A former maid for Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, claims that she and other staff members worked in hazardous conditions, including being had to climb out a laundry room window to use the bathroom while the Bezos family was around.
Mercedes Wedaa, a longtime housekeeper for wealthy Seattle area residents including the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court in Seattle this week, alleging discrimination and retaliation after she complained about a lack of rest breaks or a place where staff could eat.
Wedaa filed the lawsuit against Bezos and Zefram LLC and Northwestern LLC, two companies that look after his properties and personal investments, after her demand for a US$9 million (NZ$15. 6 million) payout was turned down, according to Harry Korrell, an attorney for Bezos, who called the allegations absurd.
Korrell stated in an email that “Ms Wedaa was the lead housekeeper and made over six figures annually.”
“She was in charge of scheduling her own meal and break times, and she and the other employees had access to a number of restrooms and breakrooms. The evidence will demonstrate that Ms. Wedaa was fired due to poor performance.”
Wedaa was initially the only housekeeper on staff when Zefram recruited her in September 2019 to serve as the “house coordinator,” however contract workers were occasionally brought in, the lawsuit claims.
A year or so later, another housekeeper was added, and by the end of the previous year, Wedaa was in charge of managing a number of other housekeepers.
Wedaa claims in the case that despite working up to 14 hours a day on occasion, she was never informed that she was entitled to breaks for recuperation. She adds that the housekeepers occasionally ate meals in a laundry room and that there was no special area set aside for them to rest in.
The housekeepers were only let inside when the Bezos family was there and were only there to clean. According to the complaint, that created situations in which housekeepers could not exit the laundry room because its only door led into the residence.
Instead of going out that door, housekeepers for a period of 18 months would sometimes have to climb out the laundry room window onto a path that led to a mechanical room, enter through the mechanical room, and go downstairs to a bathroom.
According to the complaint, “Plaintiff and other housekeepers spent considerable portions of their day unable to use the toilet even when they needed to because there was no conveniently accessible bathroom.”
The housekeepers frequently acquired urinary tract infections as a result of this.
How the housekeepers entered the laundry room in the first place, how long they were expected to stay there if the family was home, or whether they were allowed to use the bathroom when they entered the house to do cleaning jobs are all unclear from the complaint. Patrick Leo McGuigin, Wedaa’s Seattle-based attorney, stated that at this early stage of the action, he did not have any additional information.
He claimed, “I did not question my client repeatedly. “I can’t explain every circumstance and piece of evidence there is. There’s a lot of discovery to take place. She had to crawl out of a window.
He claimed that Wedaa “has worked hard her entire life, she is a highly credible person, and convincing proof supports her assertions.”
Wedaa, a Hispanic, reportedly reported to white home managers, according to the complaint.
She claimed she raised concerns about the hiring of unauthorised personnel on a contract basis, the absence of rest periods, and the hazardous working environment. She further claimed that a housekeeping assistant manager treated the white staff on the property unfairly and demoted her in retaliation by appointing a white housekeeper as the primary housekeeper in place of the Hispanic housekeepers.
Wedaa was eventually fired as a result of the accusations, the lawsuit claims, even though she never received any penalty for her work performance.
“Defendants cited the ridiculously concocted reason that she appeared ‘unhappy’ and that this was having a negative effect on the housekeeping team,” it states.
One of the richest people in the world, Bezos is being sued for unspecified damages, which will be decided at trial.
Jeff Bezos is being sued by an ex-housekeeper for discrimination.
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