Audit: Arizona not doing enough worker-safety inspections

A new federal audit shows Arizona’s worker-safety agency is conducting more workplace inspections but is still falling short of meeting federal goals.

The Arizona Division of Occupational Health and Safety (ADOSH) conducted 540 workplace inspections in fiscal 2023, according to the latest audit. That’s up nearly 200 from the previous year but still below the goal of 975 inspections.

The audit noted the improvement but said the number of inspections “did not provide a balanced approach to ensure workers were protected from hazards in the workplace.”

On the plus side, the audit found significantly more fines were levied against companies that violated safety standards, on average, than the previous year. The report says the average fine for serious violations was $3,441 in Arizona, which was within range of the national average.

ADOSH got a new director just months ago, and state agency that oversees ADOSH, the Industrial Commission of Arizona , also changed leadership over the last year.

The agency is charged with enforcing health and safety standards for about 3 million Arizona workers - from private businesses to state and local government employees.

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The ABC15 Investigators reported last year a series of stories , revealing a sharp decline in workplace inspections from 2017 to 2021 as well as significantly lower fines. At the time, ADOSH blamed a staffing shortage and frequent turnover of inspectors.

The federal audit mentions the media stories “critical of Arizona’s safety enforcement, low penalties and reduced staffing.”

After the ABC15 stories aired, families, friends, and safety advocates of workers killed and injured on the job took their concerns directly to the Industrial Commission at a meeting last year.

Seated in the audience, they stood and held posters of Arizona workers killed on the job. Each worker was remembered by name.

Helen Rope Hinton was one of many who stepped to the podium.

“Please do something,” she told the commission.

She told them about her brother, Lariat Rope, an Army veteran killed on the job in 2017.

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Her brother is not just another statistic, she said.

“He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a father, a husband, and a grandfather,” she said.

The 55-year-old was close to ending his shift at a Phoenix company that does aluminum casting. He fell more than 20 feet into a pit of water.

An ADOSH inspection after Lariat Rope's death cited the company for not having covers or guard rails to protect against the hazards of an open pit.

AZ WORKPLACE DEATH

Rudy Mori and his wife, Christie, in May 2020. He died a few months later in a trench accident in Phoenix. Photo courtesy Christie Mori.

Families told the Industrial Commission they wanted the state agency to do more. They wanted more inspections and higher penalties against companies that violated safety standards.

The recently released federal audit is one gauge into how the state worker-safety agency is doing.

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health released a statement on the audit that says, in part:

“After years of failing to ensure workers’ safety on the job, Arizona’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health is moving in the right direction and operating with more staff resources. But we’re still a long way from where we need to be, with far too few inspections and findings of enforcement delays.”

Dave Wells, research director of the non-profit Grand Canyon Institute, follows worker safety issues.

He says inspections are critical for safety because workers can be afraid to speak up about unsafe conditions. They worry they will get fired if they do. Inspections can help catch serious safety violations before workers get injured or killed.

AZ WORKPLACE DEATH

Terry Samdal was a father of two daughters who lived in Las Vegas. He was a commercial driver who died last year while on a delivery run to Kingman Arizona. Photo courtesy Lisa Samdal.

“They’ve made some significant improvements,” he said of ADOSH. “But they still have to do better to get up to federal standards.”

Wells said the audit also shows that ADOSH is finding fewer “serious” safety violations than the national average. Identifying and correcting serious violations are key to making workplaces safe, he said, because serious violations have the potential to cause injuries and deaths.

The Industrial Commission declined to do an on-camera interview with ABC15. But ADOSH Director Brian Hudson talked about the audit at a meeting last week.

“We have many vacancies within ADOSH right now,” he said. “We are working to get those positions filled.”

Hudson said more compliance inspectors will mean more inspections.

“These audits are essential for us to improve and to get better, and we take the findings seriously,” he said.

The federal audit covers activity during the federal fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023. Audit reports are typically released the following summer.

Email ABC15 Investigator Anne Ryman at: anne.ryman@abc15.com , call her at 602-685-6345, or connect on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook.