EDITORIAL: Tesla calls in its markers on worker safety

Gov. Steve Sisolak has shown the fortitude to make difficult decisions during the coronavirus crisis. Too bad his administration didn’t exhibit that same mettle when it came to Tesla’s Gigafactory and Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Last month, a Reno Gazette-Journal investigation uncovered how the electric car company used its political connections to limit state OSHA inspectors at its Northern Nevada plant. Recall that in order to lure the coveted project to Storey County, state officials showered the company with $1.3 billion in tax incentives and abatements. Yet Tesla continues to demand special dispensation — and state officials continue to grant it.

According to the Gazette-Journal, the incident began when OSHA fined the company $7,000 after a machine crushed the fingers of two women working at the facility in March 2018. The agency eventually agreed to enter into a settlement agreement with Tesla that included hiring an outside safety consultant. The deadline for submitting the report was February 2019, but Tesla didn’t file any paperwork.

Around March 2019, the newspaper found, OSHA received a complaint that a Tesla worker had lost consciousness, potentially because of nearby adhesives. That led Jess Lankford, Nevada OSHA’s chief administrative officer, to seek a detailed inspection of the factory.

His choice looks more than reasonable when you consider that the Gigafactory averaged more than one 911 call per day in 2018, the Gazette-Journal reported. Since the factory opened three years ago, OSHA had also received about 90 worker safety complaints.

But Tesla officials objected and allowed only a “tour” rather than a full inspection. OSHA representatives saw numerous safety hazards, the paper reported, but Tesla refused to let them interview workers. After weeks of back and forth and with more complaints coming in, OSHA obtained a warrant, and inspectors returned to the Gigafactory accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy. But Tesla defied the court order and agency officials never got past the guard shack. Even more incredibly, the Storey County district attorney ran interference for the company and ordered the deputy not to arrest anyone from Tesla while telling OSHA to go back to court to seek a potential contempt citation.

Tesla responded by calling in its markers. Company officials, the Gazette-Journal reported, reached out to Michael Brown, then-director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, which oversees Nevada OSHA. Mr. Brown arranged a meeting for Tesla, OSHA and Attorney General Aaron Ford. “I’m unaware of this type of meeting ever happening with any business,” Ray Fierro, administrator of the Nevada Division on Industrial Safety, told the Gazette-Journal.

At the meeting, the government representatives were political appointees rather than worker safety experts. The eventual agreement limited the availability of documents, where inspectors could go and who they could interview. OSHA inspectors objected, but they were out of luck. Politics had trumped safety.

“I don’t believe we’ve had a good chance to look at conditions employees are working under” at the Gigafactory, Mr. Lankford told the RGJ. “My personal feeling is more work needs to be done to fully understand the complexity of the program and whether employees are effectively protected from the hazards associated with it.”

Tesla has a right to ensure that OSHA inspectors don’t overstep their bounds, of course, and there’s no indication the company is flouting worker safety regulations. But its refusal to cooperate with the state should raise numerous red flags. And can Gov. Sisolak argue with a straight face that each of the hundreds of companies subject to worker safety inspections in Nevada would have enjoyed similar treatment?

The Sisolak administration and Mr. Ford have nurtured the corrosive notion that the rules don’t apply to the privileged elites because elected officials are only too happy to please their patrons. That’s represents a black eye for state leadership.