Complaint Review: Frito-Lay

I can see a pattern here of behavior by PepsiCo owned companies regarding injuries and disabilities, and the violations of disabled persons rights under the law.

Tropicana Bradenton HR dept violated my rights under the law and the union contract on 3 different occasions.

Please note that the first offense went through the union grievance process, and I was put back to work and made whole, but then I was a marked man. A pattern of retaliation and harassment followed, and ultimately I was terminated.

However, Tropicana HR dept goes out of their way to accomodate SEX OFFENDERS / FELONS, but cannot/ will not accomodate a DISABLED VETERAN who made a written request for REASONABLE ACCOMODATION under the ADA!

This sex offender I speak of is Kahreem Williams who is the husband of the HR Director Jenny [Jordan] Williams! He engaged in a sexual offense against a child under the age of 12 while in the employ of Tropicana Products / Tropicana Manufacturing, Bradenton Plant.

He was in QC at the time. He was convicted and served prison time. Tropicana HR dept allowed him to write a letter of resignation prior to serving his sentence. I have seen it. It was presented as evidence in a case against me! Then, in conflict with tropicana's hiring policy, and PepsiCo's Worldwide Code Of Conduct, Kahreem was re-hired as an hourly worker upon release from incarceration, AND, they forged his seniority too! He maintained seniority while he was in prison! This has been fixed recently due to me making a complaint.

He is currently on FELONY probation until 2009, and is a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER, and is still working at Tropicana only because he is married to the HR Director.

They accomodated him, and still do so to go to his probation reporting every week, but refused to accomodate me as a disabled veteran to get needed medical care 1 hr twice per week for 10 weeks!

I can clearly see these PepsiCo owned companies clearly favor SEX OFFENDERS and felons over Disabled persons and Veterans! That is demonstrated by Tropicana HR dept's actions, it is not just my opinion.

How do you say unfair hiring practices? How do you say ADA violation? How do you say Discrimination? How do you say Ethically challenged?

Mildly amusing that your report is mirrored in conditions going on in FL at Tropicana

Robert,

Do a search for Tropicana to read what they have done to me. Tropicana is owned by Pepsico and is in the QTG group of companies.

These people are unbelievable.

Robert,

I currently have a case that is going the distance. You may be able to use some or all of the information in it in your case.

Search ROR for Tropicana.

Robert,

That contract is illegal and irrelevant. You were injured on the job. That is a Workman's Comp case. Period. You need to file a complaint in writing with the state labor board.

And, personal injury lawyers will usually take these cases on contingency, less court costs.

As far as joining the union, I can't see a reason not to support your union. It is a small price to pay and they have vast resources to protect you. If you were a dues paying union member, the in house union lawyer would be representing you right now at no cost to you.

CA is not a right to work state so your union has no obligation to protect you if you are not a dues paying member.

You have another option. This group of companies are FEDERAL CONTRACTORS. Which means the OFFICE of Contract Compliance of the USDOL has jurisdiction here and will intervene on your behalf as you are a protected employee due to your Veteran status. You can file the complaint online.

Good luck.

To give a more detailed exaple of what I am up against the Plans in question are drafted as if a complete illiterate had written it. Only more crafty in that the plan not only mentions the Plan Administrator has the ultimate authority to interpert the plan and enforce it any way they choose.

The plan administrator also has the authority to declaire any other ficticious income they assume an injured employee could be entitle to under other conditions that with confidence they will deduct that amount from the plan benefits. In most cases it leaves the plan responsible for notifying the injured employee they have been overpaid according to the plan administrators records. No proof of payment is required, and no proof the injured employee is not receiving the administrators declaired deducted income is admitted.

Further the plan is drafted in a way to imply it applies to all employees yet when you follow the plan to the refered addendums it excludes all non-union members. Effectively the way the plan is being administered non-union members are contributing to short and long term insurance policies they are not allowed to collect on.

I could understand this if my employer was the only one contributing to the plan but money was withheld from my paycheck as my portion of a co-payment on the policy. In any other sector this would be considered insurance fraud. As bounced around the plan administrator continues to mix and confuse workers compensation and the company provided benefits plan.

In the Bakersfield area a new issue of mini bar attorneys has been brought to my attention. Meaning the reason I have not been able to get an attorney to handle my case is because they are so lazy they specialize in only one portiion of the law. If a potential client mentions any word not included in the limited vocabulary of specialty the attorney can not help or will not help.

In many cases such as mine the attorney isn't polite enough to take time to explain why he/she can not help or will not help. Limited action is taken by our congress to correct the mess they made of a law that was designed to protect workers from these 1890's style of extortion and abuse.

Recently I signed up for a course in medical billing, this course has taught me a lot about the insurance industry. It hasn't help me with my case against Frito-Lay but it has helped me save a lot of out of the pocket expenses billers normally pass off onto patients. It has also introduced me to several sections of State and Federal Laws that do apply to my case and how our political leaders have abandoned us as contributing workers in the United States.

Like the previous respondent I too am a retired military man. This seems to be a favored target of large corporations since the first item of attack for offsetting plan provided benefits was my military retirement pay. The same offsets apply to regular retirement pay as well as the 401K plan sponsored by the company.

I do not normally listen to CNN because I get sick and tired of teh bashing of military men and women by Ted Turner and CNN, but Lou Dobbs is right. If everyone of the voters around the country would reflect on what the Dems and Repubicans have been doing in tehpast twenty years and more agressively in the past 10 years we would all re-registar as Independent and elect a non-career politician. One cycle would be all it would take to recover lost income from self appointed congressional retirements and correct the laws.

Lets face it the laws of our land are intended for the people of the United States and should not take a team of attorneys to interpert it. And every American citizen according to the US Constitution is suppose to be guarenteed the right to be heard before the courts and not an arbitrator according to the whimes of a ill intending employer. Granted there are cases when the employer is the target of fraud under various circumstances, but as with mega corporations what validates executive pay in the millions of dollars each year and how do all the fortune 500 companies sustain a double digit growth every quarter and every year. These rates of growth exceed world population as a whole and the workers are paying the cost.

While all the fortune 500 executives are trying to keep up with Bill Gates working men and women are moving backwards on the economic scale. Eventually we will have less than our parents had and be expected to be happy with that much.
Someone please help me. Give me more than just moral support. If you have an opportunity to buy your company stocks set as much money as possible to buy every option you can. Vote out the standing board members and CEO's. If we can't get Congress to keep the laws fair then we can cut off the polictical machine funding and make the field more even across the board.

Robert has a valid point here. From my experience with this group of companies as an employee, I have some insight.

PepsiCo is the parent company of the QTG group which is Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade which also includes Frito-Lay.

I have found that they have a policy of not putting anything in writing to an employee regarding and labor issue, injury, etc. They do everything verbally so there is no record, and hope the employee will take an action they can use against them, and then call it voluntary.

I am a disabled veteran and was hired with full disclosure of such disability. I went into the plant medical office after working several 12-16 hour shifts back to back and was simply inquiring about a medical excuse for a work hour limit to accomodate my disability.

The Senior HR Rep SUSPENDED ME immediately and told me I had to file for SHORT TERM DISABILITY and could not come back to work until I had a medical exam with no restrictions! Well, my question was, how do I do this? I have a permanent, rated disability!

Anyway, I held my ground. I filed a greivance with the union and filed complaints with various federal govt agencies and guess what? The company was found to be in violation of 3 federal laws and I was issued a right to sue letter. I was also re-instated completely including all lost wages including partial overtime.

Robert, Hold your ground, and get everything in writing.

Robert has a valid point here. From my experience with this group of companies as an employee, I have some insight.

PepsiCo is the parent company of the QTG group which is Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade which also includes Frito-Lay.

I have found that they have a policy of not putting anything in writing to an employee regarding and labor issue, injury, etc. They do everything verbally so there is no record, and hope the employee will take an action they can use against them, and then call it voluntary.

I am a disabled veteran and was hired with full disclosure of such disability. I went into the plant medical office after working several 12-16 hour shifts back to back and was simply inquiring about a medical excuse for a work hour limit to accomodate my disability.

The Senior HR Rep SUSPENDED ME immediately and told me I had to file for SHORT TERM DISABILITY and could not come back to work until I had a medical exam with no restrictions! Well, my question was, how do I do this? I have a permanent, rated disability!

Anyway, I held my ground. I filed a greivance with the union and filed complaints with various federal govt agencies and guess what? The company was found to be in violation of 3 federal laws and I was issued a right to sue letter. I was also re-instated completely including all lost wages including partial overtime.

Robert, Hold your ground, and get everything in writing.

Robert has a valid point here. From my experience with this group of companies as an employee, I have some insight.

PepsiCo is the parent company of the QTG group which is Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade which also includes Frito-Lay.

I have found that they have a policy of not putting anything in writing to an employee regarding and labor issue, injury, etc. They do everything verbally so there is no record, and hope the employee will take an action they can use against them, and then call it voluntary.

I am a disabled veteran and was hired with full disclosure of such disability. I went into the plant medical office after working several 12-16 hour shifts back to back and was simply inquiring about a medical excuse for a work hour limit to accomodate my disability.

The Senior HR Rep SUSPENDED ME immediately and told me I had to file for SHORT TERM DISABILITY and could not come back to work until I had a medical exam with no restrictions! Well, my question was, how do I do this? I have a permanent, rated disability!

Anyway, I held my ground. I filed a greivance with the union and filed complaints with various federal govt agencies and guess what? The company was found to be in violation of 3 federal laws and I was issued a right to sue letter. I was also re-instated completely including all lost wages including partial overtime.

Robert, Hold your ground, and get everything in writing.

Robert has a valid point here. From my experience with this group of companies as an employee, I have some insight.

PepsiCo is the parent company of the QTG group which is Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade which also includes Frito-Lay.

I have found that they have a policy of not putting anything in writing to an employee regarding and labor issue, injury, etc. They do everything verbally so there is no record, and hope the employee will take an action they can use against them, and then call it voluntary.

I am a disabled veteran and was hired with full disclosure of such disability. I went into the plant medical office after working several 12-16 hour shifts back to back and was simply inquiring about a medical excuse for a work hour limit to accomodate my disability.

The Senior HR Rep SUSPENDED ME immediately and told me I had to file for SHORT TERM DISABILITY and could not come back to work until I had a medical exam with no restrictions! Well, my question was, how do I do this? I have a permanent, rated disability!

Anyway, I held my ground. I filed a greivance with the union and filed complaints with various federal govt agencies and guess what? The company was found to be in violation of 3 federal laws and I was issued a right to sue letter. I was also re-instated completely including all lost wages including partial overtime.

Robert, Hold your ground, and get everything in writing.