• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If “a state of emergency” doesn’t protect workers who are fleeing said emergency in the same way that jury duty and voting rights do, then they are broken and need to be fixed.

  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        3 months ago

        In the article and the after statement from the company it seems that a lot of employees left earlier but the ones that stayed were non native English speaking immigrants that paid with their lives to be cheap labor and are being represented by a refugee and immigration group in the area for their deaths.

        So not loyal but those trapped to the company that held power over them. As you would expect of people that need the job to stay and allows for the company to have absolute power over their workers like they want.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            3 months ago

            Yeah. I mean people that are excellent workers cause they are cheap. Can be told to pay their own way to training themselves and will do it because they are desperate. Able to be deported to a country where they won’t have have any legal discourse for any reason so they won’t complain and take what they can get, or else lose their money, the cost of paying to get here and potentially their family.

            So, yeah I mean. No wonder anyone with a business loves them.

  • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I hope their productivity wasn’t impeded by this minor inconvenience. I’d hate it if their dying led to their employer making marginally less money. So rude of them.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    Look, I know it’s not the point, and that is an insane story that should have serious consequences for those responsible…

    …but “PTO time” is bothering me more than I’d like.

  • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Charge the manager with a separate count of murder for every employee that died due to their orders.

    • Delphia@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Murder wouldnt stick, have to prove intent.

      Negligent Homicide or Criminal Negligence on the other hand…

      • Krono@lemmy.today
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        3 months ago

        TN has a strong felony murder statute. You dont need to prove intent, you just need to prove they were perpetrating a related violent felony.

        I’m not a lawyer but in this case it seems like management have probably met the criteria for felony theft or kidnapping. Any properly motivated DA could then add a felony murder charge for each death.

      • Lido@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        That’s a question for the jury. Charge the manager with all and let the jury decide.

        • Delphia@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It doesnt meet the criteria for murder.

          Section 1751(a) of Title 18 incorporates by reference 18 U.S.C. §§ 1111 and 1112. 18 U.S.C. § 1111 defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being with malice, and divides it into two degrees. Murder in the first degree is punishable by death.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      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.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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”.

    • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Seriously! As a Floridian, I’ve told bosses I’m leaving on several occasions. It wasn’t a request. I’ll be back when it’s safe to do so.

    • eacapesamsara@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Homesslessness in the US is about a coin flip off for death or suffering, every hour of every day. Quitting your job or getting fired for insubordination prevents you from collecting unemployment, and most Americans have less than a weeks expenses saved due the the last 60 years of low pay and exponentially rising expenses, causing homelessness if you lose your job. You might die in a hurricane induced flood, but that risk can seem less than slowly dying while homeless or in prison for being homeless.

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      This isn’t as easy for immigrants. If they’re on a work visa and lose their job, they can be deported. So many will stay for fear of being fired.

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • teft@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You think floodwaters rising towards your building isn’t sufficient signs to know that you’re in a dangerous situation?

        I’m sorry but I’ve seen enough in life to know you do not fuck with water on the move. Floods are dangerous as fuck. If the water is rising around you, get the fuck out of dodge or as high up as you can get.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          And f you’re in a factory hard at work, presumably can’t see the water rising, aren’t listening to the news? While they should have known ahead of time there was a bad storm, that’s different from knowing the factory would flood, and it’s quite possible they had no way to know while they worked. This is purely on management for staying open

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Right right. That’s what they were trying to do. And they died. So what are you going on about?

        • Fermion@feddit.nl
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          3 months ago

          That area has never had that level of flooding since it was settled. Sure, everyone knows floods are dangerous, but not even the meteorologists were expecting the extent of flooding they actually got.

          Have some humility and realize that you have access to knowledge now that would have sounded crazy before the events.

        • treadful@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          Nobody has ever been surprised by flood waters before. Paths of travel in low lying areas have never been cut off unexpectedly before. It must just be these dumb workers fault they drowned. /s

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          I think people are generally slow to realize that they are in a life-or-death situation. I’m not talking about just the victims here, but rather about everyone accustomed to living in safety (including the bosses who told the victims to stay). We’re so used to making choices where death is not a potential outcome that we simply don’t take the possibility into account.

          I was in downtown Manhattan on 9/11, close enough to the World Trade Center that I felt the building I was in shake when the towers were hit. The funny thing is that I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even horrified. I couldn’t see the towers from my window but I watched the smoke rising and experienced only a strange excitement. I didn’t leave the area until they told us to, hours later. (I don’t blame them. They were as stunned as I was.) The whole thing didn’t feel real.

          Now I know that I was in absolutely no danger (except from all the pollutants I ended up breathing after they eventually made us come back to the area before the air was clean) but I couldn’t have known that at the time.

          Edit: The thing with the pollutants is a good example too. I could smell that the air wasn’t clean; everyone could. They told us that they were monitoring the air quality and I trusted them despite having my throat sore by the time I went home every day from the irritants in the dust I was breathing. Hell, I could see the dust rising nearby when cranes loaded debris from the towers onto barges and I still just did what I was told with no objections.

    • slurpeesoforion@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      A lifetime ago I worked at a place that gave a shit on paper for legal reasons.
      One night I hear an unfamiliar alarm, as does everyone in my immediate vicinity.
      My contribution to the conversation about the nature of the alarm was to say they could stay and discuss it if they wanted to. But I was not about to burn up for the assholes who ran the place. I was out the fire door with all its alarms before they figured out it was a phone left off the hook.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    99% of the country votes capitalist every two years, and then everyone clutches their pearls when capitalist things happen. Guys, this is the world you wanted. The ruling parties are not hiding who they are from you.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Dunno bout “not hiding” I just read 6 Bloomberg articles that said everything’s going great and it must be my gosh darn feelings actin up again

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          3 months ago

          Jesus Christ. Then the next video is how the Statue of Liberty and ?Abraham Lincoln?! Are crying over a travel restriction?! Don’t get me wrong what a stupid response from Trump to “answer” immigration but Christ it is so performative nonsense.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Can’t blame the people not voting when they can’t afford to miss work to vote.

        If you’re a wage earner, you’ve watched the last two decades as both Democrats and Republicans have made it explicitly clear that they’re comfortable with you being paid poverty wages.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    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.

      • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        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