newly enstated uniform code

[Donnie234]

I have worked in a Food Lion in east Tennessee for about 5 years now while I've worked my way through basically a Pre-law program at UT. Recently, we were informed via memo that the company was changing it's uniform and that ALL employees were now required to BUY NEW uniforms from one place that have FL emblem on it, where as before just any white shirt would do. My question is, is it legal to change the uniform after 5 years AND require people to buy them from ONE company which really overcharges for them, anyway. I can see if they just changed the shirt color and said, "any blue shirt will due", but they specified one company and one style, which seems like some sort of extortion to me. Previously, they were going to do the same change and give, err, i mean, "loan" all full time employees 2 shirts and part timers 1, but this plan was dropped and nothing else was said until this new "buy your own or get fired" policy. I have memos to the managers from their superiors, saying to tell the employees if they don't buy them by march that they will be fired. Nobody thought this was fair b/c most had already bought optional uniforms that were overpriced and are now useless. I am going to refuse to pay their prices and will probably fired so my questions are basically, 1. are they in the right by now requiring a purchased uniform after 5 years of any white shirt with a collar will work, and 2. if and when they do fire me for not paying overpriced amounts for blue shirts with a lion, which are useless the minute I quit and leave for law school, do I have an legal basis for any kind of civil right violations? Thank you very much, in advance

Donnie

 

[T-DESIGNER]

How much are they charging for the shirts? If it is an exorbitant
amount, I suspect all of the employees might be able to
bring some type of class action law suit against Food Lion,
and the company selling the shirts. There may be a
conflict of interest involved; i.e., management owns
stock in the shirt company, etc. Call Lands Ends (national
mail order company) and ask them how much they would
charge for a white shirt with FL logo. I know Lands Ends
does specialty work for corporations, and they have
a web site, 1-800 number, etc.

Otherwise, buy the shirt and concern yourself with more
important non-frivolous legal matters, which is probably
why you did not get a response from an attorney on this
web site.

Citizen Brown