Worker says she risked disciplinary action if she left job during storm

MAYFIELD, Ky. — An employee of the Kentucky candle factory where eight workers were killed by a tornado said Tuesday that a supervisor threatened her with written disciplinary action if she went home early because storms were approaching.

Haley Conder, who worked at the Mayfield Consumer Products factory on and off for 10 years, also 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.

“They [the company] had from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock to allow us to go home, to tell us really what was going on and that we needed to prepare ourselves for the worst,” Conder told the Associated Press in a phone interview. “It was nothing like that. Not one supervisor told us what was really going on.”

A spokesman for the company insisted employees were free to leave anytime.

Conder’s comments came the same day that the state’s governor said Kentucky’s workplace safety agency would look into the eight deaths, which happened as violent weather spawned tornadoes in five states. Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters that the Kentucky Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance would conduct a review. That kind of investigation is routine whenever workers are killed on the job.

“So it shouldn’t suggest that there was any wrongdoing. But what it should give people confidence in, is that we’ll get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.

Conder, 29, said her supervisor threatened to write her up if she left early, and that accumulated write-ups can lead to firing.