Workers at Candle Factory Sue Employer After Tornado

Update: Employees of a candle factory in Kentucky that was decimated by a tornado over the weekend are suing their employer. The workers accuse Mayfield Consumer Products of endangering their lives by refusing to let them go home as the storm approached, reports the AP. The company denies the allegation. Eight employees of the factory were killed in the storm. Our original story from Dec. 13 follows:

Several employees at the Kentucky candle factory leveled by a tornado Friday said they asked to go home when the warning sirens sounded, only to be told by supervisors they'd be fired if they didn't finish their shifts. As many as 15 workers asked managers if they could seek shelter at their homes as the tornado neared, NBC reports, but were refused. Some left anyway. "If you leave, you're more than likely to be fired," one worker said she heard managers tell workers. "I heard that with my own ears," the employee said. Another worker said managers held a roll call to see if anyone had left.

"It's absolutely untrue," said a spokesman for Mayfield Consumer Products. "We've had a policy in place since COVID began. Employees can leave any time they want to leave and they can come back the next day." Managers and team leaders go through emergency drills, he said, and followed federal guidelines Friday night. The spokesman and a team leader said employees weren't threatened. At least eight of the 110 employees working the overnight shift in the factory were killed. The factory was operating around the clock to meet holiday demand, per the Guardian.

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Two emergency alarms went off, three to four hours apart, said an employee who thought workers should have been able to leave between the soundings. Team leaders instead had workers gather in hallways and bathrooms, she said. After being threatened, one worker said he responded, "Even with the weather like this, you're still going to fire me?" The answer was "yes," he said. A forklift operator said he wasn't given the option of going home. "That’s the thing," he said. "We should have been able to leave." (More tornado stories.)