Toxic Salon Environment
So I’m an esthetician that works for a franchise. My specific locations franchise owner is very…fussy and cliquey. But the problem isn’t the services. It’s the way that our owner is forcing us to do work of esthetician and receptionist at the same time, and often times we’ll be left alone trying to run the whole place by ourselves. This has been happening to me a lot lately. A lot of this extra work is outside of our job description and wasn’t talked about when I was hired on (other coworkers didn’t get this information as well). We also make less than minimum wage and due to the way that we have nobody to answer the phone and how the managers want us to run things, most of the locations my franchise owner has lack clients. These clients also receive discounts every single time they don’t get their way(I don’t mean in a damage control way, I mean in a they can’t get people to come in consistently and this is their last resort I’ve tried to bring up in several meetings that we have every month how it’s unfair for them to ask us to do all this extra work with no additional help/training. Whenever given the opportunity to make a workplace complaint, they avoid me more. Plus my manager and franchise owner are close friends. The review would be biased from the start. Anyways I’ve made suggestions To avoid all these potential mistakes we’ve been having with the booking system. They’ve also tried to reprimand all estheticians for cleaning issues (we all deep clean per schedule listed in our breakroom) however they expect us to deep clean the entire salon by ourselves plus our rooms and run the front with no manager in the store ever. they’ve also threatened us with write ups that can lead to termination over computer duties that are the responsibility of receptionists. I should mention they only hire one and she works one day a week. Last week all of us were asked to deep clean according to the list in the break room. We came back after deep cleaning too see that the owner rearranged all of our rooms and seemingly purposely made them dirtier. All of us then proceeded to get a passive aggressive message on a group messaging app that we all weren’t doing good enough and we were all getting written up including our lead. The main complaints we were all getting written up for was not being able to move a shelf and clean behind it. (It takes two people to move it) All of us are very good at our jobs but that’s beside the point. They get very abusive and almost aggressive with us every time someone tries to speak up for themselves. We have all been threatened with termination if we question the way things are ran. So I eventually decided to look into our contracts that they made us sign. It includes stuff about how we’re not allowed to call off, and how if we’re there’s for less than 6 months and we decide to quit or work somewhere else they charge a $500 training fee and garnish it from our wages. There’s a bunch of other things in the NDA we have to sign that would be considered as an attempt to keep us from speaking about questionable treatment or work conditions. Ever since then, I’ve been looking into our employee handbook, the terms of our contracts and OSHA violations. There’s a bunch of other things that I could list that they do not violate several labor laws, but what did it for me with this final incident. The same day that I was looking into my employee handbook somehow my Social Security card ended up on the copier when that info had been with me the same time I was looking into the employee hand book with our contracts. Essentially, they’re trying to accuse me of making copies of our private contract, even though my personal information was never in the same area as the copier along with the contracts in the same folder that all of my stuff was in. The only reason my boss knew such a folder existed is because I happened to have the folder with all contracts on me in the break room and I was showing my coworker so we know what to say in the next meeting. Nobody even knew my other sensitive information was also in that folder. My boss also admitted to watching the cameras. Plus the only time I was near the printer was When I was on FaceTime with her that same day when she asked me to look for something in the office. All of this keeps adding up and they’re allowing clients to harass us as employees, with no resolution in sight. My question is. What should I do? I noticed they’re trying to discriminate against me for looking into my rights in the workplace. This includes them cutting my hours and bosses purposely avoiding me so I cannot address the issue as much directly like I’d like to. And they use the excuse that we don’t have anyone booked on those days that they call me off, despite the fact that our place takes walk ins. Not to mention the set up accusations of me trying to use the copier I was never near. Should I give OSHA a call? Talk to a labor law lawyer? I am trying to find a new job but I get the sense they’d lie and ruin my reputation in my field of work which would ruin my chances of finding a new job. I’ve gone so above and beyond for this job including coming in on my days off, picking up shifts. As well as covering for two people when one girl quit, and another girl went on vacation at the same time. It’s just not possible for me or anybody to be able to run a whole place by themselves, take clients, work the computer, and manage customer complaints all at once. I’ve been left alone to do this multiple times, and I’ve gotten spoken to in a complaint form about it from my managers. Im so tired of being gaslit at work and everyone else being afraid to say something. They specifically have it out for me based on the way they’re treating me for looking into my rights and standing up for myself. I should probably also mention that this place has an insanely high turnover rate, which is why they are starting to charge people a training fee. Turnover rate is mostly due to how they treat their employees but I needed a job at the time I need advice I can get helps. I have no idea how to proceed forward in this field. please send help! I’ll take any advice that I can. I’ve taken pictures of as much evidence as I could and I’m at a loss here.