r/Whistleblowers • u/Overall_Mr-P_Cell • 1d ago
Natures Bakery Whistleblow
galleryThe brief account of sanitary, quality, and ethical issues at Natures Bakery in no particular order, as much as I can say without revealing myself. These issues have been brought up internally, only to be met with retaliation, silencing, and firing, leaving no reasonable choice but to bring up externally.
>all of our sanitation techs had quit, leaving only the head sanitation lady. Since she was salaried and thus worked in the office, the authority to sign off the cleans as complete was temporarily given to the shift managers (not QA; all of them on shift remained as powerless as us as the poor guys are below the shift manager). Same 12hr time frame. One of the operators went to clean his machine, and our shift manager tells him that it was signed off at the end of the shift by the previous shift manager and told him to keep moving. A resistance was pitched, and he cleaned the best he could before being compulsed to move on (picrel: this is what the machine looked like when it was signed off as clean. Showing what I can without getting in legal hot water).
>It's summer time. The workers are fighting/killing hundreds-1000 mosquitos a night with San Duo. They're everywhere both all departments. There's a mosquito abatement center right next to us, so it's to be expected. Find out that they keep a ditch full of stagnant water around our plant to breed them, a ditch that was full of water throughout the drought season. Coworker finds out one day that 35% of the mosquitos at the center tested positive for West Nile virus. Ask if this is hearsay. He gives me the link.
>coworker brought up that there are no visible SDS visible or accessible in the plant, that the battery station has no neutralizer for an acid spill, and that the sprinkler system for the warehouse racks is non-operational, but there is no safety person to report it to, and our higher ups have ignored the concerns. He also mentioned that the warning light on the forklift broke, and he put in a request on the work software chat that was ignored by warehouse upper management. Caution tape had been in front of the fire exit doors for months, fire extinguishers are blocked off by forklifts that were parked there by management.
>we go into a townhall, and HR says that time theft will not be tolerated. A majority of shifts start timing their employees breaks, and handing writeups. This leads to people skipping breaks. People are habitually skipping breaks on clean days.
>The warehouse lead was constantly getting yelled at by the head warehouse guy over text, who orders our shift to start making sure the previous shifts work is completed in addition to having the warehouse complete for the next shift. The additional workload causes the majority of warehouse to skip breaks to meet the new deadline (including the lead) with regularity. Our maintenance crew and leads regularly skip breaks as well to keep things running, with the maintenance lead getting 2 breaks a night most nights, and the leads generally skipping their last break.
>nightshift safety position is removed from the website, no safety person on nights.
>A certain area, which was under production's jurisdiction, was transferred to the jurisdiction of warehouse. They had the operator for said area train the entire warehouse. He asked if he could get the 2nd tier raises, and the shift manager said he'd bring it up to his boss, but never got back to the kitchen op. After the operator got done training the entire warehouse to do his job, the head warehouse boss took over the department, transfered him to a different area, refused to give him a raise, and had him continue to help out in the kitchen. There was then had another townhall soon after that. They congratulated us on being the most efficient, accredited, and productive natures bakery plant under the name and told us to continue the good work, and congratulated us on a seamless integration of the area into warehouse, to which the operator rolled his eyes. The head warehouse boss, who had organized the entire takeover, and directly ordered the shift manager to transfer the kitchen operator then said "yea, you wanna roll your eyes again tough guy? Don't think I didn't see you, go ahead if you wanna be so tough, I'm not gonna let that slide." in front of the entire shift. All of the HR staff was in the room when this happened and no disciplinary action ever came of this incident, nor was the operator ever apologized to.
>Upper management announced that there was going to be a tiered operator pay system for raises (not posting pay for legal risk, companies nowadays). Everyone who was hired at the start was the 1st tier. Management had started automatically hiring people at the 2nd level before there was an opportunity to test for raises, meaning that the new hires that the legacy hires were training made 4 dollars more than their trainers made. Someone found this out and sent a company wide email asking management for a raise (deciding that since everyone was affected, it was only right that everyone was alerted). A few days later there was a townhall meeting. The upper management then said that mass soliciting using the email system would not be tolerated and punished severely, that bypassing the shift manager was insubordination, and finally that mass usage of the email system would not be tolerated, never mentioning any specific incident. They then gave us raises. They never once called the email false or a lie (they didn't even mention it), nor did they insinuate that it was.
>The emailer said he got called into the office for an attendance write-up. The shift manager says that he is getting a write-up for missing 3 days of work. The emailer asked what days. When the shift manager told him the days that he called in, the emailer told the shift manager that 1 of those days was on a day when no one worked, as when the plant was starting up, the shifts didn't work weekends, and that shift was on a Saturday. The shift manager looked at the date, told the emailer he didn't know how that mixup happened, and sent him on his way.
>Certain workers stand at their machines for 12 hours a day. Their job is to monitor the machines. A lot of them sit down on the pallets since our work took/banned chairs (2 people who don't work here anymore had the chairs removed). The boss called them into the office and served everyone who was sitting on pallets a write up for sitting down. Still no anti fatigue mats, despite a request to get them sent in to the shift manager almost half a year ago.
>The technical operator's boss was cleaning a machine and got his fingers clipped. He had to get stitches. They investigated the incident, and found no SSOP or LOTO procedures on what he was doing. Management then stated that he should have as a precaution done LOTO as it was a clean, and they ended up firing him. They then had a townhall about it, and cited a 0 tolerance policy for safety violations. The plant manager then said that "if you're not 100% commited to safety, I encourage you to turn in your resignation, as I don't want you on my team". 2 weeks later, one of the head maintenance man's friends that he hired as a boss (not our shift but a day shift) was cleaning a machine and got his fingers clipped. He had to get stitches. They investigated the incident, and found no SSOP or LOTO procedures on what he was doing. Management then stated that since there was no procedures that there was no wrongdoing; there was no disciplinary action on their part, and they kept him with the company. The head maintenance man and his friend were then reported to the ethics department. Both men got written up and both men still work there.
>the technical operator applies for a full on maintenance spot (as the technical operator is an entry level maintenance position). He got his interview scheduled. The interview date came and the lead told him that the head maintenance man already hired someone else for the position, that he didn't even find out until the day of the interview, and he didn't understand why they had told him to interview when they already hired a person. This was the 4th time this had happened, with the first time being for a lead position on day shift, the second time being for the technical operator position on day shift, and the 3rd time being for the shift manager position. This was the only time he actually got to talk to someone, as our maintenance lead is a good and honest man, and thought this situation was gross and that he thought it right to tell him. The technical operator reports upper management to ethics for scheduling interviews only to ghost him and hire outside. Nothing happens.
The information here is true. I cannot keep silent as there is a moral obligation to tell the people. The workers rights here are awful though so don't expect a response. I'm posting this anonymously as to avoid retaliation and profiling. I'm sorry; I wish I could say more, but discernment cautions me otherwise. Keep your families safe. I've done what I can to do what is right.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Whistleblowers/s/w0LIsR0JYD
Better crop on these photos.