A 17-year-old working at a Kansas City, Kan. pizza restaurant was fired recently. While a teen getting let go in a high-turnover field like food service isn’t exactly remarkable, the alleged reason that Jensen Walcott was terminated is. She found out that a male co-worker was making more money than her and she asked her employer to explain why.
Walcott got the job on the same day as her friend Jake Reed. When the duo called each other, excited about landing jobs together, they discovered a discrepancy in their starting rate of pay. Reed was getting $8.25 an hour, while Walcott was offered $8. In spite of the fact that the two are the same age, have the same level of work experience, and would be working the same position, Reed would make $2 per day more on average eight-hour shift. All the scones in the world can’t make up for that.
Walcott called her manager, assuming that the difference in pay was a mistake and found that not everyone is as cool as Microsoft.
“I was like maybe when I’m on hold right now, she will just offer me $8.25 and everything is gonna be good but … she didn’t do that,” she said in an interview with Fox Kansas City.
Instead, Walcott says that the manager terminated her for discussing wages. In about the only case of fairness in this entire story, Reed was also allegedly fired for the same reason with both teens being told that discussing wages is against policy.
Policy or not, the law appears to be on the side of the two kids. Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, pay secrecy policies are largely illegal. While Walcott hasn’t decided if she wants to take legal action against the restaurant, she does want them to feel bad about what they’ve done.
“They should definitely be ashamed of themselves,” she said.
(Via Cosmopolitan)
