Tornado-hit factory sued; workers said they couldn't leave
MAYFIELD, Ky. (AP) — Survivors of a tornado that leveled a Kentucky candle factory, killing eight workers, have filed a lawsuit claiming their employer demonstrated “flagrant indifference” by refusing to allow employees to go home early as the storm approached.
As legal fallout from the catastrophic weather started surfacing, steady rainfall added to the survivors' misery. As they picked through what remained of their homes, roofers patched holes and cleanup crews removed massive piles of downed trees and other debris. Storm-stricken parts of western Kentucky could get up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain by Sunday, officials said.
“It’s not right for the people who have had their homes knocked down, that are trying to salvage it, are now having all this rain on top of it,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in state court late Wednesday, accuses the Mayfield Consumer Products candle production company of violating Kentucky occupational safety and health workplace standards by keeping its staff at work despite the danger of death and injury. The lawsuit claims that workers were threatened with termination if they left in the hours before the tornado hit. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
“It’s a straightforward claim, exactly what this statute was meant to address,” Amos Jones, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing employees, said by phone Thursday.
Bob Ferguson, speaking on behalf of the company located in the western Kentucky town of Mayfield, previously insisted that employees were free to leave anytime, and he denied that they would have faced retribution if they left the factory. Ferguson did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.
The company’s CEO, Troy Propes, said in a statement Wednesday that the company was retaining “an independent expert team” to review the actions of managers and employees leading up to when the tornado struck the factory.
“We’re confident that our team leaders acted entirely appropriately and were, in fact, heroic in their efforts to shelter our employees,” Propes said. “We are hearing accounts from a few employees that our procedures were not followed. We’re going to do a thorough review of what happened.”
The lawsuit claims the factory had “up to three and half hours before the tornado hit its place of business to allow its employees to leave its worksite as safety precautions.” The factory showed “flagrant indifference to the rights” of the workers by refusing to do so, the lawsuit said.
Factory employee Haley Conder told The Associated Press on Tuesday that a supervisor threatened her with written disciplinary action if she went home early because storms were approaching.
Conder questioned why the company did not encourage workers to go home — or at least give them a better understanding of the danger — between a first tornado siren around 6 p.m. Friday and another one around 9 p.m., shortly before the tornado hit.
The only plaintiff identified in the lawsuit is Elijah Johnson, who was working the night shift at the candle factory when the storm struck. The wording of the lawsuit says it was filed by Johnson and on behalf of “others similarly situated.” Others aren't identified by name for “fear of reprisal,” Jones said.
After days of not knowing how many workers died at the factory, authorities are now “pretty close to certainty” that no more than eight perished, Beshear said Thursday.
The governor said it was “an absolute miracle” that more lives were not lost. “I will tell you, I was almost certain that the number would be 70,” he said. “But thank God, others either left or escaped.”
More than 100 people were working on candle orders when the twister flattened the facility. The company later said many employees who survived left the site and went to homes with no phone service, adding to the confusion over who was missing.
The lawsuit was filed less than a week after the storms that began Friday night destroyed lives and property from Arkansas to Illinois and in parts of neighboring states, carving a more than 200-mile (320-kilometer) path through Kentucky alone.
Beshear has said that Kentucky’s workplace safety agency would look into the eight deaths. That kind of investigation is routine whenever workers are killed on the job.
Bruce Schreiner, The Associated Press
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When Quebec enacted Bill 21 in March 2019, Razia Hamidi had an unfortunate decision to make.
She could continue living in the province that had just made it illegal for people like her to work in the public sector, or she could leave.
Hamidi chose to leave and a year and a half ago, resettled in Brampton, Ont. with her family.
"The climate it's created in Quebec was really something I didn't want to live through anymore, being a woman who is visibly Muslim and wears the headscarf," Hamidi said. "I feel like [Bill 21] legitimizes a lot of Islamophobia that exists in Quebec."
On Wednesday, Hamidi was happy to learn that Brampton mayor Patrick Brown had issued an appeal to 100 Canadian mayors to "join the fight" against Quebec's Bill 21.
As part of a motion carried in a special council meeting at Brampton city hall, Brown invited mayors and councils from across the country to donate to legal funds fighting Bill 21 in courts.
"Gone are the days when we can turn a blind eye to an injustice we see across municipal, provincial, and even federal boundaries," Brown wrote in a letter. "Quebecers of all faiths are our brothers and sisters. They need our help."
Hamidi welcomed the mayor's motion, recalling participating in multiple Montreal organizations trying to create allyship and gather funding for the legal battle against the bill during her time in Quebec.
She says until now the burden for legal fees was on the backs of mosques, churches, synagogues, gurdwaras, and non-profit organizations like the National Council of Canadian Muslims, and the World Sikh Organization of Canada.
By late Wednesday afternoon, the motion had already won the support of Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
In a tweet, Gondek said that she'd spoken to Brampton's mayor, agreed with his proposal and would bring an urgent motion to Calgary city council to "make a contribution for the legal challenge."
"We stand united in protecting racialized communities against discrimination," Gondek wrote.
Leaders will 'have to answer for which side of history they were on'
Bill 21 prohibits public workers in Quebec from wearing religious symbols, whether a headscarf, a turban, a kippah or a visible crucifix. The bill targets Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Christians, many of whom wear religious symbols as an expression of their identity.
How many of our fathers and brothers were told to cut their hair and remove their turbans to gain employment? How can we possibly turn the clock back now?- WSO senior vice president Sharanjeet Kaur
Hamidi says the bill "was a big factor in finally deciding to move back to Ontario with my family, not wanting to live in a province where the government is actively creating this tiered system of citizenship based on your religious identity and expression."
"I think a lot of local and municipal leaders, especially I hope our federal leaders, are going to have to answer for which side of history they were on in this period of Canada," Hamidi said, noting the bill has been in effect for two years.
Last week, a teacher in Chelsea, Que., Fatemeh Anvari, was reassigned from her job as a teacher to a position outside the classroom because she wore a headscarf.
Shortly after, Quebec's premier Francois Legault said the teacher shouldn't have been hired in the first place. That prompted backlash from communities across the country.
'Racism is expensive'
In a public letter issued Wednesday, Brown said, "A contribution from 100 municipalities across Canada is a small price to pay versus the repetitional harm that Canada will suffer and the future financial compensation that may come about if we allow this to stand."
"Racism is expensive, doing the right thing is a good investment," he added.
NCCM's executive director Mustafa Farooq, who has long been involved in the fight against Bill 21, said Brown's motion Wednesday was "nothing short of historic," and that he hopes it will prompt other cities to step up.
"I think anybody that believes in civil liberties and in the basic dignity of human beings should oppose [Bill 21]," he said. "There are many, many Quebecers who stand in opposition to this bill and will continue to stand in opposition until it's struck down."
While Farooq spoke to city council at a special meeting on Wednesday, so did WSO senior vice president Sharanjeet Kaur, who noted that one of the organization's board members, Amrit Kaur, had to leave Quebec for British Columbia because she couldn't work as a teacher as someone who wore a turban.
"When our community first heard of this bill, our parents and our grandparents started to recall the trauma of what they faced when they first arrived in Canada," she told city council.
"How many of our fathers and brothers were told to cut their hair and remove their turbans to gain employment? How can we possibly turn the clock back now?"
At a special council meeting on Wednesday, Brown and city councillors unanimously passed the motion to support legal challenges against Bill 21 and provide a one-time contribution of $100,000 to joint legal challenges by NCCM, WSO, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Kaur, a resident of Brampton, commended the city for being the first municipality in Canada to pass a motion against Bill 21, first back in 2019, and then again on Wednesday.
"Choosing between our faith and employment are not choices we should have ever had to make."
Calgary mayor hopes to join fight against controversial Quebec Bill 21
Bill 21 prohibits some public servants from wearing
religious symbols on the job
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek wants to join other municipalities in supporting a legal challenge of a controversial Quebec law.
The law, known as Bill 21, prohibits some public servants including teachers and other government employees deemed to be in positions of authority, from wearing religious symbols on the job, including a headscarf, a turban, a kippah or a visible crucifix.
This comes after a Quebec teacher was forced from her job in the classroom for wearing a hijab.
"What Quebec is doing is absolutely unconscionable… we are issuing a challenge to other municipalities in this country, asking us to contribute towards the legal challenge to get rid of Bill 21," Gondek said.
"Sometimes there are things that are the last straw, and that teacher — who was let go for no reason other than wearing what they will call a religious symbol — that was the end of it," Gondek said.
Gondek says she spoke with Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown who issued the call. Brown says his city council is committing $100,000 to a legal challenge by the National Council of Canadian Muslims. She will be looking for Calgary to contribute the same amount.
In a public letter issued Wednesday, Brown asked mayors across Canada to donate to the fund.
"I don't need to tell you that Jewish women who wear wigs, Sikh men who wear turbans, Christians who wear a cross are all at risk of being victims of this un-Canadian legislation, which infringes on fundamental rights of Canadians by discriminating against their religious freedom," Brown wrote.
"Bill 21 is in stark conflict with everything we've been taught and everything we've taught our children about who we are as a country. It's a fact that even young children in the classroom are aware of."
Calgary city council will discuss the motion next week on whether Calgary should also contribute to the legal challenge.
Bill 21 was tabled in and adopted into law in 2019, the government of Premier François Legault used a parliamentary mechanism called closure to speed its passage.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that he would not join the legal challenge against Bill 21.
Speaking to CBC Montreal on Monday Legault said the bill was voted on democratically and was supported by the majority of Quebecers.
"They can wear their religious sign on the street, at home, everywhere else," he said.
With files from Scott Dippel, Jade Markus, Peter Zimonjic