You all remember the story about the Tennessee factory workers who were forced to work through Hurricane Helene, which ultimately resulted in six workers dying while in a new lawsuit, the company and its CEO are being sued by the family of one of the deceased workers, [00:00:15] with a lawsuit claiming that the company's CEO, Gerald O'Connor, stealthily exited prior to the hurricane hitting. How convenient for him the company is. Impact Plastics, based in Erwin, Tennessee, and according to the lawsuit, the workers were denied requests to leave ahead of the hurricane, [00:00:33] and they were told that they needed to stay in order to meet order deadlines. Meanwhile, Tennessee and neighboring states were all bracing for the hurricane, which was forecast to be deadly and dangerous, and the factory specifically was under a flash flood warning. [00:00:48] As for the company's CEO, O'Connor, quote, stealthily exited the building out of the back door while other workers were trapped inside the factory. And the suit alleges that 11 workers from Impact Plastics were swept away in flood waters and six are confirmed to have perished. [00:01:05] And the family's lawyer has said Impact Plastics was aware of the flood risks and while employees requested permission to leave, the company failed to act. We will hold them accountable. As for O'Connor, he released a video. [00:01:21] I think calling it an apology video might be a bit of a stretch, but he did have some things that he wanted to get off his chest. We can't actually show you the video for copyright reasons, but here are some of what he had to say regarding the incident. He started off by introducing himself and then he leapt right into this. [00:01:37] It says due to death threats against me and my family, and to reduce the stress on local law enforcement that now needs to be focused on recovery operations. I'm with you by this video. The flood of September 27th took from our Impact Plastics family [00:01:52] some great employees. We are heartbroken about our loss and will keep those who have now passed in our hearts forever. He continued, following that day, I ordered an immediate review of the events and the timeline of what occurred that morning, beginning as soon as the last surviving employees and a count of those [00:02:09] who are missing were addressed with help from the National Guard, we were able to help secure the rescue of five of our employees by helicopter. Today, we share that preliminary report with the public. The findings are that employees were told to leave the plant at least 45 minutes [00:02:26] before the gigantic force of the flood hit the industrial park. There was time to escape. Okay. He went on. Employees were not told at any time that they would be fired if they left the plant. After checking to make sure everyone was out of our plant [00:02:41] and to rescue important files. I was one of the last people to leave the plant and luckily escape. To our knowledge, no one perished while on company property. My company will cooperate fully with the inquiries from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Occupation and Health Administration in days ahead. [00:02:59] For now, our focus is on our employees should have been on the employees back when the storm was hitting, and perhaps no one perished on company property. Gerald, because they were swept away in the floodwaters. I got a lot to say about this, but I'll start with you, J.R.. What do you think? [00:03:16] Okay, so I watched the video of it, and, Yasmin, you had to read through what he said. You had more, empathy and compassion and energy behind what you were saying and reading it than he was when he was also reading it. Because he doesn't give a damn. Okay, I'm gonna make a bunch of assumptions, but. [00:03:31] So I'll try and I'll try. And since I wasn't there, I'm gonna have to put it in a way that I think it seems. So he comes forward and he talks about how he's receiving these death threats. So first off, feel bad for me. I made it, but feel bad for me because six of my employees died. [00:03:47] And also the law enforcement officials and I have been working on this. So in other words, the cops are on my side. So I automatically have this higher level of of of of of of reliability on my story that I'm going to tell you because their attorneys, the people that are suing this guy, his attorney was talking about [00:04:02] complete opposite story than what this guy is talking about. Also, he lost a personal friend. This is all through this apology. He lost a personal friend in the floodwaters as well. So again, I have a personal connection to this. I morning as well. Please don't come at me. [00:04:17] He was one of the last ones to leave, he says. But also, there's this investigation about what happened once we left. Bro, I thought you were there. He's trying to protect his business, and anybody who has a business would try to protect their business. But in the meantime, maybe you also protect your employees. While that business is also seeing these devastating floodwaters come their way. [00:04:37] Whatever else is coming from this investigation should probably find out why 45 minutes that you claim is what they needed, or you gave them the time to leave. Then no one was threatened with any firings. Was that enough time? Was it? Maybe they only gave them 45 minutes and that just wasn't enough time. [00:04:52] That wasn't clarified in the explanation video, which is not the apology. I'm sorry Sharon, 1 or 2 more things. He said he fell in love with the city. There's another part of it. He said, I fell in love with the city of Irwin. I think it is where it was. I fell in love with the city back in 1987 when I decided to put my plan here. [00:05:08] And I'm going to I'm looking forward to maybe, hopefully in the future, rebuilding my plant and then again offering a good job for people in the community. Again, another nod to city leaders to maybe be like, yo, this guy brings in money to the city. This guy has employees that he hires from the city, [00:05:24] so maybe we have a good reason to not punish him for potential, shortcomings. Or, maybe an evacuation plan, things like that. That, again, the lawsuit says was not in place. So somebody's lying because there's two completely separate stories in our country. [00:05:41] The rich person has more, has a little bit more clout, has more credibility than someone who's poor. Because we'll say, I'm gonna say poor working class folks, because maybe they're out to get something. We never think that. What if the rich guy is out to get something like saving his ass [00:05:57] or saving, you know, trying to keep from losing more money or having to pay out folks that then they were neglectful towards because they didn't think. Not that he thought, oh, I don't care if these folks die, but maybe, like, we'll hold them on a little bit longer. They'll make it. It's okay. You know, that's a big mistake. [00:06:13] Maybe you treat them like folks that matter, like yourself and get out of there. Sorry. All right. Sharon, what do you got? - Well, they. - Don't matter, and I get. I'm right with you, brother. Everything you said and then some, J.R., they don't matter. And if I'm deciding on who's lying, I vote for the buffoon with no soul. [00:06:32] I don't know why he would even talk about 45 minutes. We all saw the coverage. It was wall to wall leading up to Milton. And about 24 hours before, the officials were already warning people, saying things like you will die. If you stay, you will die. No one will be able to rescue you. [00:06:52] I mean, perhaps those who died. If we are to believe this part of a statement weren't on company property because their bodies literally floated away. This is sick. He does not care about the employees. He doesn't really care about what anyone thinks or any advice he [00:07:09] might get from a messaging team. Clearly, because that seemed like the script was written solely by him or out of work SNL writers. That's how ridiculously ignorant it is. And you know what? He'll probably get away with it precisely because of that last part that J.R. [00:07:25] Mentioned. Yeah, a lot of good in this town. I've spent a lot of money. I brought a lot of jobs. Yeah, yeah. No. The fact that it was written down, and that's what he decided to. He drafted it, and that's what he decided to go on camera with. The fact that he mentioned that none of them died on the property is unbelievable. [00:07:44] And yeah, like, there's a few things that stood out to me about the statement overall. And I'm sorry if this is a little bit repetitive, but yeah, he did point out first that he was getting death threats, even though he is now seen to be responsible for the actual deaths of six people who he was responsible for. Frankly, I don't know who he's expecting to get any sympathy from with that [00:08:02] statement, but, you know, whatever. You know, he said that the workers in the factory were like family to him. Nope, don't believe him. And we all know and recognize it now that it's kind of a toxic trait in a business. He also said that the workers were given the. The 45 minute thing is insane to me. [00:08:19] That is not enough time to escape a storm, especially a storm that is already there. It's already hitting you. It's called a flash flood for a reason. These conditions can change so, so, so quickly. They're incredibly dangerous. All three of us, we all live in in hurricane prone areas. [00:08:35] Now, J.R., I know that you're new around these parts, but, you know, anyone who lives here knows that these storms are not to be messed with. They are serious. They are giant. They are getting stronger. And it's all about preparation, Living in an area like this, you have to know [00:08:50] how to deal with these storms, and you have to know how to get out of the way, how to save your property as best you can, but how to save your own life as best you can, and making sure that workers are working in a factory in the middle of a hurricane is not where you're supposed to do. And you know, since he didn't close down his factory, you know, he was so concerned [00:09:08] about those work deadlines that he apparently could not afford to miss. But those deadlines were undoubtedly missed, after all. And he seems to be not on the brink of financial collapse. And now he's down six workers, right? So he's in a much worse position now than he was at the beginning of all this. [00:09:24] And hopefully more of his colleagues, more of more of their colleagues will leave and quit this toxic work environment if they haven't already. And not only that, but there's the other issue that he is also cost the taxpayers in Tennessee money by having to involve [00:09:39] the National Guard and arrange for helicopter rescues of the employees that he had trapped in the factory, and he risked the lives of all of those rescue workers unnecessarily. That is one of the things that I don't know if that gets talked enough about outside of these specific flood prone areas, [00:09:54] but whenever you have people who did not evacuate when they should have, for whatever reason, it is a risk because somebody has to now go and rescue them. And it is a big strain on resources, and it's dangerous for those rescue workers. So, any final thoughts from either of you? Yeah. - Sorry. - One last thing. [00:10:10] Because one of the victims, Johnny Peterson, he ran off. It says in the story he ran off of company property to jump on top of a semi-truck or some truck to try and save himself. So that's the whole that's the thing about, to my knowledge, which he said in the statement. To my knowledge, no one died on company property because he ran away. [00:10:29] Hey, thanks for watching the video. We really appreciate it, guys, and we appreciate it if you become members, because that allows us to be independent, honest, progressive, all the things that you don't get from corporate media and all of that is because of you guys. Hit the join button below and become one of us. Become a young Turk.