Recently, a video went viral that showed a man working outside at Chick-fil-A with just a T-shirt on. His stated reasoning for this lack of weather-appropriate attire was that Chick-fil-A would only allow him to wear a jacket if it had Chick-fil-A branding. These jackets cost around $60.
This experience, it turns out, is fairly common. Another user was quick to stitch with the TikToker’s original video to tell her own jacket story.
“They would not let us wear our own jackets because it didn’t have the Chick-Fil-A branding on it,” this TikToker said. “Instead, if we wanted a jacket, we had to pay for it out of our own paychecks.”
Now, another TikToker, @baviddoughy has sparked discussion after sharing his thoughts on the jacket and revealing the jacket itself.
“It’s one thing to make your employees pay for their own uniforms, but to make them pay full price, no employee discount or anything is kind of crazy,” says @baviddoughy in a video with over 774,000 views. He then shows the jacket itself, which only has a small Chick-fil-A logo on the arm.
“$53 for this? Really?” he asks.
“And it’s even worse when you find out the average team member’s paid $13.89 an hour,” the TikToker notes in the video. Salaries for team members generally fall around this number, per Indeed.
This TikToker goes on to note that few items in the store have significant Chick-fil-A branding, leading him to question why the company asks their employees to do this in the first place.
“Heaven forbid this manager loses a customer because they drove up to a Chick-fil-A drive-through and when they got to the window, they saw one of the employees wearing a red coat, but it wasn’t the Chick-fil-A red coat,” he states in the video.
In general, employers are allowed to require employees to purchase uniforms, so long as the purchase of such a uniform does not put them under the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“Federal law allows employers to deduct the cost of supplying and maintaining a uniform (having it mended or cleaned and pressed) from an employee’s paycheck, as long as the employee’s wages after the deduction don’t fall below the minimum wage,” writes Lisa Guerin, J.D. for Nolo. “If you earn only the minimum wage, your employer may not require you to pay for a uniform, through payroll deductions or otherwise.”
@baviddoughy I thought they where into God and stuff … #greenscreen #fyp #foryou #chickfila #worklife ♬ original sound – BavidDoughy
In the comments section, users shared their thoughts on this practice.
“This policy must be applied by who owns the store because I see employees at stores in my area wearing regular jackets,” said a user.
“I worked at cfa and I lost a lot of weight and then they said I need to get pants that fit better I told them no bc I’m not buying $40 pants,” recalled another.
“For real. They did this with Amazon too. They said I have to pay for it. So I had to deliver in the snow without one and the next day I quit,” alleged a third.
The Daily Dot reached out to Chick-fil-A via email and @baviddoughy via TikTok direct message.
