Hello! I've a few questions I hope someone can help me with. My husband is a restaurant assistant manager, and his supervisor is the head manager there.

1. Is it legal in TN for a restaurant supervisor/head manager to threaten a salaried employee assistant manager that he (salaried employee) will have to work 7 days per week, every week? My husband has already worked numerous shifts of 7-14 days straight. Now the head mngr/supervisor is threatening to work him 365/yr without a day off. The head mngr/supervisor, however, takes his 2 days off per week.

2. Is it legal in TN that this salaried assistant mngr has never had a break of any kind, including lunch, during his 5 years of employment with this restaurant? Does the law of "30 minutes for every 6 hours worked" apply in annual salaried cases? The restaurant is a well known nationwide chain, not a family owned business.

3. Is it legal in TN for this head mngr to refuse the salaried assistant mngr his accrued vacation time? My husband requested for it in writing two months ago, and was supposed to get the vacation this month, but he will not be getting it at all.

4. Is it legal in TN for this head mngr to clock in at work, and then leave his job for 5-7 hours while remaining clocked in? This has happened many times. The head manager's boss, the district mngr, knows all about it but has done nothing as they are very close friends.

5. Is it legal in TN for this supervisor to cover the behinds of hourly employees using illegal drugs? My husband (assistant mngr) wants to terminate the drug users that were caught red handed a number of times. Needless to say, the drug users are causing tremendous problems.


Background: the head mngr/supervisor begged for my husband to be transferred to his restaurant to fix many challenges. Husband fixed them within the first month and everything has been on track since then. Head manager has since been very jealous, hateful, and gave my husband his first ever poor evaluation. Hubby's never missed a day (or been late) of work in his entire life. The entire company and customers compliment him around the clock and beg for him to be at the other restaurant branches to fix their challenges, too. The customers overall do not like the head mngr.
Bottom line: it appears that the head manager is setting my husband up to be fired or force him to quit, because he is extremely jealous of his many accomplishments. This section doesn't matter regarding laws, but is to give you a background of what lead up to the head manager behaving this way.

Thank you very much in advance! http://www.laborlawtalk.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

TennD

1. He can threaten all he wants. That's not an illegal threat (threatening to kill him would be an illegal threat). Check with the Tennessee department of labor regarding whether the state has a day-of-rest law. Not all states do. Is it fair that the guy makes sure he gets all the time off he wants? No. Is it illegal? No.

2. Tennessee law is a 1/2 break in six hours for all employees. Report the employer to the state department of labor.

3. Vacation is taken at the discretion of the employer. The employer is not violating any laws here.

4. There is no law that requires clocked-in employees to stay on the job site. This is a matter of company policy.

5. There is no law that requires an employer to fire an illegal drug user.

The bottom line is that your husband has the misfortune to be working for a jerk. If the company won't take steps to deal with the jerk's behavior, your husband might want to consider going elsewhere. It's not fair that some employers tolerate jerks, but they do.

Thanks for your quick and concise reply, Marketeer.

1. I'll check to see if TN has a day-of-rest law. I'll clarify: in the context I used the word "threaten", it's intimidation per dictionary.com. In legalese talk, perhaps I should have stated "require" instead of "threaten".

2. I understand that you stated "all employees", but please confirm if this indeed does include employees on salary--not an hourly basis. The reason I need to be certain is because the restaurant stated that they were (exact words) "not obligated to give anyone in salary positions any breaks".

3. The restaurant is not violating TN's labor laws on vacations as none exist, as I suspected. They are, however, violating their company written policy on vacations.

Also, I forgot to mention earlier that the restaurant increased hubby's health insurance premium by $43 per month sometime last year without my husband being notified. The restaurant's HR response was they don't have to notify employees of said action. Is notification required to increase an employee's insurance deduction that you know of?

Thanks again,
TennD

This chart on breaks says all employees http://www.dol.gov/esa/programs/whd/state/meal.htm. If you need clarification, you need to contact the department of labor.

Companies are allowed to break their own policies. The only way it would be illegal is if they used a protected characteristic (such as race, for example) to decided how to enforce their policies.

The insurance premium was probably an increase charged to the company and passed on to the employees. It would certainly be a courtesy to let employees know, but I'm not sure that it's required by law.

Only six states have the Day of Rest Law. That number was seven, but Virginia's Day of Rest Law was repealed in July of 2005.

California
Illinois
Maryland
New York
North Dakota
Rhode Island

After researching, I don't see that this law provides meaningful recourse anyway as it entails too much red tape to utilize it. My husband has no choice but to seek new employement, if he ever gets a day off. Thanks for the assistance.

I have read several posts here today, and it seems that we have no protection or retaliation against bosses and employers who are jerks and have a total lack of integrity? Our choice is to either be a doormat or find a new job. I think it is totally disheartening that companies today could care less about their employees, treat them like dirt, and get away with it.

Theoretically, there is already a mechanism in place to handle jerk bosses.

It's called quitting. I know it isn't what is fair, but it is what you do. Eventually, enough people quit and upper management takes notice.

In the meantime, you have nothing to lose. Talk to upper management and tell them the stories. Fax them your time sheets. Beg for time off. Not vacation time, but just time off.

What's the worst they can do? Fire you? I would think that would be a blessing because at least then you can get unemployment.

I understand what you are saying about the quitting. Fortunately, I have a job with a great employer, it's my husband who is having the problems. And jobs are not that easy to come by. Quitting and just going out and getting hired the next day is not realistic. He has been looking for weeks and unfortunately the pickings are rather slim.

So talk to upper management.

Heck, see if your husband can get some of the other coworkers to complain as well.

Enough squeaking and maybe the wheel will get some oil.