Rivian plant is a hellish nightmare of safety violations: report

Workers describe horror scenes over at the Rivian factory in Normal, Illinois – from cracked skulls to amputated fingers to one person vomiting “Rivian blue”-colored bile after painting R1s without proper safety gear. According to a scathing new report in Bloomberg, the American-made EV maker has racked up more “serious” US safety violations than any other automaker since the start of 2023 – despite having only one plant.

The American EV upstart, which has hit some serious financial woes, now has a different set of problems on its hands. Rivian has received initial citations for 16 “serious” violations from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the past 21 months, the report cited. By comparison, Toyota, Honda, Volvo, Nissan, GM, and Fordach received no more than 10, while Volkswagen and Subaru had none. Tesla and Chrysler maker Stellantis, with considerably larger workforces than Rivian, also received fewer initial serious citations, with Telsa receiving three “repeat” violations, which carry a heavier penalty, and Stellantis receiving two.

Bloomberg merges both government findings and interviews with current and past employees to paint a gory picture of dangerous safety violations, employees lacking in safety training and proper equipment, paying the price with back injuries requiring surgery or amputated fingers, and a lack of procedures put in place as the cash-strapped company aims to ramp up production of its luxury EVs and Amazon delivery vans. “Move fast and break things,” literally.

Updated: For its part, Rivian responded to Electrek with a statement: “The safety of everyone at Rivian is our top priority. We’re continually improving our processes and have not received any serious citations this year. It’s incredibly disappointing to see how Bloomberg has misrepresented the facts in this story. Since January 2023, Rivian has received two serious OSHA citations. Initial citations should not be confused as final citations, and to suggest otherwise is incredibly misleading.”

The company added that it has committees in place that regularly review its factory processes and make recommendations on how to improve them. It also has an open-door policy to its employees to bring their concerns to supervisors or report them anonymously. To be fair, Rivian says its self-reported rate of work-related injuries and illnesses this year has been better than the industry average for light-duty manufacturers in 2022, which was the last full year of data available.  

OSHA, too, said that since it began inspections at Rivian in 2021, the company “has improved their safety and health team and are very cooperative with the OSHA process.” But this gets a bit murky as Bloomberg clarified OSHA’s motivations in quickly downgrading violations and working with companies, rather than dragging out litigations, to improve workplace safety sooner rather than later.

 From Bloomberg:

Rivian says that as part of settlements with the agency, almost all of the violations OSHA initially labeled as serious were ultimately downgraded from that category or dismissed. “Initial citations should not be confused as final citations, and to suggest otherwise is incredibly misleading,” a Rivian spokesperson said.

Former OSHA leaders, however, say initial citations — which are issued after the agency has investigated a job site and considered the company’s perspective — reveal more about workplace hazards. OSHA agrees to downgrade citations because its priority is for companies to address hazards, whereas litigating a dispute for years could leave them unresolved, according to former OSHA head David Michaels.

“OSHA’s objective is to get the hazard abated,” said Michaels, who ran the agency from 2009 to 2017 and is now a George Washington University public health professor. “And so OSHA is often willing to reduce both the penalties and the number of citations in order to get that settlement.”

Worker interviews fill in the rest, with workers saying they are being put in harm’s way as the company ramps up “production of delivery vans for Amazon.com Inc. and $100,000 luxury SUVs popular with celebrities including Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, and looks to access hundreds of millions of dollars of state subsidies.” It’s not a great look.

According to the report, 20-year-old Addison Zwanzig started working at Rivian in July 2023 for $23 an hour plus benefits to spray vehicles in the paint room for eight hours a day, six days a week. Within weeks, she complained of dizziness, alongside other symptoms, such as nausea and vomiting, leading to weight loss. After requesting that her supervisor provide her with a respirator, which she saw other colleagues using, her request was declined. By September, she had seen doctors regarding what she described as blue-tinted vomit. Rivian then provided a respirator the following month and then for other workers who were not issued one as well. She filed a complaint with OSHA and is still seeking treatment from specialists, according to the report. Rivian declined to comment to Bloomberg, citing privacy requirements, but added that they “provide all necessary safety equipment, including respirators.” Her employment has since been terminated.

Bloomberg writes that the sheer complaints and serious injuries happening at the plant “are all red flags,” said Deborah Berkowitz, who reviewed the records and served as OSHA chief of staff under President Barack Obama. Rivian’s plant has for several years been the target of union efforts from the UAW, which aims to help worker bring complaints to OSHA, which is of course unfunded and doesn’t have the resources to look into most violations.

Rivian’s factory employs around 7,400 workers in Normal, a university town with about 50,000 residents. Rivian is one of the city’s largest employers, with multiple members of some families working at the plant. The company says it has already invested more than $2 billion in Normal and has manufactured more than 100,000 electric vehicles since opening in 2021.

Head to Bloomberg for the full report.