Kentucky candle factory bosses threatened to fire workers who fled tornado | Hacker News Reader

Kentucky candle factory bosses threatened to fire workers who fled tornado

theguardian.com

47 pointsvanusa21 comments

I would bet a lot of money that these business owners are not punished and just take their insurance payout and get on with their lives.

Refusing to let workers leave after a tornado siren sounds like a great way to be sued into bankruptcy.

Letting a worker leave DURING a tornado siren will _definitely_ get you sued.

> there was a three to four hour lull between the first alarm sounding and the arrival of the tornado

You sure about that?

Yes. Absolutely certain. Look it up yourself and be safe.

I think the employer will definitely be sued and have to payout.

This could be a company ending lawsuit. The payout might max out both the limits of the insurance policy and/or the (post-disaster) assets of the company.

By who?

The families of the deceased.

Maybe, if they happen to have the kind of money to hire lawyers for something like that, but if thats the case then it’s unlikely their relatives would be slaving for this candle factory out in rural Kentucky in the first place.

They'll take a 1/3 to 1/2 cut.

The burden of proof for criminal conviction is much higher than civil liability.

This headline literally makes no sense this entire article is written by someone that has absolutely zero knowledge on the subject. I'm flagging it because it is incredibly foolish and will get someone killed.

First, You can't "flee a tornado" like you can a hurricane or a tidal wave. As a matter of fact this is one of the most incredibly dangerous things you can do. Your car is the most unsafe place as you're completely exposed to flying debris (the killer in tornados), and if you get in a traffic jam (which a lot of people 'fleeing' would cause), you _will_ die. Golfball to softball sized hail will destroy your car and render it immovable. You'll be stuck in the open and you will be injured. This happens _literally_ every time there is a severe weather event: someone tries to flee, and they die.

Second, tornadoes have a relatively narrow damage path and tend to travel in straight-ish paths. What's unpredictable about them is when they are actually "touching down" and that's what makes then dangerous. A formation can drop to the ground unpredictably and suddenly, then lift again. this can take place in under 15s and it can cycle several times every few minutes. This is what makes them dangerous and it is irresponsible, ill-advised, against recommendations from experts, and incredibly foolish for this news paper to be promoting this sort of content.

Source: I've been outdoors in tornados, in high school I've worked with trained weather spotters with the National Weather Service, and this is general knowledge for anyone that grew up in Kansas.

Multiple employees of the Mayfield Consumer Products factory told NBC News that they took shelter in bathrooms and hallways when they first heard tornado warning sirens, then supervisors ordered them back to work when they mistakenly assumed the danger had passed.

“I asked to leave and they told me I’d be fired,” Elijah Johnson, 20, told NBC, claiming that he was among a group of about 15 concerned colleagues who were refused permission to evacuate.

“‘Even with the weather like this, you’re still going to fire me?’” he said he asked his manager.

The manager replied, “Yes.”

From TFA.

To underline that: managers threatened retaliatory firing of workers taking shelter within the factory itself.

When a corporation feels it has this much power over its employees, it is time for that corporation to end.

The bigger point is: the company clearly is no position to threaten to fire people for making their own decisions about personal safety in situations like this. If anything, that simply adds to the anxiety, and amplifies risk.

And unfortunately the situation appears to have been far worse than that: it wasn't simply that they were told they couldn't "flee" the premises -- they were expressly forbidden from taking at least some form of shelter, despite these supervisors almost certainly (I'd say 99 percent likely) had no training whatsover in directing these employees to safety in any way:

Covid mandates are embolding employers to lord over their employees. One of the side effects, of giving up bodly autonomy as to what goes in your body to your employers. Aside the huge wealth transfer away from the working class in the last two years.

The safest thing to do is stay where you are, but seek available shelter. It doesn't take much.

I'm not saying what the manager did is correct. Being out in the candle assembly floor is probably the worst place as the main killer in tornados is flying debris.

But an interior office, a restroom, a cooler, a safe, a kitchen pantry, under a desk, any enclosed space, or even a low lying trench is sufficient to save your life.

Unless they physically prevented them from leaving it was still their choice, and it comes down to the individual's choice. I've walked out of situation which I deemed risky not knowing if there would be another job available, because I thought the risk was too great, I've also seen people who ignored the danger get seriously hurt.

Managers who don't put people's lives above profit make the same risk assessment but with other people's fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers and will have to live with that choice. Company culture also has a lot to do with management pressuring people to live dangerously.

"Your money or your life!" is technically a choice, yes. I think that framing assumes a lot of agency on part of the victim here. We are not always free to make decisions, especially living hand to mouth.

Live today, starve tomorrow

Reply on news.ycombinator.com