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.