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My mom works for a company which sells meat, Buffalo, Ostrich, Beef, etc. Her job entails many different tasks one of them being inputting the address for orders. One time she input the wrong order for the wrong address. The meat shipped out and got returned, by the time it was returned the dry ice was evaporated and the meat was bad. This was a very large order of $800. Her boss ended up pulling that money from her paycheck to pay for the order (almost two weeks of pay for her). This isn't isolated to my mom (he charges her coworkers for their mistakes) and she did say it was her mistake but I find this extremely tacky. The boss has two high end sports cars (Audi R8 and a Ferrari of some kind). The company is booming.
My questions are as follows:
1) What do you think of this practice? Does it seem fair?
2) Do any of you know if this is this even legal?
My mom works for a company which sells meat, Buffalo, Ostrich, Beef, etc. Her job entails many different tasks one of them being inputting the address for orders. One time she input the wrong order for the wrong address. The meat shipped out and got returned, by the time it was returned the dry ice was evaporated and the meat was bad. This was a very large order of $800. Her boss ended up pulling that money from her paycheck to pay for the order (almost two weeks of pay for her). This isn't isolated to my mom (he charges her coworkers for their mistakes) and she did say it was her mistake but I find this extremely tacky. The boss has two high end sports cars (Audi R8 and a Ferrari of some kind). The company is booming.
My questions are as follows:
1) What do you think of this practice? Does it seem fair?
2) Do any of you know if this is this even legal?
1. No
2. No
Suggest she speak with a lawyer....Oh and it doesn't matter what the owner drives now, so quit posting that part. Just keep it to the basics.
Suggest she speak with a lawyer....Oh and it doesn't matter what the owner drives now, so quit posting that part. Just keep it to the basics.
I only threw in that detail to give some context as to how successful the business is. To show it has nothing to do with the business struggling but I do understand it isn't necessary.
The problem with hiring a lawyer for this is that A) My mom has no money, she barely makes enough to support a living and B) She would obviously lose her job if she did hire a lawyer which further complicates her money issues.
How exactly does one go about whistle blowing on their own employer when they rely on that employer for a living? She has tried to find other jobs but has been unsuccessful. I even helped her remake her whole resume and everything.
Why do you think it is reasonable for the business owner to eat the loss because of your mother's mistake?
Yes, docking pay is legal as long as the deductions don't take the employee under minimum wage. So, he cannot take someone's paycheck, but he can dock her $20 per week for 40 weeks to get his money back (or whatever the math works out to to keep her at minimum wage). Depending on your state, this may or may not be also addressed at the state level, so you need to check with them.
Why do you think it is reasonable for the business owner to eat the loss because of your mother's mistake?
Yes, docking pay is legal as long as the deductions don't take the employee under minimum wage. So, he cannot take someone's paycheck, but he can dock her $20 per week for 40 weeks to get his money back (or whatever the math works out to to keep her at minimum wage). Depending on your state, this may or may not be also addressed at the state level, so you need to check with them.
Yes, I believe it is fair to assume that employees will occasionally make mistakes which will cost money for the employer. That is a common in ANY company. My dad owned a trucking company and he had employees who flipped their semi-truck, it wasn't like he charged them for the deductible on the insurance policy. It just isn't right to do in my opinion. Now if an employee is frequently making mistakes I do think it should be documented and they should be fired for it. Charging it back to employees who are just barely breaking minimum wage is just heartless.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,938 posts, read 36,940,305 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joe from dayton
Why do you think it is reasonable for the business owner to eat the loss because of your mother's mistake?
Yes, it is reasonable. Employers should be factoring that in, as they do things like shrinkage, when pricing their products as it is a basic cost of doing business.
The person making the mistakes should be canned so the mistakes stop happening.
People ARE going to make mistakes. Unless they have some super awesome automated way of preventing human error it is bound to happen occasionally. My mom has made 2 errors in her 6 years of employment there. Plus, I KNOW you can't legally fire someone for making a mistake occasionally. If she were a frequent offender then I would understand your comment however since she isn't I find it quite heartless.
Most states wage and hour laws do NOT allow deductions from pay for mistakes, damages, shortages, etc, unless Mom signed a written agreement at time of hire.
Plus, I KNOW you can't legally fire someone for making a mistake occasionally.
Most people can be legally fired for a single mistake. I don't think it's a good idea or anything, but it's legal. Paying somebody less than minimum wage is not.
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