The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into Impact Plastics in Erwin, Knox News has learned. Employees of the company have alleged management didn’t allow workers to leave the facility even as flood warnings were issued and floodwaters from the Nolichucky River swamped the building.
Two of the women in the group of Impact Plastics employees died, according to an immigrants rights group that has been working with families of some of the employees who worked there. At least three are missing. The company confirmed the death of one person but did not give details about their identity.
I'd bet a lot of doughnuts that the company did tell their workers if they left before their shift was over, that they'd be fired.
Here's a tell: The company was required to report the deaths of workers and they didn't.
Impact Plastics is owned by Gerald O’Connor, who says that he's "devastated", but it seems that he'd have been more devastated by letting his workers leave early.
Well, here's hoping that he suffers a plague of lawyers.
If the prosecutor has a bad day the company and its management
ReplyDeletemight hear words like negligence and reckless or depraved indifference,
or maybe manslaughter. Likely a fair amount of criminal and civil
legal pain will be inflicted.
From what I've read when the water started rising it was minutes
at most to get out and a good plan was leave before that.
Eck!
Plenty of blame to go around that mess. Whomever decided to even open that day should get the worst, but even the owners should be in for it after not demanding the foreman close the shop. Not enough money in the world to pay for a man losing his life to such a crappy decision as to open in a Hurricane and flood.
ReplyDeletew3ski
Ideally I'd like to see him lose the company to the employees. Isn't there a well-regarded football team that owns itself?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that "no" is a safer management response than"yes" is a core weakness of late stage capitalism as it overtly prioritizes management goals over worker safety.
ReplyDelete