Amy's Kitchen says its food is made with 'love.' Some at the factory say the job has left them injured.

SectionstvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC NewsWhen Ines De La Luz showed up for work at the Amy’s Kitchen factory in Santa Rosa, California, wearing an arm brace, prescribed after she couldn’t move her hand at the end of a fast-paced shift making frozen burritos in July 2020, she says a supervisor ordered her to remove the brace and return to the production line. In advertising, Amy’s Kitchen says that they “always cook our food with love.”“At Amy’s, our heroes are our employees on the front lines who are coming to work every day so that we can continue to make food for people to eat,” the company said in one popular Facebook post at the start of the pandemic. The workers who spoke to NBC News all work out of the Santa Rosa factory, which is its oldest factory and functions as a command center for manufacturing operations.The workers there say that the production lines have steadily increased in speed over the years without corresponding increases in pay or better resources to prevent injuries. “We ensure they get the medical attention they need as soon as it is requested and when an employee does return to work, our Integrated Disabilities team works with them and their manager to make any necessary accommodations.”But the workers say they are expected to prove any injuries they report to human resources with a doctor’s note, typically from physicians working at a nearby Concentra, a for-profit urgent care chain. De La Luz, who shared her medical records with NBC News, says when she complained to her first doctor at Concentra that his restrictions weren’t protecting her — because he wrote them as “suggested guidelines” that only applied to her “upper right extremity” rather than her entire arm, with an additional note that the “patient may work their entire shift” — he told her that he didn’t want to revise his prescription because “he was scared of Amy’s and Amy’s didn’t want us to stop working,” De La Luz said. Barcenas, who now earns $20 per hour, says her premium will be $814.“This 2 dollars isn’t really going to do anything because the insurance just went up a lot,” Barcenas said.Amy’s Kitchen responds that “due to a significant escalation in our medical coverage costs, we had to make some difficult choices this year,” though the company disputes that the increase will be significant.“Amy’s has been able to pay for most of the increased costs directly, but we did need to pass a small part of the increased costs on to our employees,” Resch said.In recent weeks, workers say that the contractors hired by Amy’s Kitchen to talk about unions  have also been seen walking around the factory floor. Some said that they think Amy’s makes quality products and could become a good place to work if employees are given a say in production line speeds, higher pay and appropriate accommodations to prevent injuries.