Woman Slams Ice Cream Shop for Putting Employee Sick Leave Charge on Receipt

If you're looking for a job that provides excellent healthcare coverage along with a decent amount of days for sick leave and vacation days, you probably aren't considering getting into the fast-casual food service industry. While there are definitely exceptions to this rule,

According to Tiger Chef "almost 9 out of 10 restaurant workers lack paid sick days (87.7 percent) and health insurance from their employer (89.7 percent)."

In fact, there are throngs of workers leaving the food service industry in search of greener employment pastures, which has resulted in a massive labor shortage in this work sector.

So it's understandable why so many businesses are looking to help even the playing field when it comes to offering benefits for their employees. Even DoorDash is working with restaurants to help get them discounts on healthcare benefits to improve worker retention rates.

While healthcare costs are generally considered an expenditure that is expected to be shouldered by the employer and partially from deductions from a worker's salary, other businesses have appeared to take a different approach: making the customer pay for it.

A TikToker by the name of Deek (@_deekdeek_) shared a video of a receipt they received after purchasing ice cream from Big Softie in Atlanta, Ga..

The bill of sale looks like any other receipt you'd find from a restaurant, however, upon closer inspection, there appears to be a charge in the itemized list of costs that stands out from the others.

The receipt shows a $5 subtotal, along with a $0.44 Georgia state sales tax. Following that, there was a $0.20 "Employee Health Insurance & Sick Leave" charge, followed by a $1.00 tip she left for the workers.

Deek didn't seem too pleased with the charge, stating "that ain't got nothing to do with me!" at the end of the video.

Many TikTokers appeared to agree with Deek. One wrote: "Everything a scam in Atlanta lmao"

"I'm so weak & the fact that this is in Atlanta gotta be illegal"

Someone else was dubious as to whether or not the employees were actually receiving the health insurance benefits that the receipts said they did. They suggested that Deek look into the matter: "Now go back and ask the employees if they can get health insurance though they job and if they get paid sick time off and sue if they don't."

Others said that the company shouldn't have been so specific on the receipt, stating that labeling it as a simple "service fee" would have sufficed.

But there were some viewers who said that they too have seen a similar charge while going out to eat: "That happens to me at a restaurant before"

There were also a good number of TikTokers who participated in slandering Atlanta:

"Reminds me to stay out of Georgia"

"Atlanta do tooooo much"

What do you think of the charge? Are you more than willing to add an extra 20 cents to your order if it means that an employee gets to have health insurance? Or are you of the same mind as Deek and believe that this sort of charge has "got nothing to do with" you?