They were threatened with loss of their livelihoods, and disinformed of the risk to their lives.

Totally. My wife works in a skyscraper and they had a fire on the 6th floor and were told not to leave while the firefighters investigate. She's on the 25th, so I told her to leave anyway until they can clear the fire. Why risk it? By the time the FF arrive and clear it, it could be too late with people flooding the stairwells to get out.

Live to sue another day.

That's part of the issue. I don't think many people thought the hurricane was going to cause the damage it did until it actually happened.

If you think you aren’t just a number. Remember this day.

I wonder if Terry was okay during the storm, since it took him ten fucking minutes to call back to say they were allowed to go home.

Holy crap, I didn't believe you until I read this.

I hope future Google searches for Tavleen Tarrant and Suzanne Gamboa show this comment. Those journalists are disgusting scum of human beings. I would be ashamed to work at the same company as them.

It wouldn't surprise me if the business is leveraged so that any lawsuit, while successful, would be like squeezing blood from a stone.

And unless they can pierce the corporate veil, the CEO can't be held personally liable.

God, I fucking hate corporate personhood.

tragic company name

Red States like cheap labor with the life is cheap attitude.

Not enough. The people implementing that kind of work culture need prison time.

"Use your best judgement." WINK WINK

If the manager had sent everyone home and the factory wasn't destroyed, they'd get fired for it.

The thing is you never expect it to get so bad that you might die it's more like you think you'll be stuck at work overnight or something like that and unfortunately it's not worth losing your livelihood over having to spend a night at work. Unfortunately by the time people realize how bad it is it's usually too late.

The line must always go up.

And by line, I mean ladder. Pulled up by the people who got in early or had nepotistic connections. While they tower above us and demand we run inside a hamster wheel for the privilege of being alive.

Oh boy do I love our currently-fucked society.

It's in the body of the post; the company is called Impact Plastics.

The south. You don't want to work, or live in the south.

They didn't pass right to work because they love workers.

113 years ago the Triangle Waistshirt Factory Fire also killed a fuckload of people... and the owners got off scot-free.

Not capitalism, just the south.

They never got over losing their slaves, first they kept going with Jim crow and the KKK, then right to work meant they could treat poor white people bad too.

When you're the one in the household with the job that makes actual money, threats of "leave and your fired" can make you do unreasonable things. This irrationality can only be alleviated by collective bargaining and unionization... the employees standing up and saying "nope, there's a flash flood predicted tomorrow, we're not going to be coming in." Remember, these folks are working hard for a wage; their bosses and the owners are making the real money off their labor. All that matters to the company is the profit that could be lost if they shuttered one day for safety's sake.

Shutting the factory down for a little rain and wind? That could effect output and the bottom line... can't have that... I'm gonna need you to put your life at risk for our wealth or you can start looking for other work. Work that might not pay this well/have health insurance and other benefits you family needs to survive. Everyone who lives through it gets a pizza party!

We have performed a detailed investigation and determined the responsibility was entirely the fault of 2nd junior line supervisor Ricky, who was hired last week and has been fired.