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Had a friend tell me about a situation she's having at work, and it sounds extremely sketch.

Basically it goes like this. Someone is stealing money from the cash register. Management decides that everyone will pay equal amounts of money to pay it back. For they know the manager is stealing that money. It's a pizza hut in a small town. Boss told my friend that if anyone refuses to pay they're gonna get fired. That sounds like extortion to me but what do I know.

Please advise.

It is extortion. Tell your friend to write to the local paper, theyd love the story.

 Necroshea wrote:
Had a friend tell me about a situation she's having at work, and it sounds extremely sketch.

Basically it goes like this. Someone is stealing money from the cash register. Management decides that everyone will pay equal amounts of money to pay it back. For they know the manager is stealing that money. It's a pizza hut in a small town. Boss told my friend that if anyone refuses to pay they're gonna get fired. That sounds like extortion to me but what do I know.

Please advise.

UNIONISE

Just contact the general office and there will more than like be a new manager. Have some documentation before you do, though.

Not sure if what I'm suggesting is legal but mic your friend up and gain some evidence of stealing through photos and so on.

Or just talk to the other employees and get them all to make a statement to their superior or take it to small claims.

Yeah, this isn't legal. You can try getting ahold of the home office, but without proof they may not believe you. And you'll get fired. This is of course a general 'you,' since you said it's your friend going through it. I had a friend in a similar position at Taco Bell-extra money was being taken from everyone's accounts, illegally. I don't remember the exact specifics though, so I'm not going into further detail, I just remember it was sketchy and sounded illegal.

There's only one solution. Burn the store down, rub the ashes into your clothes and begin a crusade of justice against the unrighteous wearing the mantle of The Mighty Ash Man.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Yeah, this isn't legal. You can try getting ahold of the home office, but without proof they may not believe you. And you'll get fired. This is of course a general 'you,' since you said it's your friend going through it. I had a friend in a similar position at Taco Bell-extra money was being taken from everyone's accounts, illegally. I don't remember the exact specifics though, so I'm not going into further detail, I just remember it was sketchy and sounded illegal.

My first thought.

I figure one way is to ask the manager that you won't do a damn thing without a written order to. For the records of course. From there go to up the ladder. If that fails go to the paper. If you lose your job it will at least be good for a laugh if the story runs well enough.

That depends on your state's laws.

If you live in a "right to work" state you can be fired at any time for any reason, and your only options are to pay the money and keep your job, or quit.

If you live in a state with unions and decent labor laws it's almost certainly illegal, and if you are fired for refusing you'll probably be able to sue them for quite a bit of money.

Conclusion: don't vote for "pro-business" conservatives unless you're rich enough to own the business.

Peregrine wrote:That depends on your state's laws.

If you live in a "right to work" state you can be fired at any time for any reason, and your only options are to pay the money and keep your job, or quit.

No. Even in the fethed-up right-to-work states, this is still illegal.

gak like this is par for the course in franchises.

I would strongly recommend getting your friend to start carrying one of those audio-recording spy pens, and then raise all kinds of Hell.

 azazel the cat wrote:
No. Even in the fethed-up right-to-work states, this is still illegal.

Sure it is. I'm sure that in a case of the employee's word against the manager's word the court in a "right to work" state is going to take the employer's side, and the employer won't be able to provide some kind of excuse about "poor sales numbers" or "attitude problems" or "it's a tough economy, and someone had to go" or whatever.

Hence the "get proof" element of my post.

And "not being able to prove it" is not the same as "it's not illegal"

Why not just call the mob? Maybe break his legs, or something like that?


Yeah, definitely extortion.

 Necroshea wrote:
Had a friend tell me about a situation she's having at work, and it sounds extremely sketch.

Basically it goes like this. Someone is stealing money from the cash register. Management decides that everyone will pay equal amounts of money to pay it back. For they know the manager is stealing that money. It's a pizza hut in a small town. Boss told my friend that if anyone refuses to pay they're gonna get fired. That sounds like extortion to me but what do I know.

Please advise.

Regardless of legality, the pragmatic solution is to quit and find a new job or, if you need the income, pay the money and start looking for a new job.

What you have is a failure at the most basic level of management. You should only have one person with control and responsibility of the register. Most places use keys for that.

 Necroshea wrote:
Had a friend tell me about a situation she's having at work, and it sounds extremely sketch.

Basically it goes like this. Someone is stealing money from the cash register. Management decides that everyone will pay equal amounts of money to pay it back. For they know the manager is stealing that money. It's a pizza hut in a small town. Boss told my friend that if anyone refuses to pay they're gonna get fired. That sounds like extortion to me but what do I know.

Please advise.[/quote
Quit immediately

Yeah, definitely illegal. Call the regional manager or the equivalent step up the ladder. If that fails to work, go to either newpaper or police. If fired, rally the lawyers.

 rubiksnoob wrote:
Yeah, definitely illegal. Call the regional manager or the equivalent step up the ladder. If that fails to work, go to either newpaper or police. If fired, rally the lawyers.

As we mentioned earlier though, without proof you'll just get canned and nothing will get done. Proof is highly needed.

 Peregrine wrote:
your only options are to pay the money and keep your job, or quit.

Never ever pay the money.

A few solutions:

1) write a letter to the area manager explaining the hostile work environment, but be professional.

2) Quit citing your managers behavior on the termination paperwork.

3) Quit, and convince everyone that what the manager is doing is not right, and get them to quit at the same time.


and whatever happens just remember that you do not want to work in a place that is going to pull that kind of stuff, and always write the letter to the area manager.

The law is on your side, but that doesn't mean much. Working at Pizza Freaking Hut is not worth these headaches. Don't pay the money, and hand him a letter in writing stating you refuse to cover register shortages caused by another employee out of your own pocket as was requested. CC the district manager. Save a copy of this. You're going to get fired shortly after this for some unrelated reason. You could complain to the department of labor for retaliation, but at the end of the day it would take less effort to just find a better job.

timetowaste85 wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
Yeah, definitely illegal. Call the regional manager or the equivalent step up the ladder. If that fails to work, go to either newpaper or police. If fired, rally the lawyers.

As we mentioned earlier though, without proof you'll just get canned and nothing will get done. Proof is highly needed.

You don't have to have proof to refuse to pay the manager extortion. Which is what this amounts to. But Ouze has the right of things.

Ouze wrote:The law is on your side, but that doesn't mean much. Working at Pizza Freaking Hut is not worth these headaches. Don't pay the money, and hand him a letter in writing stating you refuse to cover register shortages caused by another employee out of your own pocket as was requested. CC the district manager. Save a copy of this. You're going to get fired shortly after this for some unrelated reason. You could complain to the department of labor for retaliation, but at the end of the day it would take less effort to just find a better job.

Relapse wrote:
Just contact the general office and there will more than like be a new manager.

This. Do it now. I wouldn't wait on documentation.

 AustonT wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
Yeah, definitely illegal. Call the regional manager or the equivalent step up the ladder. If that fails to work, go to either newpaper or police. If fired, rally the lawyers.

As we mentioned earlier though, without proof you'll just get canned and nothing will get done. Proof is highly needed.

You don't have to have proof to refuse to pay the manager extortion. Which is what this amounts to. But Ouze has the right of things.

Ouze wrote:The law is on your side, but that doesn't mean much. Working at Pizza Freaking Hut is not worth these headaches. Don't pay the money, and hand him a letter in writing stating you refuse to cover register shortages caused by another employee out of your own pocket as was requested. CC the district manager. Save a copy of this. You're going to get fired shortly after this for some unrelated reason. You could complain to the department of labor for retaliation, but at the end of the day it would take less effort to just find a better job.

I never said you need proof to avoid paying-I said you need proof, or the only thing that will happen is that you get canned. That is in regards to who I quoted, saying that to approach higher-ups about it you need proof to accomplish anything besides being fired. Totally different from what you interpreted.

Long and short: No, it's not legal. But unless the manager is an idiot and puts it in writing, she'll never be able to prove it.

Even though it's illegal as heck, not paying will get her fired. She won't be fired for refusing to pay, though. The pink slip will say 'refusing to obey orders', 'not a team player', or (my perennial favorite) 'bad attitude' - something so vague it will be impossible to contest, either to his superiors or to Unemployment.

Her best bet is to get another job as soon as possible... and THEN tell the regional manager what was going on once she's safe from reprisals.

How about getting a couple different employees to send anonymous letters to the main office, all about the manager, so his boss can look into it?

 Necros wrote:
How about getting a couple different employees to send anonymous letters to the main office, all about the manager, so his boss can look into it?

Without proof, it looks like a bunch of angry associates trying to smear the boss. It sucks, believe me...but only proof will get something accomplished.

 Peregrine wrote:
That depends on your state's laws.

If you live in a "right to work" state you can be fired at any time for any reason, and your only options are to pay the money and keep your job, or quit.

If you live in a state with unions and decent labor laws it's almost certainly illegal, and if you are fired for refusing you'll probably be able to sue them for quite a bit of money.

Conclusion: don't vote for "pro-business" conservatives unless you're rich enough to own the business.

Even in right to work states..companies still need a good reason to fire you. You can't just fire someone because you don't like them. You have to develop a case history of incompetance or you will get sued for wrongful termination.

GG

 generalgrog wrote:


Even in right to work states..companies still need a good reason to fire you. You can't just fire someone because you don't like them. You have to develop a case history of incompetance or you will get sued for wrongful termination.

GG

In Illinois all workers at Pizza Hut, in similar positions to the OP's friend, are “at will employees.”

Illinois courts say that at will employees can be fired for “a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.”

So you can be fired for no reason at all.

Necroshea what state do you live in, because there may be similar laws in effect.

Though you do not want to work at a place with a manager that acts like this anyway, so your friend might get fired, but She will be better off somewhere else. At best the manager's behavior is a trick to get whoever took money out of the register to admit it so the manager can fire them. but that is the wrong way to do it.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:


Even in right to work states..companies still need a good reason to fire you. You can't just fire someone because you don't like them. You have to develop a case history of incompetance or you will get sued for wrongful termination.

GG

In Illinois all workers at Pizza Hut, in similar positions to the OP's friend, are “at will employees.”

Illinois courts say that at will employees can be fired for “a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.”

So you can be fired for no reason at all.

Necroshea what state do you live in, because there may be similar laws in effect.

Though you do not want to work at a place with a manager that acts like this anyway, so your friend might get fired, but She will be better off somewhere else. At best the manager's behavior is a trick to get whoever took money out of the register to admit it so the manager can fire them. but that is the wrong way to do it.

The friend in question (as well as I, not that it matters) lives in Texas.

I fully expect she works at an at-will job environment. Even with all the suggestions, she's kind of weak when dealing with other people when they're even a smidge aggressive. I told her to get the order in writing, and go from there. I highly doubt she'll even do that, and I fully expect her to bend over and take it/pay the money. Still, I was curious what you guys thought and I figured it was worth asking.

Edit - whats up with the quoting acting all screwy?

"Right to work" and "At will employment" are two different things. "Right to work" is a lot more recent, and has to do with union-busting. "At will employment", which I believe most states have, just means you can be terminated or leave for any or no reason at all.

That being said, if you are terminated you're generally eligible for unemployment compensation, unless you're terminated for gross misconduct or for committing a crime. Some employers will make false claims about this; when I was terminated by a large insurance company some years ago, they actually had a legal firm on retainer to contest all unemployment claims by default. But they still had to attend a hearing before an arbiter working for the employment security department, and I was able to request/require my supervisor and his boss (who was the one who made the firing decision) to appear at the hearing. I gave my side of the story calmly and reasonably, and they were not quite so good at it. The arbiter was not impressed with their version of events and found in my favor. Thankfully I had another job in a couple of weeks, but I was happy to get the money I was due for that period.

Anyway, Ouze and others gave good answers to the original question.