(Trends Wide) — A man who was working at the Mayfield candle factory on Friday night told Trends Wide that a supervisor told him he would be fired if he left before the storm hit.
“I said, ‘Hey, are you going to refuse to let us go, even if the weather is this bad and the tornado hasn’t arrived yet?’ He said, ‘If you want to decide to leave, if you want to leave, you can go, but you are going to be fired. You are going to be fired, “worker Elijah Johnson said in an interview Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the company that owns the factory responded to the allegation by stating that the company had spoken to supervisors working that night, who denied that any employee had been told that he would be fired if he left.
Spokesman Bob Ferguson noted that some employees did leave that night and that employees are generally free to leave without retaliation.
McKayla Emery, another factory worker that night, corroborated Johnson’s account, telling Trends Wide that she heard people ask a supervisor if they could leave, and the supervisor “told them word for word: ‘If you sign your way out, it’s you’re more than likely to be fired. ‘”
Another worker who survived the storm at the factory told Trends Wide on Tuesday that he did not hear any supervisor threatening to fire workers who left.
“You can basically dial out so they know you’re gone and come out at any time,” Jim Douglas said in an interview from his hospital bed.
State job safety inspectors are investigating the deaths of eight workers at the candle factory, according to Holly Neal, chief information officer for the Kentucky Labor Office. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Tuesday that such investigations are routine when workplace deaths occur.
When questioned by reports that employees were told they would be fired if they left the factory before the storm, Beshear said: “I have not seen any direct accounts of the candle factory itself. That is something that obviously people are going to analyze. I hope they did everything right. If they didn’t, that information will come out. “
– Brynn Gingras and Sarah Boxer contributed to this report.