A recent article in the workplace safety newsletter Confined Space analyzes recent deaths at Impact Plastics to show why workers are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The author is Jordan Barab, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2017 and previously worked for AFSCME and the AFL-CIO.
According to Barab, while anyone can be at risk from adverse weather events, “workers bear an added element of risk because of the jobs they do and their lack of control in their workplaces.” Worker risk is in part a function of workers’ power in the workplace — or lack thereof. “Where they work, the conditions they work under and their ability to protect themselves against obvious threats make workers more vulnerable than average citizens to the risks posed by climate change.”
Barab gives as a case in point Impact Plastics in Erwin, Tennessee, where three workers died in Hurricane Helene. Jacob Ingram, a mold changer at the company, told the Knoxville News Sentinel that as the flooding started, managers instructed employees to move their cars away from the rising water – but would not let them leave.
They should’ve evacuated when we got the flash flood warnings, and when they saw the parking lot. When we moved our cars, we should’ve evacuated then. We asked them if we should evacuate, and they told us not yet, it wasn’t bad enough. And by the time it was bad enough, it was too late.
Barab comments, “if they’re not allowed leave work in the face of an approaching tornado or floods without fear of being fired — what we’re seeing is basic job blackmail: your job or your life.”