Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia
Hostile work environment escalates to food tampering
I work for a small family owned restaurant. There is a certain cook/kitchen manager who is EXTREMELY difficult to work with. The majority of servers, managers, kitchen workers all have a seriously hostile work environment because of this guy. He seems to �walk on water� with the owner(s), who protect him and take his side at all cost. We have had private talks to the owner about the issues we have with him which gets him at best a slap on the wrist, or if we engage in a good ole fashioned argument with him in the heat of things we will get punished by having �privileges� taken away, like our being allowed to keep our home prepared meals in the fridge/freezer.
So this guy is a real jerk, and there is nothing illegal about that� however, he is now retaliating by tampering with our food.
One server was dry-heaving over a trashcan after he �spiked� a chicken wing (meant for someone else) with this obscenely hot sauce. We can only imagine what else he has been doing to our employee food, now that the tampering is becoming more obvious. When this was brought to the owner�s attn. she didn�t seem to think it was a big deal. Do we have any recourse in this situation?
Thanks for any help or advice.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Hostile work environment escalates to food tampering
As long as the hot sauce is not arsenic or something similarly toxic, I doubt that there's much that can be done about the "spiking" that you've alleged.
And, as long as the hostile work environment is not related to one of the protected categories under federal law such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc., I would doubt that you have any recourse for this sitution either if the owner is unwilling to do anything meaningful about it.
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