Holiday gifts should not be more
important than human lives. Unfortunately, Amazon.com
and Mayfield Consumer Products don't seem to agree. When
violent weather patterns ripped through the Midwest of
the U.S. last Friday, both companies displayed
cruel negligence by prioritizing seasonal
consumer demand over shielding their employees from
deadly tornadoes. As a result, at least 14
people lost their lives: 8 workers in Mayfield's
Kentucky candle factory, and 6 at an Amazon warehouse in
Edwardsville, Illinois.
These corporations put
human lives at risk to selfishly feed their own
profit-obsessed productivity deadlines — and 14
employees paid the ultimate price. These
individuals should never have been working with such
imminent danger looming. They should have been home with
their loved ones and pets, sheltering in place and
staying safe. Instead, one Amazon employee texted his
girlfriend that he wouldn't be home because the
company wouldn't let workers leave until the
storm blew over — even though his home was just a 10
minute drive away, and the tornado wasn't projected to
touch down until later. He died when the Amazon
warehouse concrete walls collapsed in on him, leaving
behind his girlfriend and their two
children.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, 100
overworked employees were forced to shelter in place at
the factory as the most deadly tornado in Kentucky's
history ripped through Mayfield. The factory
walls collapsed, the entire structure crumbled like
sand, and the injured and dead were left in
darkness. Rescue efforts took so long that
one employee, who was pinned under 5 feet of rubble,
went on Facebook Live to plead for
help. These companies MUST be held
accountable for these tragic — and completely avoidable
— deaths. Sign the petition to demand
that the U.S. Department of Labor bring charges against
Amazon and Mayfield Consumer Products for the
preventable deaths of their
employees!
