Legal Question in Employment Law in California
Unemployment / Written notice given without a Disciplinary policy in place
I am a retail store manager at a chain store. To this date there isn't a disciplinary policy, employee manual, employee procedural manual or written job description in existence within the company. A week ago the controller from headquarters called me saying he had just recieved the bank statements for July and was reconciling the numbers and found $200 missing from our stores weekly deposit in July. Every person in my store has keys to the safe and access to this money.I did not steal the money so They are writing me up for ''not knowing the money was missing sooner''. My question is how would I know that the money was missing sooner if the controller is the one who sees the bank info on deposits? There were no policies or procedures in place that required me to match the bank deposit to the weekly sales totals. I assumed that if the deposits matched at the end of the night they would still match at the weekly deposit time. Two questions.
1) Can they write me up when no Discplinary policy was ever created? Do I have to sign?
2) Can they fire me and deny unemployment for this matter when there was no employee handbook or procedure manual descibing my duties or what was expected of me?
Thanks for your help
3 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Unemployment / Written notice given without a Disciplinary policy in place
Can they? Yes. If you are disciplined or fired, you can claim it is wrongful through counsel. Contact me if you need to do so.
Re: Unemployment / Written notice given without a Disciplinary policy in place
Of course, you're the easy target. It would be stupid for them to fire you for $200 that seems to be missing. Why don't you write up suggested procedures (if you're the store manager), and implement it for your store?
You can be fired for any reason, unfortunately, except illegal reasons -- i.e. discrimination, whistle-blowing, or a contract for a term of employment.
As for the disciplinary report, I would sign it as received and reviewed "under protest," and submit a written explanation of your side of the story to include in your file. If you don't sign, they perhaps might fire you for insubordination. Good luck to you.
Re: Unemployment / Written notice given without a Disciplinary policy in place
They can do as they wish regarding writing you up and/or termination. The must show "wrongful" conduct as per the code, to deny unemployment. If the deny, appeal and under facts given, likely you will receive unemployment if fired. My recommendation is that you sign document as to receipt only. Do not sign acknowledging bad conduct. Not matter what circumstances you sign if you acknowledge responsibility, it will be admission on your part.
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