Work for food: A NC Chick-fil-A tried to pay ‘volunteers’ in chicken sandwiches
A Chick-fil-A restaurant in North Carolina is facing backlash after it tried to entice volunteers by offering to pay them with chicken sandwiches.
On July 26, the Chick-fil-A at 52 Highlands Square Dr. in Hendersonville posted a message on its Facebook page asking people to work for free entrees. The post, however, did not mention any form of monetary compensation.
“We are looking for volunteers for our new Drive Thru Express!” the now-deleted post read. “Earn 5 free entrees per shift (1 hr) worked.”
After the original post was removed, the restaurant sent out a follow-up message that said, “multiple people” signed up to volunteer and “people who sign up for this choose it voluntarily,” Fortune reported.
The restaurant has since limited who can comment on its Facebook posts, but that hasn’t stopped users from flooding its page with angry comments.
“Glad to see you deleted the highly illegal volunteer post, pay workers money not chicken,” one user commented on a photo of a restaurant employee holding a child with an ice cream cone.
“Are you forcing the kid to work for that ice cream cone with your slave labor scheme?” another commented regarding the same picture.
A few Facebook users also pointed out that employees cannot volunteer services to for-profit private sector businesses, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under the FLSA, people are only allowed to volunteer with public agencies and their communities.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, a volunteer is someone who donates their time without receiving financial or material gain.
A spokesperson for Chick-fil-A corporate told Business Insider the company did not endorse the program and the restaurant decided to end it.
This story was originally published July 28, 2022 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Work for food: A NC Chick-fil-A tried to pay ‘volunteers’ in chicken sandwiches."
