amazon failed to ensure a workplace “free of recognized hazards that could cause or are likely to cause death” and issued a serious safety violation.
The penalty? A fine of $7,000, the maximum in Indiana.
Under safety investigations, Amazon faces unprecedented criticism for a high injury rate in its warehouses, as several governmental entities raise warnings regarding environmental safety. However, incidents like the Grospeck accident reveal the limited capacity of state and federal regulatory bodies to impose effective penalties or enforce safety policies on large companies like Amazon, which reported profits of $9.9 billion in the last quarter.
Ongoing Investigations and Scrutiny
The Grospeck fatality occurred while safety regulators nationwide were ramping up investigations into Amazon’s safety practices. In 2021, Amazon workers sustained serious injuries at higher rates than workers in the industry itself, according to a Washington Post report, although the company has denied those figures and stated that its safety record has improved since then.
Since 2022, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued at least half a dozen safety violations against Amazon, imposing fines exceeding $270,000 as part of a coordinated response to high rates of environmental injuries and musculoskeletal disorder risks among Amazon employees. The company faces similar allegations in Washington State, where it defended its record this summer in a hearing before state safety officials. The results are pending.
Meanwhile, two investigations are underway regarding Amazon’s internal medical office, AmCare, and how Amazon documents and reports injuries, one by the Attorney General for the Southern District of New York and the other by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for information on “systematically reported injury rates” within the company.
But so far, Amazon has not faced significant consequences from this regulatory activity. If it loses in Washington State, it can appeal, a process that could take years. To date, congressional investigations have not yielded any results.
Limited Penalties and Corporate Change
Typically, OSHA investigates individual facilities; the agency has stated that it would take 160 years to inspect every workplace in the United States. However, coordinated OSHA investigations like those taking place at Amazon can lead to company-wide settlements. Recently, the agency reached a settlement with Dollar Tree and Family Dollar over blocked exit routes. That settlement amounted to $1.35 million following a six-year investigation and a total of individual fines of $15 million.
This slow and comprehensive approach aims to change the way the company operates, rather than addressing individual workplace issues through OSHA’s limited fines system.
In 2016, OSHA raised minimum penalties for safety violations, increasing the fine for repeated violations to $124,709 from $70,000, and the penalty for serious violations to $12,471 from $7,000. However, Debi Berkowitz, former head of OSHA, stated that penalties remain “ridiculously low – even in cases of death where the company violated the law.”
Penalties
Limited in Indiana
In states that operate their own occupational health and safety programs, these fines can be even lower. Indiana is considered one of the states that provides the least protection for workers in the country, according to former federal workplace safety officials. The state not only limits fines for serious violations to $7,000, but it also prevents families from filing lawsuits over wrongful death in civil court – even in cases like the Grosbick incident where state officials said the company should have done more to prevent the fatality.
According to the safety order in Indiana, Amazon must properly train employees like Grosbick, enforce safety rules regarding operating forklifts under low-clearance equipment, and more clearly identify “hazard zones.” Amazon disputes the violation, claiming it acted swiftly to address safety issues, for instance, by posting signs in “low-clearance zones.”
Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said in an email: “We are still thinking of our employee’s family and the site team. After the tragedy, we immediately closed the facility, reported to the Indiana safety department, and began cooperating with their investigation.” Vogel added that Grosbick’s training was up-to-date and that he was wearing the required safety equipment at the time of the incident.
Personal Impacts and Required Changes
Grosbick graduated from Wayne High School in 2021. He died ten days before his twenty-first birthday, more than a year after his father Gary died from stomach cancer, leaving his mother Tracy alone.
Tracy declined to comment on this article while the state deals with a workers’ compensation claim. Under Indiana law, she may be entitled to two-thirds of her son’s wages for ten years, along with funeral expenses, if she can prove she was at least partially dependent on him.
According to Grosbick’s obituary, he enjoyed video games, music, and spending time with friends.
Alexis Smiley, a former classmate of Grosbick and also worked at the Amazon warehouse in Fort Wayne, said of Grosbick: “He was very smart and creative, and he was always trying to help.”
She mentioned that the day the incident happened was chaotic and horrifying, leaving her worried that it could happen again. The next day, coworkers released paper lanterns into the sky in memory of him, according to a local news station.
Grosbick was not the first Amazon employee to die while working in Indiana. In 2017, a 59-year-old man was crushed to death by a forklift at an Amazon warehouse in Plainfield. An Indiana health inspector who investigated the incident found that Amazon committed four serious safety violations and imposed a $7,000 fine for each – totaling $28,000.
Amazon, which appealed the violations at that time, stated that it has always cooperated with the Indiana safety department.
The family of the deceased man declined to comment on this story.
In 2016, Golda Fisher’s husband, Myron, died while working in hotel maintenance in Marion, Indiana. Workplace safety officials issued four safety violations and imposed a $2,400 fine on the hotel. But Golda was shocked to learn that the law prevented her from suing her husband’s employer.
She said: “They are the cause of his death, and I couldn’t do anything.” Although “money won’t bring him back,” she said that a legal settlement would have given her satisfaction in knowing that the hotel had a financial incentive to improve its operations. “That would change things.”
Wagner, an attorney in Indiana, said that civil lawsuits would be a more effective deterrent than fines imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which are not enough to have a real impact on most companies.
He said:
“All that is needed is a major settlement and the company will completely change the way it operates.” He added: “We cannot rely on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to do that.”
Limited Penalties in Indiana
While Indiana’s programs operate independently, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversees them. A 2022 report from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that the Indiana program needed “more review” because the average fines for serious violations are more than 25 percent lower than the national average due to “OSHA not adopting inflationary increases in penalties in 2016.”
The Indiana Department of Safety acknowledged the issue in a letter to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2022, but stated that increasing penalties would require legislative intervention. The letter stated: “OSHA provided language and information for that; however, OSHA cannot make the Indiana General Assembly act.” Indiana raised fines for some workplace safety violations in 2019, including increasing the fine for repeated or “willful” violations that result in death to $132,598.
Last year, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration threatened to withdraw Arizona’s partially independent program due to noncompliant penalties with federal minimums. The issue was dropped after Arizona passed legislation raising some state penalties.
MacFarland, a spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Safety, stated in an email: “Federal law does not directly require the Indiana Department of Safety to have the same maximum penalties as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”
However, Victoria Gudinez, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor, said in an email that state plans “must be at least as effective as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.” She added that the agency will continue to work with Indiana, monitor its progress, and address concerns related to penalty levels.
When contacted for comment, the Indiana Department of Labor referenced its press release regarding its record: “We see these steps that employers continue to take to improve overall workplace health and safety. The Indiana Department of Labor will continue to work with Hoosier companies statewide to drive this trend forward.”
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