PSA: before the advent of organized labor, workers would often negotiate with tactics such as “be fair to us, or we’ll break your kneecaps and burn your fucking factory down”.
And then the factory owners got organized, got the police unionized, and we can't do this anymore.
There are still more of us than there are of them
Meanwhile, at my workplace, we had to evacuate over the possibility of roads flooding in a tropical storm.
I thought this kind of nonsense was a thing of the past.
Do employers not have a duty of care to their employees over there?
Or the word “twice”?
I hope the management gets wrongful death suits launched against them
Civil suits? They belong in prison.
Yeah but they’ll hide behind their corporation so there’s no “person” to throw in prison.
Corporations aren’t people no matter what the supreme court says
Didn't the triangle waistshirt fire happen because the employers were fucking assholes and locked the fire escapes? This is like that, but with water instead of fire.
Charge the manager with a separate count of murder for every employee that died due to their orders.
In old Japan, they would have made a bunch of management chop their finger off or commit seppuku.
Im not suggesting that. I'm just saying.
I’m suggesting it.
Murder wouldnt stick, have to prove intent.
Negligent Homicide or Criminal Negligence on the other hand...
Evacuation Warnings should carry a legal responsibility to close all nonessential businesses until the immediate crisis is over.
Honestly, even the Waffle House manager should hand over the keys to the Fire Chief. Those guys know how to cook, and clean up after themselves, should the need arise.
If I learned anything durring covid it's that basically every business is "essential".
Yep.
Watching my 19yo niece wake up every morning to go work at the breakfast restaurant during the pandemic because she was essential.
My 60yo mom waking up to work at the pastries factory with hundreds of other people during the pandemic because she was essential.
Yep. Company I work for didn’t miss a day of work because our boss had the HR manager make up a certificate for us to all put in our cars telling the police that we were considered ‘essential’.
I don’t think we are, but hey ho.
Archive link to the story. There should be some consequences to the management who didn't allow them to leave when the flash flood warning was issued.
There will be about the same consequence as the Amazon warehouse that wouldn't let their employees leave during a tornado. Nothing.
There absolutely were consequences. A longer-than-it-should-have-taken investigation was done from which they discovered that killing your employees is very naughty and were told that they shouldn't do that anymore. In return, Amazon made a very sincere "whoopsie-doodle 👉👈, I sowwy. But we didn't directly kill these production assets, so no harm no foul."
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
Sorry boss. I don't die for nobody. Oh you want to fire me? I'm sure the Department of Labor and OSHA would love to hear about how you forced us to stay in a dangerous environment under threat of termination. I'm sure that'll end super swell for you.
Sadly, it might end just fine for the boss. The employee would be better off going to the press first.
Not arguing, but how? How would this not be a slam dunk for a labor law lawyer? The law is pretty clear on prohibiting threats of termination in the face of danger.
We really need to break our conditioning that employment is the highest priority in our lives. That employers can dictate whether we take live saving action depending on how many pennies it'll cost them.
And this isn't to victim blame. What happened to these people is a travesty and the company holds the blame for it, 100%. It's more to point out that we're the only ones that can take action on this. Nobody (certainly not corps) is going to break this mindset or norm on our behalf. Look out for yourself and your peers. You're more important then your employer's bottom line.
I worked at a major destination-store focused on fishing and hunting products.
We had a hurricane hitting and the manager on duty made it clear that anyone going home to help out their families would be fired. Then when he got the call that water was rising near his house, he took off.
I've never hated a manager more than in that moment. When I was in management later, I made sure that I took all the shitty holiday shifts so my staff didn't have to work until 10pm on Christmas Eve and then be back in the building changing prices for the after-Christmas sale at 2am on the 26th.
Man if it's a state of emergency let the mgr sink with the ship.
It so sad, they probably complied because they needed their jobs.
Well on the bright side at least now they don't? I hope their families sue the shit out of the company and the manager.
I do not understand the mentality. Companies do not care for your well-being. Don't die for them just because your manager is an idiot that says "stay put".
We have the hindsight with full knowledge of the risk they were taking. I'd bet they only thought they were risking their next paycheck, not their lives.
I know they were scared to lose their livelihoods but there’s no way my job could have that level of control over me. ” Sorry fuckfaces but biblical stuff is happening outside, I’m out”
Wait till you read Impact Plastics' public statement...
So they were only dismissed when the plant lost power and the workers were of no use to the company
And very literally after it was too late to safely leave.
Which means, by definition, they were not dismissed while they could safely leave.
"After the parking lot filled with water and the power went out, they were dismissed. For some reason they hung around??? It's peculiar that they chose to stay in a building after they were dismissed into the floodwaters."
The company location
113 Years after the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and not enough has changed for the better.
The worst part is the Trump appointed SCOTUS basically made this legal to do.
EDIT: This comment of mine was misleading and unfair. Neil Gorsuch was not on the SCOTUS when he decided a truck driver forfeit his job without means of legal recourse by choosing to abandon his trailer and prevent death from Hypothermia.
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