Home Depot - PLEASE STOP Retaliation to all Non-Suing Employees after they're hurt on the job & JUST

  • by: Katherine Schaf
  • recipient: Home Depot, Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Ethical Citizens against Retaliation in the Workplace, Fellow Hard-working Americans Raising a Family

http://www.homedepotsucks.org/Your_Home_Depot_Store/Worst_Home_Depots/Jensen_Beach_Store0221.php

PLEASE sign this position to stop big companies, like Home Depot, from excessively harassing their hard working employees by holding their jobs hostage when an injury occurrs on the job and there is NO indication that the person does NOT want to sue but DOES want to keep their respective jobs as they are excellent american citizens who just want to support their family in these trying economic times.  This CAN happen to you and/or your loved ones!

Here's an example of one of MANY stories (it's a shame we live in a "sue happy" society where good people get persecuted for nothing because a company is paranoid; despite this fact, they should never harass said employees every time they work, create bogus claims to jeopardize someone's job, etc.):                     
Jim, was a Greeter that the public LOVED so much at their neighorhood Jensen Beach, Florida, Home Depot that they created over 50 satisfaction letters after finding out he was fired (Jim wanted to create a better reputation on behalf of Home Depot with assisting the customers in finding what they are looking for and when helping them with their item(s) upon leaving the store (see Top 915 Complaints about Home Depot's Lack of Customer Service). Jim, a 50-year old man who never had ANY type of injury (esp. on the job) after contiously working 36 years to support his daughters (one is in college while the other is about to start college) fell within one month into his employment at the Jensen Beach store (he had worked for another Home Depot out-of-state for over a year in the past) and immediately felt like his job was in jeopardy. Keep in mind, the job entails prolonged standing without any support in site (at least 4 hours at a time; he didn't know he was allowed a 10-minute break after the 4 hours until a former colleague told him) and helping the customers whenever possible to carry items that average about 85 lbs each. Yes, he was notified of this beforehand but he wasn't given the scope of what was required of him. He was assured early on that they were very understanding. After Jim fell it became apparent that if he asked for any assistance from his employer they would hold it against him. Thankfully, Jim created his own date/time-stamped incident reports when this happened. All Jim wanted to do was to keep his job (he even received and ignored over 100 letters from lawyers from all over the state of Florida who were anxious to pursue his case). Unfortunately, Jim did and still does need to follow-up with a doctor pursuant to the hospital's instructions that Jim went to at Home Depot's insistence (they called an ambulance without him asking them to).  To this day, he has severe lower back pain and he fell on his face (possibly broke his nose) and doesn't know the extent of that injury. Due to his limied medical insurance (as he provides for his daughters first) he couldn't receive all the services (i.e. CT scan) that the hospital had to offer because he didn't know if Home Depot would cover it even though the fall was through no fault of his own. He was told to take one day off after what Home Depot calls is "the incident." He followed everything Home Depot said and a month after he returned he received two-month old retroactive "write-ups" for being late (the only legitimate one was for a time he called in because he was locked out of his house as his wife, who has a brain tumor, lost the keys to the one car that they share; as soon as he discovered this he called AAA to have them send a locksmith and then Home Depot to tell them what happened; he then followed that up with a call to tell him he was on his way in; at this point he was one-hour into his shift). Many times, Jim got to work at least a half hour early and because the customers liked him so much they often returned around the time that Jim's shift started. Home Depot was 'singing his praises' about this until "the incident." Sometimes, Jim would be so bombarded with customers he got sidetracked before "punching in." Nonetheless, he was sure that given his early arrival he never "clocked in" late as a result. Even so, Home Depot produced suspicious reports just before his 3-month anniversary (to also avoid paying unemployment) where three "write-ups" literally showed up over night. Again, Jim was considered a 'displaced worker' (as someone who worked for a very prominent company in a financial industry for a dozen of years or more and was sold to foreign investors after the stock market fiasco in 2007; despite the buyout the company held on to Jim and his very important position to the end solely based on his work performance and loyalty to the company) and as such was desperate to retain his employment. He was advised by some of his former colleagues to take evidence that he was never late and also to retain a lawyer. Jim, not being the 'suing type' just did the former to not give amnuition for Home Depot to take his job away from him. He became so depressed about it as he has worked so hard and definitely went far and above what his job description was as he did not want to be without a job. His self-esteem is almost entirely based on being employed. 

Dear Home Depot:


Please stop retaliating against an employee who hurt himself when he was doing everything to represent you in the "best light possible." All he wanted to do was to retain his job to support his family. Despite never having an injury of any sort in his life over his 35+ stellar career you have done everything to harass him every shift he worked (including creating fictious negative incident reports retroactively, though, you must have never considered that he did NOT receive ANY while working at another Home Depot for a MUCH longer time period) to the point where he was scared to ask to see even a single doctor following the hospital visit YOU requested. Therefore, he did not reap the benefits of said hospital visit out of fear of the amount of medical bill and the fact that he supports his two daughters, one who currently is in college. Being an utmost ethical and law-abiding citizen, it was NEVER his intention to sue but your defensive stance (despite the fact that most of the lawsuits against you HAVE merit and yet you STILL chose to not improve business practices after you lost) made it impossible for him to be treated with any dignity despite what he was willing to sign to waive to prove his intent to you.  He is now severely depressed because he IS hurt and you wrongfully took his employment away and you lied in the manner that you did it.  
I implore you to not EVER harm another human being in this way. You are no different than those who bring frivoulous lawsuits against you, even though you are almost always in a position to win with you dozen of attorneys on hand so the scales of the law of justice is not balanced. I promise you as someone who possesses a high level but ethical position in the financial industry I am NOT anti-corporate, but I'm also certainly not anti-human being. So Home Depot, if you do not change, you will be representative of everything that is wrong with America, and obviously, not part of the solution of the recession we still find ourselves in. I appeal to you to reconsider this corporate stragegy as a result so no other people in the world are injured by you even further. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

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