the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 14, 2024
Bertha Mendoza, a 56-year-old grandmother, was one of the 11 workers who were swept away by Hurricane Helene’s flood waters at a plastics factory in rural Tennessee on September 27. Only five could be rescued. The bodies of five of them, including Mendoza, have been recovered. Twenty-nine-year-old Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso remained missing at the time of writing this article.
Earlier that morning, when the factory’s parking lot was getting flooded, workers told supervisors they had to get out quick. But supervisors at Impact Plastics told workers to continue to work until management gave the green light.
When the workers were finally told they could leave, it was too late. The rising water had already begun to sweep cars away. Drivers in 4x4 trucks were able to rescue people. But surging water tipped one of those trucks over, taking 11 workers with it.
As Robert Jarvis, one of the surviving workers, put it, the company should not have made the workers come to work that Friday in the first place. Multiple warnings about life-threatening storm and flooding had been issued for the area in previous days.
About his six co-workers who did not make it, Jarvis said: “I worked with them every day, and we were like family.… It broke my heart to see that they died and they didn’t make it, all because of greed….”
Yes, management put a bit of more profit above the workers’ safety, even in such a dangerous situation. And it was workers, in raging flood waters, who saved their co-workers’ lives. It shows, once again, that workers can rely only on their collective action to protect themselves.