MAYFIELD, Ky. — Following the deaths of eight employees, and the injuries of others, after a tornado ripped through the Mayfield Consumer Products Company, both the state of Kentucky and the company itself are launching investigations into how events were handled early Saturday morning.

110 employees were working Friday night at the candle factory when the tornadoes hit.

There have been a lot of questions posed regarding why people were there working, and whether they felt free to leave. Attorney Amos Jones said some employees reached out to him and his partner, saying their jobs were being threatened if they had left the facility during the storm.

“If you leave, your job is in danger. You will be fired. To then after the fact, in the last 48 hours, to attack the word and the integrity of these loyal compliant employees, is literally to add insult to their injuries,” Jones said.

Mayfield Consumer Products Company CEO Troy Propes released a statement, saying:

"We are immediately retaining an independent expert team to review the actions of our management team and employees on the evening when a tornado struck our facility. We're confident that our team leaders acted entirely appropriately and were, in fact, heroic in their efforts to shelter our employees. We are hearing accounts from a few employees that our procedures were not followed. We're going to do a thorough review of what happened, and we're asking these experts to critique our emergency plans and to offer any suggestions on ways they may be improved, if any.

In addition, today we're giving all employees $1,000 to assist them in covering short-term financial needs and will continue to provide additional support to our employees and our beloved community.

I am committed to rebuilding in Mayfield / Graves County, and we are confident that over the long term we will bring back 100% of our jobs.”

Jones said he was giving the company until 5 p.m. Wednesday to retract any statements that employees are not being truthful that their jobs were being threatened.

If not, he would be filing a lawsuit on behalf of the employees against the company.

The survivors allege serious violations of law including “a massive cover-up discovered within the last 24 hours with an incontrovertible smoking gun,” according to Jones.

According to a release from Jones’ office:

“Other than client Elijah Johnson, 20, the victims – still employees of the company – are not being identified by name because of real-time reprisals that already have begun and expanded, the attorneys said. Johnson worked as a member of the production crew for the last eight months at the company and got trapped under rubble while working the second shift on Friday December 10 after the tornado demolished the workplace.”

“What happened was a horrible trapping, where the loss, the casualty figures were compounded because of decisions made by persons we think were positioned to know better, particularly with an OSHA rap sheet,” Jones said.

According to a spokesperson for the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance, the Mayfield Consumer Products facility was inspected by the Division of Compliance on March 8, 2019.  The inspection was a general inspection of the facility.

That inspection resulted in three serious citations and five “other than serious” citations, and notes that the company did have an emergency action plan in place and that employees had been trained on the emergency action plan. 

The total penalties cited were $16,350.  A formal settlement agreement was reached on July 7 of this year, and the penalties were reduced to $9,810.  As part of the settlement agreement, the company is required to provide documentation that they had adopted the OSHA 2016 Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs by Jan. 13, 2021.

"An investigation into the events is underway and could take up to 6 months to complete,” a spokesperson said.

Kentucky Senator Morgan McGarvey posted on Twitter, “There are disturbing reports from WKY and elsewhere of employers forcing workers to stay at work--even threatening termination--in dangerous weather. This is wrong. I will file a bill to hold accountable those who force workers to stay and risk their lives during severe weather.”

He followed up the Tweet with another: “I applaud [Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear] for announcing an investigation into these reports in Mayfield. Regardless of the results of the investigation, it is wrong for employers to prevent workers from going home to safety when severe weather threatens.”

Kyanna Parsons-Perez, a Mayfield Consumer Products employee, spent the early hours of her 40th birthday terrified for life at the facility.

Parsons-Perez responded to questions about employees’ jobs being threatened, and the potential lawsuit.

“I don’t know if people were told that. It’s a possibility. And the reasons they were told that. I don’t know. But I know that I personally, that was not a problem for me. And I also know that if I felt that strongly about it, I wouldn’t have cared about no job. I would’ve left,” she said. “They should be held accountable in that respect, some kind of way. We should have never been there. No one should’ve been in that building.”

A Mayfield Consumer Products spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.