Happy Thanksgiving For Manager Who Gave Pizza Hut Staff Day Off

A major brand also strikes a blow against the War on Thanksgiving! NBC reports that under pressure from the owners of Pizza Hut, a franchise owner has reinstated a manager who had been canned after the franchiser nixed his decision to give all his restaurant employees Thanksgiving day off:

After being fired for refusing to open his restaurant on Thanksgiving, a Pizza Hut manager has his job back.

Tony Rohr, who worked his way up from cook to general manager at the company, was told it was mandatory to keep his Elkhart, Ind., store open on the holiday.

“I just decided I wasn’t going to agree to it,” Rohr said. “All of these people the whole year had been told they were going to have the day off.”

Luckily for him, Pizza Hut stepped in and “strongly recommended” that the local franchise hire him back, saying the company respects “an employee’s right to not work on a holiday.”

Pizza Hut issued this statement Thursday morning:

As follow up to the situation in Elkhart, IN, we feel strongly that the situation involving our independent franchisee and the local store manager could and should have been avoided. We fully respect an employee’s right to not work on a holiday, which is why the vast majority of Pizza Huts in America are closed on Thanksgiving. As a result, we strongly recommended that the local franchisee reinstate the store manager and they have agreed. We look forward to them welcoming Tony back to the team.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.