False information

[Fulldog]

What is the name of your state? Virginia

I am employed by a frachised affiliate of a national franchise motel company. The franchise contract between my employer and the national company requires full and truthful reporting of monthly revenue totals to the national office. I am responsible for providing the correct numbers to my employer and I see the downwardly fabricated numbers that he then passes to the franchise parent (meaning he pays lower franchise fees than the terms of his agreement calls for). Since taking my job I have been told on several occasions that the person I replaced had once threathened to 'blow the whistle' on the violation of the franchise contract and my boss in turn threathened her with a lawsuit for revealing company information. Okay, some of my coworkers are now being subjected to unfair and unusual conditions of employement (see my prior post) If I were to try to leverage my knowledge of the violation of the franchise contract to try to correct some of that misconduct, is there validity to my employer's claim that he can take action against me for informing our franchise parent of his violation of his revenue reporting agreement with them. Let me stress that the 'company information' I would reveal is limited to the accurate sets of figures he is required to provide them?

[Beth3]

I don't see any basis on which your employer could sue you for sharing the accurate information with the corporate parent.

What do you mean by "leverage my knowledge of the violation"? Sounds like you're thinking of blackmailing your boss, although I don't think that's what you mean.

[Fulldog]

No, not in that sense, but there is an ongoing exploitation or misuse of power and the thought crosses my mind that our employer may have forgotten that some of the employees who are being victimized by his 'corner cutting' are also aware of his. My thoughts are that being reminded of that might cause him to stop trying to meet his budget via not paying his staff for work performed. The reminder might be less 'messy' than a DOL inquiry.

[Beth3]

So basically you are going to tell the boss either he correct his payroll practices or you'll report the money he's skimming from corporate? That is very likely going to get you fired. Listen, you are clearly not dealing with an ethical person. I doubt there is anything you can say to the boss that is going to allow him to see the error of his ways and suddenly become honest and fair. All confronting him will do is convince him he has to get rid of YOU.

I can't tell you that reporting the situation to corporate doesn't have it's risks but I suspect that will be a whole lot safer for you than trying to coerce the boss into doing the right thing. By the way, before you report any of this to corporate, I suggest you make photocopies of the appropriate documents that will suppport your allegations. I think you can count on the boss doing everything he can to hide the evidence when he becomes aware that an investigation into accounting and payroll practices is going to take place. The paper shredder may start working overtime.