Public reaction to a McDonald’s Ponoka employee paying for a customer’s meal after an order mistake has sparked a conversation about labour rights.
Ponoka resident Richard Onslow was at the McDonald’s recently with family when a missed order caused the need have it corrected. At the time, Onslow said the fast-food restaurant was busy with customers and it took a while to determine there was an issue.
“That’s where the problem starts. We got the rest of the order at the employee’s expense (which is not right),” said Onslow in a statement.
Seeing the employee having to pay for his meal seemed unjust so after the rush died down, Onslow says he went to the employee to give him the money back as he did not feel he should have to pay out of pocket.
“I got the manager to come over to witness it so he would not be accused of stealing and I needed change to give the employee the correct amount,” he said.
“She explained that if the employee messes up it comes out of their pocket and they were told at orientation about this.”
Onslow responded by saying he did not think that was legal, and he posted a video of his experience on Facebook. It drew over 20,000 hits in 24 hours of sharing it, Onslow said (it now has been seen over 37,000 times) .
During that time, he said franchise owner Tony Hoffman reached out to Onslow through Facebook in an effort to clarify and explain the issue. Onslow’s biggest concern was that none of the staff should be fired over what happened. He says he was told by Hoffman it is not a company policy to charge employees and indeed no one was fired and the managers would be retrained on dealing with employee errors.
When reached for comment, Hoffman confirmed the issue was a misunderstanding and had been sorted out.
“Sometimes retraining managers works,” said Onslow. “You don’t always have to fire people unless it’s an ongoing issue; that should be a last resort.”
He was pleased to report that the employee reached out to him and confirmed he would receive his money back.
Onslow posted a follow-up video to Facebook pointing out that the franchise was indeed working on the issue but kept up the first one.
When asked why, Onslow said he has now received quite a few messages from people around the province in a variety of industries telling of similar experiences. His hope is that the video will educate employees and employers about workers’ rights.
According to the Alberta government, there are some deductions that are allowed from an employee’s salary such as taxes, union agreements or items authorized in writing by an employee. However, employers are not allowed to deduct money for faulty work.
“Deductions for faulty work aren’t allowed. Faulty work includes any act or omission of an employee which results in a loss to an employer,” states the Government of Alberta website.
Also deductions for cash shortages or loss of property are not allowed. Employee standards can be found in Alberta’s Employment Standards Code, which was amended June 11, 2018.
jeff.heyden-kaye@ponokanews.com
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