4 Graphic pictures at the bottom More pictures coming

On or about March 25, production was shut down for sanitation, and we were assigned to work in the warehouse. The warehouse floor is bare concrete. I have documented neuropathy in my feet due to diabetes—Hershey management, supervisors, and leads all knew this. In production I always had access to rubber stress-relief mats, and that prevented injury. On this night, no mats were provided. Mats were available in the closed production area, but Manager Lee Timmons chose not to provide them, despite the company’s own safety videos stating that Hershey is responsible for providing mats when requested. I worked an entire 12-hour shift on concrete.

 

When I got home after that shift, I discovered a small wound forming on my foot. My wife took the first picture. That was the start of my injury. Over the next three days off, the wound became worse. When I returned to work, I requested the use of a mat. Some of my coworkers asked for mats too. Lee Timmons chose not to comply, even though mats were readily available. He refused to provide them to me or anyone else who asked.

 

When I returned to work, I attempted to report my injury to my manager and my lead. I was showing them the picture of my injury. Lee Timmons was sitting at a different desk, but he immediately hijacked my report, pulled me away from my manager and lead, and forced me to answer only to him. He isolated me from my chain of command and interrogated me.

He began phrasing questions in ways that felt like he was trying to pressure me into changing my wording—trying to make my injury sound like it was caused by my neuropathy. He spent what felt like 20 to 30 minutes attacking my statement, pushing me to say the injury was just neuropathy.

But neuropathy is a condition, not an injury—and it was a condition they were well aware of.

After all this bullying, I finally told him we were done talking. He continued trying to push me anyway. My manager and lead witnessed the entire thing. Only when he realized I was truly finished talking did he finally dismiss me.

 

Later, he chose to classify my injury as foot neuropathy and told me they were not responsible because “it wasn’t a work injury.” After this, I went to HR and made my complaint. The HR lady told me she would look into it. I reminded her about the safety videos stating that mats are Hershey’s responsibility to provide. I never heard anything again from her.

 

I was never treated. My injury never received medical attention. I continued working on the damaged foot, and over the next months it progressively worsened into full ulceration. The damage was preventable, and the harm came from being forced to work on concrete without the mats that Hershey promises in their own training materials.

 

During this time, my manager and lead consistently protected me, ensuring I rotated to stations with mats. Out of the five stations, four had mats. The one station without a mat was a one-person job, and when both my manager and lead were gone, Lee Timmons consistently assigned me to that job, even though there were 15–20 other workers available and even though that job was the easiest and most requested position. He often sat in his office, looking through the large windows directly into that area, watching me work on bare concrete. This happened many times.

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I continued asking about treatment. I asked when I would be seen by a doctor. The answer was always the same: none, because “it was neuropathy.” Months passed, and my foot deteriorated with no care. The chain of events, the denial of safety equipment, the refusal to report, the refusal to treat, and the forced assignment to the one non-mat station all contributed directly to the severity of my injury.

 

After working a couple more months on my worsening, rotting foot, Lee arranged a video call with the head safety manager. I tried to explain what happened and how, if the safety mats that their own safety videos say they are supposed to provide had actually been provided, none of this would have happened. As soon as I said the safety videos required them to provide mats, he yelled at me and told me those videos did not say that.

 

I had been trying to get on a forklift so that I could sit and take the weight and pressure off my foot, but they refused me that job. Only after I said what I said to the safety manager did that change. He ordered me to a forklift—but it was a stand-up forklift.

 

I ended up having two accidents in the next three weeks and I was fired. I still don’t understand how putting me on a stand-up truck was supposed to be “relief.” My accidents happened because the pain shooting through my rotting foot was so sharp it felt like I was walking on burning glass. I spent most of every shift fidgeting and shifting around on the truck trying to find any position that didn’t send that pain through me. They fired me right after.

 

It took a couple of months after being fired for my foot to heal enough to even look for another job where I could hope to meet attendance expectations and not point out.

 

Another major issue that must be exposed is the routine time-theft practice at Hershey. Employees were required to be fully dressed, sanitized, and physically standing on the production floor before their paid time began — meaning every worker lost several minutes of pay every shift just to avoid punishment. When the shift ended, employees were required to clock out before removing protective clothing and completing sanitation, again costing them unpaid labor. This was not an isolated misunderstanding; it was a daily, enforced system affecting dozens of people across multiple crews. That is wage theft, plain and simple, and it will absolutely be part of my case, my statements, and my press materials.

 

Press Challenge to Hershey

 

I respectfully invite members of the press to ask Hershey the following, what I consider indefensible, questions:

 

1. Why weren’t the required safety mats provided when I requested them?

 

2. Why wasn’t a disability accommodation made when my neuropathy was known?

 

3. Why wasn’t an injury report completed when I showed the wound?

 

4. Why wasn’t any medical treatment offered?

 

5. Why was I kept at the only station without mats when many other workers were available?

 

6. Why did you underpay employees by requiring unpaid donning and doffing time?

(Workers had to gear up before clocking in and remove gear after clocking out?

 

7. Why did you put me on a stand-up forklift when the purpose was supposed to be relieving my foot trauma?

 

  8. Why did your own workers’ compensation doctor state in writing that my injury was caused by the lack of required rubber mats — in the same document where you denied me those mats?

 

9. Why did you mark my injury as not work-related when your own doctor said it came from not having mats?