Covid cops do thousands of undercover ‘spot checks’ to protect public health – KUOW News and Information

Each day, a small squad of about 20 state inspectors visits hundreds of Washington businesses on the sly.

We walk into Safeway like were a customer, said Tim Church, spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industries.

These inspectors normally investigate things like wage theft or workers compensation fraud, but now theyre following up on complaints about employers refusing to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

These Covid cops have done about 6,000 undercover spot checks of businesses this summer.

Their mission: to see if complaints like these are for real:

Since July, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries has handled about 12,000 complaints from the public about employers skirting the state-mandated measures to beat a highly contagious coronavirus.

The complaints come in to a hotline run by the states Emergency Operations Center, which farms them out to the Liquor and Cannabis Board (for restaurants and bars), the Department of Licensing (for hair salons) and Labor and Industries for most other sectors.

The alleged violations have ranged from construction sites with nobody wearing masks to warehouses not sending workers home who have flu-like symptoms.

Complaints received by the Washington Dept. of Labor and Industries of employers in King and Pierce counties allegedly violating the state's pandemic-safety rules.

Labor and Industries generally gives worker complaints higher priority than those from the public, although Church did not know how many safety complaints the agency has received from employees about their workplaces.

Church said he did not know how many formal inspections the agency has conducted or how many fines it has imposed connected to pandemic safety.

Very few complaints result in penalties for employers, though they often do result in improved safety practices, Church said.

The agency starts by contacting an employer to let them know a concern has been raised. If the problem remains after a spot check, a formal inspection and investigation may be launched. If the problem remains unaddressed after the investigation, the agency sends a cease and desist letter.

Only then, if the problem continues, does the agency levy a fine.

Its a fairly small number that end up in the taking formal action category, Church said. Most do what we need them to do if they spend time with us.

Penalties included:

In King and Pierce counties, Labor and Industries has received 377 complaints about alleged violations of the states mask requirements and other pandemic safety rules, according to data obtained with a KUOW public records request.

Out of those complaints, 113 were against the construction industry more than any other sector.

"Its not as visible in most other workplaces," said Mandi Kime, safety director for the construction-industry group Associated General Contractors of Washington. "If somebodys driving by a construction site, theyll see if people are wearing masks or not."

Inspectors found violations at 12 construction companies, nearly half the total violations in the two counties.

While there have been complaints, many have not resulted in citations, Kime said . No AGC contractors have been written violations so far due to the diligence of our membership and my team.

Kime said the construction industry has not had a disproportionate number of Covid-19 cases.

While most complaints released to KUOW focused on businesses not protecting their employees or customers from the widespread virus, one person had the opposite concern.

Mandatory masking and the increase of CO2 causing headaches, dizziness, nearly passing out, that person complained.

A Labor and Industries staffer contacted the person to correct the mask misinformation.

Left message with complainant and sent email regarding the fact that surgical masks are not going to increase CO2," the staffer noted.

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Covid cops do thousands of undercover 'spot checks' to protect public health - KUOW News and Information