Oxxo denies compensation to employee who died in fire

Sanjuana Martinez

The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 11, 2024, p. 8

My love, there is so much smoke, I can’t breathe anymore.were the last words of María del Refugio Gómez Ramírez, 53, an employee of an Oxxo store that was set on fire by organized crime in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and was trapped due to the lack of an emergency door.

Her husband, worker Ángel Holguín López, heard the last breath of the woman with whom he had shared 32 years of his life on his cell phone. The back door is locked from the outside and I can’t get out.she told him, coughing, affected by the smoke from the fire in the store.

Minutes earlier, she had been in the back of the store interviewing a young woman who was applying for a job. Her colleagues and customers immediately left, but they could not escape because the flames prevented them from doing so. Both died within a few minutes of poisoning.

When I arrived, the tent was already on fire, they didn’t let me get it out anymore.says Holguín López in an interview with The Day; I don’t know what to call what happened. But it wasn’t my wife’s fault. Oxxo should have been prepared for any fire with emergency doors. But those stores don’t have an emergency door. They have a back door where they put the merchandise in, and it’s closed from the outside because it has a steel curtain..

The Oxxo SA de CV retail chain, located in Monterrey, belonging to Fomento Económico Mexicano SAB de CV (Femsa) and whose president is businessman José Antonio Fernández Carbajal, never contacted the husband or the four adult children of its employee who worked for the firm for 17 years. It never offered support for the funeral, much less compensation.

Tomorrow will mark two years since the events. Since then, Ángel and his four children have undertaken a legal battle to claim responsibility for his wife’s death and to get Oxxo stores to install emergency doors and train their staff in the use of fire extinguishers.

The ordinary civil trial of file 1044/2023 filed in the Bravos District of the Northern Zone District of the Attorney General’s Office of Chihuahua, is to demand that Oxxo pay compensation, according to the Labor Law and for civil liability for one million 128 thousand 750 pesos. Likewise, the payment of compensation for moral damages for 30 million pesos and another for punitive damages, determined by the court.

No amount of money will bring my wife back to me. I have no idea how much they have to pay me, but I think it is important to fight. It is necessary to seek justice because it is the only way for Oxxo stores to become aware of their responsibility and obligation to install emergency exits.says Holguín.

Infamous response

The Day has had access to the court file. To the surprise of her relatives, in the response, the Oxxo company states that María del Refugio decided not to leave the store and stayed in the back office where she was interviewing a young woman looking for work.

The attack and violent break-in at our branch located at 6439 Hiedra Street, Airport Extension, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, took place in broad daylight. In doing so, the attackers, with their actions and behavior, and in a very scandalous manner, demanded (warned) our collaborators and clients to leave the premises, because something bad would happen; despite this, our collaborator María del Refugio, unlike other people who did leave, chose to remain in the premises.the company points out in its legal response.

Jorge Luis Iglesias González, general representative of the Oxxo Commercial Chain, justifies the facts: The criminals carried out their threat and, using Molotov cocktails (compounds of flammable substances) as starters, set fire to our branch: this was extremely violent and constitutes an act of terrorism that reveals the use of excessive (and insurmountable) force..

And he adds: “How can such a force majeure situation be prevented?… Other employees and customers of the branch saved their lives simply by leaving the premises. Our employee María del Refugio, on the other hand, chose to remain in the branch (despite warnings that something bad would happen and the perpetrators giving employees and customers the opportunity to leave), in the office area and not even in the warehouse (where there were fire extinguishers, but which could not have put out the fire in any way given the magnitude of the fire and the danger of the substances used).”

The Oxxo store responded that it has all the municipal and legal permits for its operation and blames organized crime for the fire, and therefore justifies the death of its employee arguing that she preferred to stay in the office located in the back of the building where she was interviewing a young woman for work reasons:

My client (Oxxo) is a responsible company that not only operates within the framework of the law, but also has policies and practices that are better than this; proof of this is that it offers private life insurance to its employees. Our employee María del Refugio was the holder of such insurance; this, by itself, defeats any insinuation or claim that it should be condemned for being an irresponsible, negligent and/or insensitive company.the document in the response to the complaint states.

However, Angel says that in two years his children have not been able to collect the aforementioned life insurance: No matter how hard they tried, they have not been paid the insurance. Oxxo only gave my children the severance pay that was legally due to my wife, as if she had resigned..

A new life

For 17 years, Ángel went to the damaged Oxxo branch to pick up his wife. He says that he even helped her bring merchandise in through the back door, so he knew the store perfectly.

The Oxxo answered that my wife wanted to stay there, that she didn’t want to leave, that she didn’t want to save herself. It’s a lie. Obviously she wanted to leave, there’s no way she would have preferred to die. The thing is that she had nowhere to get out. My wife was inside a room interviewing a young girl who was pregnant and who came to ask for a job.

He says that when he arrived at the scene, the young woman was taken out of the store alive by the rescue teams, but his wife had already died and they left her inside. In the end, they both died.

The company says in its response to the lawsuit that it does have an evacuation route, but that route is to leave through the main door. That is not even an evacuation route.

The company’s lack of social commitment has hurt them greatly: She always had good results in the store, she always made profits to Oxxo according to her monthly inventories; and she was always very responsible with her work for 17 years..

As time passed, he realized that the damaged Oxxo had already been rebuilt and opened to the public, again without an emergency exit: I decided to sue not so much for money, but so that the same thing doesn’t happen to other people and other Oxxo workers in case of a fire. All stores should have emergency doors..

Social responsibility

Attorney Oguer Enrique Sánchez Pérez, from the Lex Iusta SC law firm in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, explains that the lawsuit seeks fair compensation for the family of María del Refugio.

It was a failure to fulfill a duty of care by Oxxo. The suffering, the affectation and the impact on the life of Angel and his children. The company did not have appropriate emergency exits in case of fire.

She claims that she was in charge of the shift and that none of the employees had training in dealing with a fire: The company says that the store did have fire extinguishers, the problem is that none of the employees knew how to use them. There was no point in having them if they didn’t know how to use them. They never had a drill, a protocol in case of fire in this convenience store..

Duck: Oxxo does not comply with the provisions of official Mexican regulations, which indicate that all such businesses must have clear emergency exits and not obstructed with merchandise, and must train their employees on how to act in such situations..

Consider very regrettable that in its response Oxxo blames its employee for her own death: The company claims that she was the one who wanted to stay. This is totally illogical and incongruous. Since the premises were on fire, what she and the other young woman wanted, obviously, was to get out, but an emergency exit was blocked, while the main door was on fire. The two victims did not know what to do..

The legal battle will continue: Nothing compares to the loss of a loved one, there is nothing that can make up for it, but at least his family receives compensation, and the company is held responsible for its omissions and negligence..

The life of Angel and his four children changed with the absence of Maria del Refugio: They remember their mother every day, my five grandchildren too. It is very sad that they have been left without her. I am still learning to survive without my wife. We want justice..