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AP

A Pizza Hut employee (who is not involved in this story).

A former manager at an Elkhart, Ind., Pizza Hut trying to give his employees some time off says he was fired for refusing to open the store on Thanksgiving, local CBS affiliate WSBT is reporting.

Tony Rohr, who started out at the pizza chain as a cook before working his way up to general manager, confronted his superiors after being told the store would need to be open on Thanksgiving.

In years past, Rohr said, Pizza Hut stores have been closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, according to Fox 8.

"Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days that they're closed in the whole year and they're the only two days that those people are guaranteed to have off and spend it with their families," he told WSBT.

His bosses told him to tender his resignation, but he wrote a scathing letter instead.

"I am not quitting. I do not resign, however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company," Rohr wrote, according to WSBT. " ... I hope you realize that it's the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible."

The company is already seeing quite a backlash on their official Facebook page, with some commenters calling the chain "greedy" and threatening to never eat there again. The page did not respond to any of the negative comments.

One of Rohr's bosses claimed that he quit, and being open on Thanksgiving wasn't an individual's decision — it was a company decision, according to WSBT.

Update 11/28: Pizza Hut has responded and reinstated the manager, according to an official statement.

"As follow up to the situation in Elkhart, IN, we feel strongly that the situation involving our independent franchisee and the local store manager could and should have been avoided. We fully respect an employee’s right to not work on a holiday, which is why the vast majority of Pizza Huts in America are closed on Thanksgiving. As a result, we strongly recommended that the local franchisee reinstate the store manager and they have agreed. We look forward to them welcoming Tony back to the team."





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