Daily Caller-The family of a factory worker who was killed by Hurricane Helene in Tennessee sued the man’s bosses Monday for allegedly trapping him and other employees inside as weather conditions worsened on Sept. 27.
Johnny Peterson, who was a supervisor at Impact Plastics, died along with five other employees after senior management ordered workers to stay at the facility and escaped as floodwaters intensified, attorneys claim in a lawsuit filed on the family’s behalf, WSMV4 reported. more
You think if the company were focusing on making profits they would adhere to employee safety first, as lawsuits hit the pocketbook HARD!
Too bad greed and stupidity occasionally costs lives.
“Impact Plastics CFO Susan Chambers had emailed management on Oct. 25 to deactivate computers that Friday because “the power will be down over the weekend,” according to screenshots obtained by the outlet.”
…uhh, if they expected the power to be out, how the HELL did they plan to make plastics???
This right here warrants prison time…
“O’Connor and other senior managers sneaked out the back door around 11:35 a.m.”
Management tipping out and leaving their employees to figure it out is kind of a dick move. They do have a responsibility to their employees to provide a safe work place, and LEAVING suggests they knew it WASNT.
We dont know what sort of coercion that may have been used, if they were threatening to fire no-shows, but if the choice is get fired and live or die fully employed, well, theres other jobs, but not other lives.
Employers are not acting in loco parentis tho, folks can make their own judgement about personal safety and leave or not come in as seems good to them, but you can see where folks may underestimate the severity of a hurricane in TENNESSEE.
But folks who know better can die too. I grew up in Ohio and when I was older got called out to play in storms, resulting in a certain level of familiarity with them.
And when you start taking dangerous things for granted is when they kill you.
…happily, my wife, who was very pregnant at the time, begged me to go in after a tornado cell passed. After some grumbling I did, which was why I missed the tornado that had knocked over semis and tore up gas stations ahead of me on my route of travel. Had it not been for a pregnant wifes fears I would have been just as dead as that guy, and for the same reason, so I can certainly understand the compulsion to make a living can override common sense.
But the real unethical thing here was abandoning their workers to their fate while they saved their OWN skins. For THAT they must pay.
God bless and comfort those who have lost, and heal those who are injured.
And may they prevail against those that brought them into a dangerous situation and literally left them to die.
Sue those bastards and take them for everything!
There comes a point in life to decide you are going to protect your workers and yourself or ride out the oncoming destruction on your door steps. The greed of the company will always outweigh the safety of the employees unless the management has the fear of God and desires to protect the workers. Case in point: I forced all my workers into the men’s bathroom while a tornado destroyed the building around us. We prayed together as a group and no one was injured. I rebuilt the company and paid my employees full salary for the year there was no production. I did not miss a single dime lost helping my brothers and sisters.
When profits are more important than people…
It simply proves the ease of replacing said employees AND the negative, political stance of the ’employer’.