There should be some consequences to the management who ~~didn't allow them to leave~~ didn't send them the fuck home immediately.

I work in a factory that sits on a flood plane. It's happened more than once that by the time a decision is made to cut people loose, it's already difficult to leave the area. Often by the time a flash flood warning is issued there are only a few minutes of clear roadway left.

It's entirely possible that a similar situation happened here, that the safest place for those people to be was in that building, that there was no way out and they would have been swept down stream regardless.even if that's the case, this company should be held liable for sitting on their hands and keeping people at work through a storm where the risk of flooding was so great. That decision should have been made much sooner. If there was a job to come back to you can always post them for a Saturday and wouldn't have to pay overtime until they actually hit 40 hours.

I'm so fucking fed up with the false urgency in these places. This company made high density plastic parts. Literally nothing they were making is life or death. Nothing they were making couldn't wait another day. No customers were going to bail because the factory they needed their parts from got hit by a fucking hurricane.

But everyone, every fucking person in leadership, is constantly pressured to squeeze out more units, more production. Keep people working as long as possible, because every second they're not making a product is a second the company is losing money. And because now every fucking company has jumped on to the lean manufacturing model, they are constantly, perpetually, chronicly behind. The second an order comes in it's already too late and we need those units NOW. no lead time, no back orders. So stay at your machine because the boss man needs another Lexus.

Fucking burn it down