In recent months thousands of employees of the fast food industry have taken to the streets to call for higher wages (my hat’s off to them) and some have even pondered forming or joining a union.
Punishing employees for talking among themselves about unions is not exactly legal so a corporate lackey at a Michigan Burger King has been forced to get creative.
A manager accused an off-duty worker of violating store policy against solicitations by asking coworkers to fill out union questionnaires during their breaks — a policy the NLRB judge says is illegal to begin with — and then sent the same worker home from her shift later that day for “not placing pickles on sandwiches in a perfect square as she was supposed to.” [...]
Retaliatory discipline, like sending someone home for union activity, is prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the judge ordered the company that owns the Burger King in question to take a number of steps to remedy the violations.
Although nothing immediately springs to mind, I’m sure the manager could have punished the employee for something slightly more believable than not placing pickles on a Whopper correctly.
I haven’t been to Burger King in three years but, as I recall, the pickles whose pristine placement this manager was allegedly concerned about usually came discolored, shriveled up and sliding off the side of the bun.
I nearly forgot that Burger King will soon be headquartered in Canada to avoid taxes in what’s known as a tax inversion.
Will the new Tim Hortons/Burger King mega corporation pass the tax savings down to employees? Fuck no.