A waitress said she was fired for standing up for her customers. Photo / Facebook
A waitress said she was fired for standing up for her customers. Photo / Facebook
A woman has claimed she was fired from her job over an argument with her employer about "hate speech", but her boss said it was a matter of the waitress refusing to work.
The waitress, Brittany Rossio-Spencer, has claimed she was fired from her waitressing job because she "refused to serve a group" who were allegedly being rude about other customers in the restaurant she worked at in Wisconsin, in the US.
Brittany claimed an elderly couple she was serving made "transphobic remarks" to her, that were directed at other regular customers in restaurant Fat Joe's Grill, in Fon Du Lac over the weekend.
But the woman's boss disagrees with Brittany's claims, saying the business takes a neutral position on conversations had with customers and Brittany was sacked for refusing to do her job.
"(They) attempted to engage me in the conversation, asking if I thought (the other customer) was disgusting and wrong, and why would they be allowed in the establishment," Brittany told CBS 58.
"I quickly responded 'No …' and walked away."
She claimed her manager told her to get over it, or go home, news.com.au reported.
Brittany chose to go home, and later publicly posted about the incident on her Facebook.
"I got sent home from work early because I refused to serve a table who were making transphobic remarks about guests at one of my other tables," Brittany wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. "Oh well, at least I stand by my morals and beliefs."
In a follow up post on Sunday, she said she'd been fired, but was happy to choose "morals over money".
The restaurant fired back, saying Brittany was dismissed for refusing to carry out tasks. Photo / Facebook
But boss and co-owner of the restaurant, Tad Wallender, said Brittany was given the option to leave the restaurant because she was refusing to serve customers.
"She just refused to do a duty that we hired her for," Mr Wallender told WIS. "That's the bottom line in a nutshell." He said he respected that everybody had different moral beliefs.
The restaurant's Facebook page was reportedly bombarded with negative comments and reviews, before being shut down by the restaurant's owner.
Brittany has continued to post online since the event, and has dismissed comments made by the restaurant's co-owner, saying, "Allowing hate speech to take place in your place of business is not neutral."
Brittany said she is planning to file a complaint over her dismissal with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
