According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' net worth has eclipsed $160 billion U.S. dollars to surpass Bill Gates as the richest man in the history of the world. In 2017, Amazon's $177.9 million earned in total revenue, which was up 31 percent from 2016, surpassed the entire GDPs of Algeria and Qatar - two countries with an average population of 40.6 million people.
Yet Amazon barely pays its employees above the minimum wage scale. And when they suffer injuries on the job, the billion-dollar company doesn't take care of them.
Talk about worker mistreatment.
According to a report from the Guardian, numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system have been treated in ways that left them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income.
The story begins with 49-year-old Vicki Shannon Allen, a worker in Amazon's Haslet, TX counter fulfillment warehouse. Allen suffered an injury to her back while counting goods on a workstation that was missing a piece of safety equipment called a brush guard, which prevents products from falling on the floor. Without the brush guard, she tried to use a tote bin in its place but hurt her back while standing in an awkward position.
After a few weeks of pain, Amazon provided Allen with a heating pad to treat her back, but management sent her home each day without pay until she pushed for workers' compensation. After physical therapy treatments, she tried to return to work - except she aggravated her injury at the same workstation that had not been fixed and forced her to go on medical leave.
By June 2018, when Allen's back had fully healed, Amazon only compensated her for one week of paid leave for the issues she dealt with over the past nine months and offered her a $3,500 buyout in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. She rejected the offer in order to share her story and raise awareness for Amazon's mistreatment of its employees.
It left Allen homeless, living out of her car while sometimes going without food for days at a time.
Allen's situation isn't the only case that has arisen involving Amazon. It's actually one of several reports from workers being improperly treated following an injury in one of Amazon's factories. In fact, in April 2018, Amazon was listed as one of the "dirty dozen" by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which ranks the most dangerous places to work in the United States.
Here in Pittsburgh, Dugan & Associates won't let you be treated this way. Call us at 412-540-4957 for a free consultation. We fight for the workers' compensation check you deserve! Our team of experienced workplace injury lawyers will make sure you receive the maximum monetary compensation available to you.
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