Companies Are Forcing People to Work Through Disasters.

What can they do?

Apparently, it’s legal—sort of.

As the worst hurricane in a century treads toward Tampa, some companies have decided to stay open as long as possible.

Barely 12 hours ago, a McDonald’s employee posted that supervisors are requiring everyone to work “until the very last minute,” and that franchise owners are demanding they wait until the storm arrives and forces them to close, adding “there’s nothing we can do about it.” If you ever wondered how little these companies value human life, there’s your answer.

It’s zero.

Recently, I wrote a post about preparing for disasters. But let’s face it, there’s no way to prepare for a disaster if your boss won’t let you leave, and you can’t afford to quit. That’s where millions of Americans find themselves.

They’re stuck.

If you’re in this situation, you have one option.

First of all, don’t believe your supervisor.

Document everything.

Ask them to explicitly tell you that they’ll pursue or support your termination if you choose to leave during an official evacuation order or a weather alert. Put as much detail into the conversation as possible, including your name and the name of the company along with the address of the business. If you’re bold, start a conversation with them on video and prepare to post it. Get them to put in writing, either in a letter or a memo. Keep digital and print copies.

Save the weather alerts and/or evacuation orders.

Then make them fire you.

Under most state laws, you have to prove you were in more danger at work than you would’ve been at home or trying to evacuate. Document your preparations. If your workplace gets washed or blown away but you’re still standing, that’s fairly good proof that you were in more danger at work.

You also have to prove that your workplace didn’t provide adequate protection. So maybe do a quick video tour of your workplace to show that there’s no plan or shelter ready for floods, winds, and storms.

This matters because it’s part of a trend.

CEOs are using middle managers to force workers to keep fast food joints, gas stations, restaurants, and stores open no matter what. They’re threatening them with termination if they comply with evacuation orders. Workers are often succumbing to intimidation and acquiescing.

As one worker posted on Reddit, “I want to leave but I can’t risk… getting fired for job abandonment.” That post blew up, with hundreds of comments urging them to disregard their reckless bosses and head for safety. They listened. In a follow-up, “The wife and I decided that we’re leaving tonight.”

For every person who risks being fired to flee a disaster, hundreds more stay and wind up injured or dead. The managers and CEOs who make these decisions know they’re committing social murder, but they’re hardly ever held accountable or even named. Often, governments look the other way.

When Hurricane Helene inflicted the worst flooding in a century across the southeast, a company named Impact Plastics in Tennesee threatened to fire workers if they heeded the advice of weather warnings and evacuated. An hour later, floods swept into the area, drowning 11 workers. The state is investigating the deaths, but the company denies any wrongdoing.

Companies continue to endanger their employees because no strict laws or legal process exist to hold them accountable. As one law professor explains, “companies knowingly violate safety laws, believing profits they gain by doing so are worth legal penalties and fines,” which are weak.

You might remember the deadly tornado outbreak in 2021, widely acknowledged as the worst in Kentucky’s history. One tornado annihilated a candle factory in Mayfield, killing nine workers. Survivors report their supervisors forbidding them from leaving beforehand, and telling them in explicit terms they’d be fired if they sought shelter. Several workers from across the state report similar cruelty, being told they would lose their jobs if they stopped working.

States often protect these companies from liability.

As one law firm puts it:

However, in Kentucky, employers are only liable for injuries or deaths related to natural disasters if the employee’s job places them at greater risk than members of the public. In other words, if an employee is just as likely to be injured by a disaster at home as at their job, they may not be eligible for worker’s comp.

Ultimately, the candle factory paid $40,000 in OSHA fines.

That’s it.

After being found guilty of endangering their employees, the parent company has continued to avoid accountability by telling workers to stonewall OSHA investigators while denying or stalling half a million dollars in insurance claims. As a result, employees injured during the storm are facing bankruptcy over medical bills. They’ve filed a lawsuit, and the case is pending.

After the tornado, the owners shut the site down altogether, transferring half of their 500 employees and laying off the other half.

Federal, state, and local laws provide extremely limited protection for anyone during natural disasters. As we’ve seen, they often compel some people to work, even without proper equipment or protection. It’s rare when companies are held accountable, and individual supervisors or CEOs almost never face personal liability that would result in criminal charges. As we saw during the pandemic, states passed liability shields because they knew that a majority of businesses would neglect or even refuse to put lives over profits.

If anything, states like Texas are weakening labor protections as the climate crisis deepens and poses ever-growing threats.

This probably won’t stop.

Not on its own.

Our leaders have made it abundantly clear that they’re not going to do anything to help ordinary people through disasters. They’re going to continue allowing companies to get away with negligent homicide. As the disasters become more frequent and severe, it’s going to get worse.

Meanwhile…

If your supervisor demands you work through a disaster, don’t stay there and wait to die. You can quit if you want, or you can make them fire you and then sue them after you survive. A boss who would watch you die during a disaster probably won’t serve as a great reference anyway. You can’t find another job if you’re dead.

If you have any legal knowledge on how someone can handle a boss trying to force them to work through a disaster, please comment below.

I wish I had more to say.

That’s it.