I’ll be brief but you know that I could drone on and on.
Age 18 years old, bored at lunch at work, so I read the state employment laws posted in our lunchroom. Oh! Found that (at least in 1981), California employers could not force employees to use a company sponsored laundry service for required uniforms and then charge the employees for the service.
I was only making $1.70 an hour working part time; and, being charged $2.50 a week for laundry. So that was an hour-and-a-half pre-tax income a week I was losing.
I raised the point to my manager politely. The site manager and assistant manager actually took me into a darken room, pushed me down into a chair, and spoke to me in hushed but very finite ways. They were clearly threatening waif-y, little 19 year old me...a tiny frail looking boy with a shitload of psi energy just below the surface. Yet, I kept my cool.
My first offer to them was to ask if I should share my interpretation of the California law with my larger group of fellow employees. Yet, uncertain exact how long the company had been breaking the law, I was not certain how far back their exposure to risk might go. I made that point too.
Both men being twice my age, they persisted.
My second offer was to share my finding with my Mom who was a Union Steward with some kind of unknown influence over many industries across the ENTIRETY of the San Diego county.
They both just about pooped their corporate slacks just then.
My last statement before standing up and walking out leaving them in the dark was, [parapharsed], “I really don’t care what policy changes you do or do not make at a corporate level, but I promise you that you will not take even one more penny out of my paychecks including the one for this week else I will expose this scheme.”
Of course, everyone was surprised that week to have an extra $2.50 in their paychecks. And, I never told another employee.
I was promptly ”promoted” out of the branch I was at and into a job reporting directly to the regional VP...where I could be better watched over I suspect.