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Frank D.

There is not too much to my story, but I feel I have been screwed. I worked for Safeway stores for almost 5 years. 5 years being the first tier to qualify for a pension payment. Well, I was injured on the job, by a 2nd party clean-up crew. The dude was crushing a case of cereal between his buffer and the endcap. I stopped him and bent over the large machine to try and remove the box, but, while I was leaning over it, the guy starts up the machine and it lunged forward. In doing so, my right ankle impacted a bracket on the side of the buffer and severed my tendon. I went on workers comp and was out quite a while and returned not up to par. I returned wearing a leg boot and limped around the store. They then started to interview other employees to find out any little infraction that they could think of against me, and then fired me. I was still being treated for the injury over the next 3 years and was told that this time would count toward my pension. I checked later and was told by the union that it did NOT count and I needed 430 hours more of work before the end of that year or I would lose all accrued hours. Well, I had moved to Missouri by this time and could not get hired by any Safeways as there was none in my area. So I got screwed out of what little amount I would have received.