Going to the bathroom is a necessary bodily function, so it would be absurd to deny anyone the basic necessity of relieving oneself. But that’s not what one retail manager in Missouri thinks after they forced one worker to hold out on using the restroom because the “store is not allowed to be closed.” Perturbed about this mistreatment, the employee took to Reddit to ask if this practice is even legal, even if they are the only one on shift at the time.
The Missouri store manager claimed that “the store cannot be unsupervised meaning I could not go to the bathroom,” OP posted to r/legaladvice. The fact that they were asking Reddit about the legality of this issue goes to show that even they found it unreasonable to be withheld from going to the bathroom just because the shop is unsupervised. Redditors were very quick to point out that what this manager was doing was nothing short of an OSHA violation and should be investigated should the problem continue.
According to the official osha.gov page about “Restrooms and Sanitation Requirements,” employers and management must “Allow workers to leave their work locations to use a restroom when needed.” The regulations also clearly state that those in charge must “avoid imposing unreasonable restrictions on restroom use,” which is precisely what the Missouri retail manager was doing. Garnering almost 2K upvotes of agreement, the Reddit post’s top comment reads, “If the store isn’t allowed to be closed, management is obligated to provide coverage in the event you need to use the restroom without providing unreasonable delays.”
“I’m NAL but worked in retail and restaurants for years and this is 1000% illegal. Insane your manager thinks they can get away with this,” another commenter remarks. One user mentioned how they’d put up a sign that read “back in five minutes” whenever they had to use the bathroom during their days in retail. Plenty of others echoed the same sentiment of the whole ordeal being an illegal OSHA violation.
Let’s hope that the retail employee got the restroom issue sorted out with the manager, as they legally aren’t allowed to restrict bathroom breaks for whatever reason.
