Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

My son works for one of the 3 major phone companies, approx 3 weeks ago a phone was stolen from their business while 5 employees were working. Today the regional manager told the 5 employees they each needed to pay 60.00 per person to cover the cost of the phone or someone would be fired.

My son, had a previous legal matter (which involved restitution for a theft and was taken care of and removed from his record) however, when my son said, isn't there a lost prevention department for the company that would handle this matter, the regional manager said he didn't want to file the paperwork and the employees should be responsible instead. He also said to my son, with your "history" it could have been you.

Of course my son has worked very had to correct his past and feels this person is accusing the store employees of wrongdoing in order to cover for himself.

Do they have some type of legal recourse they can take against this person? This person has told the employees he would �take action on Monday if this was not paid.


Asked on 2/12/11, 9:49 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Susan Beecher Susan L. Beecher, Atty at Law

It is not legal for them to withhold pay from employees or to make them pay for alleged loses through theft unless they also 1) fire the employee from whom they are taking the pay and 2) file a police report. I don't know enough about this manager to know whether he would do that, but if he did, he would have to have some kind of evidence that the accused employee(s) stole the phone. The fact that he wants them to pay him, rather than going through channels to deduct from their pay tells me that he knows what he is doing is illegal and incorrect. I also wonder whether a phone was really stolen, or is the manager simply picking up a little extra cash?

I would suggest your son contact whoever is at the next level of authority within the company. Management of a large phone company probably does not want this kind of activity going on. Sounds like a nasty situation, though. Good luck to him.

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Answered on 2/14/11, 5:04 pm


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