Pizza Hut Manager Fired for Refusing to Open on Thanksgiving Gets Job Back After Outpouring of Support
The Pizza Hut manager who was fired for refusing to open on Thanksgiving Day has gotten his job back after news of the incident went viral.
Tony Rohr is a general manager for Pizza Hut and has worked at the franchise in Elkhart, Ind., for more than 10 years. When he refused to open on Thanksgiving Day the company told him to write a letter of resignation.
At a follow-up meeting he said he protested the request because he wanted his employees to spend the day with their families.
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"I said why can't we be the company that stands up and says we care about our employees and they can have the day off," Rohr told CNN. "Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days that they're closed in the whole year and they're the only two days that those people are guaranteed to have off and spend it with their families," he added.
Pizza Hut was not convinced and he said they asked him to sign a letter of resignation which he refused to do and instead wrote them a letter explaining his position.
"I am not quitting. I do not resign however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company," he wrote in the letter.
"I hope you realize that it's the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible," he further noted.
Many people, like Pizza Hut employee Cara Chapel, have praised him for his actions on Facebook.
"As a former 10 year employee with PH, as a GM that had to work on almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas because someone has to go in on their 2 closed days a year to pull out 500 frozen dough discs for the next day and I refused to ask an hourly employee to do it, even though of course that was upper management's suggestion, hats off to Tony wish more people had these nuts and berries," said Chapel.
