Money-Check Procedure Will Protect Till, Employees

Q: I work as a cashier at a convenience store. Recently, my boss informed me that out of $1,400 dropped in the safe by me in amounts of $100 each, only $1,300 was received by the bank. As a result, I’ve been suspended. I have seen three of my co-workers fired for this same thing. Once the money is dropped in the safe, it is out of my control. The money is picked up by an armored truck.

This whole thing has caused me great mental strain. I know that I did not take the money. I do not mishandle money--especially when it is someone else’s. I like my job and would never do anything to jeopardize it. On behalf of myself and my co-workers, could you please give us some advice on how we can protect ourselves against this type of thing happening?

--S.M., Norco

A: I recommend that the convenience store designate one cashier per shift to be responsible for all money transactions. The company should establish a money-check procedure at the beginning and the end of each shift. The cashier responsible should count the money and have a verification count by the next shift cashier in the presence of the other. Each cashier should sign next to the amount validated, and a copy and a record should be maintained by the store. Therefore, each shift cashier in charge assumes full responsibility and liability for all money in the till.

If this procedure is followed, the money is placed in the safe, and two people have validated and confirmed the money amounts. If discrepancies are then noted by the bank, it will clearly demonstrate the error resulted--or theft occurred--after the money left the store. This assures some protection both for the staff and for the company.

--Elizabeth Winfree-Lydon

Senior staff consultant, Employers Group

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Raiding Own Company Can Be Risky Business

Q: I’m an employee of a small company. The current situation is that all the employees, including myself, are not happy with the president because of his poor management of the company, including the dismissal of employees and the loss of major accounts. The employees want to start a new company. Can I talk about a new company to existing clients while remaining an employee and can I talk to other employees about setting up such a company?

--A.A., Laguna Hills

A: The answer may depend in part on whether you have signed any written agreements with your employer regarding unfair competition and trade secrets. Such agreements may specifically limit your right to engage in the conduct you describe.

Even if you have not signed such agreements, however, you may be creating considerable risk for yourself if you engage in such conduct while still employed by your current employer. Every employee in California owes a duty of loyalty to his employer. That duty would preclude you from contacting current clients of your employer, while still working for that employer, to determine whether those clients would follow you to a new company.

That duty also would prohibit you from engaging in conversations with your current co-workers during working time for the purpose of inducing them to terminate their employment and come with you to a new company. However, unless you have signed some form of promise not to “raid” your current employer’s employees following your termination, you could probably engage them in such conversations away from the workplace and on your own time.

--Michael A. Hood

Employment law attorney

Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker

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Vacation-Time Policies Are Not Set in Stone

Q: If you’re working for a company that contracts out for warehouse workers and then a new company takes over, does the new company still have to honor the contract regarding the amount of vacation time? I was promised four weeks of vacation after being there 13 years. But the new company says I have to start off at the bottom with one week of vacation. What is the legality of that?

--D.S., Yorba Linda

A: There is no law that says that a company cannot change its compensation or benefit plan to its employees. Most “promises” of a company regarding wage rates or vacation policies are simply guidelines with no real definite duration commitment to them.

Of course, if you have a definite contract where wages or benefits are promised for a certain period of time, then you could claim that it is enforceable against the company for that length of time.

To the extent, however, that a company changes its policy, it still needs to compensate its employees to the extent benefits have accrued as of the date of such change. Thus, compensation would need to be paid for any wages or commissions that are payable as of the date of the change of policy. Likewise, employees are owed their accrued vacation up to the date of the change of policy.

One of the most confusing and often-violated employment practices concerns accrual of vacation time. If an employee is entitled to receive, for example, one week paid vacation after one year and two weeks after two years and the employment in terminated after a year and a half, he or she would be entitled to receive not only the one paid week accrued after the first anniversary, but also half of the two weeks that would have been accrued at the end of two years.

Many employers would wrongly try to claim that the employee is not entitled to any further vacation until the employment passes the second-year mark. A successor company that has bought the stock or the assets of the original employer may be liable to the employees to the same extent. Purchase of one share or all the shares of stock of the original employer does not change the identity of the actual corporate employer.

The real issue arises when the change of ownership does not involve a stock purchase but rather an asset purchase of one degree or another. A recent case has held a successor company liable for the commissions and accrued benefits owed by the original company to its employees. The more assets bought by the successor company from the old company, the greater its responsibility will be to assume the accrued obligations of the original company.

--Don D. Sessions

Employee rights attorney

Mission Viejo