Think things are bad working in one of Amazon’s warehouses? Allegedly, it has nothing on working in the home of the company’s arch-liberal founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos.
According to a lawsuit by Mercedes Wedaa, a former housekeeper for Bezos, she and other helpers were made to work 14-hour days in unsafe conditions without access to a bathroom.
According to Sky News, Wedaa alleged in a lawsuit filed in Seattle earlier this month that she was hired in 2019 to “work around a family without being seen.”
This, the suit claims, led to shifts that lasted longer than half a day with no breaks.
This included, she said, “no reasonably accessible bathroom for the housekeepers.”
“When the Bezos family was at home, the housekeepers were only allowed to enter the house to clean, meaning they could not use the laundry door to access a bathroom directly, as it led only to the residence,” Sky News reported.
So, what was the solution? Wedaa said it involved climbing out the laundry room window and taking a path that led to a bathroom elsewhere on the property.
That situation persisted for roughly 18 months, the former housekeeper claimed in her suit.
Members of the staff suffered from urinary tract infections after being kept from the bathrooms, the suit said. There was also no room for them to rest at the house.
In addition, Wedaa is suing for discrimination, claiming that Hispanic members of the staff faced racial bias.
Wedaa said that after she complained about the working conditions, in addition to illegal immigrant workers being brought in as contractors, she faced demotion despite never having faced any disciplinary action for poor performance.
She was eventually dismissed, reportedly because she was “unhappy” and was bringing the housekeeping team down. She’s suing for wrongful termination, too.
Now, it’s worth noting there are two sides to every story; Bezos’ lawyer, Harry Korrell, called the claims ridiculous and equated the suit to blackmail, saying Wedaa only filed after being denied a $9 million payout demand.
“Miss Wedaa made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper,” Korrell claimed.
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