Employees at Noah's Bagels in Vacaville staged a walk-out in protest over the firing of a manager. On a widely viewed TikTok video, workers are seen leaving the job last Saturday. At issue is the company's decision to fire general manager Bre Kowalski. Kowalski was notified by a district manager that she was being suspended due to a customer complaint, but later told she was being fired over another incident.
Kowalski told KCRA, "I just wanted to know why I was terminated because no one said I was terminated. They said I was suspended. They had already fired me without telling me why I was fired." Later, it came out she was fired over an incident that happened at the store when Kowalski was not present. For the rest of the staff, they said this was the last straw, leading to the video of the group walk-out. The workers who quit hope Noah's "learned a lesson" about how they treat their employees.
The company issued this statement to KCRA in response to the attention caused by the video:
"We take the treatment of our team members very seriously and are looking into this matter. As an organization, we pride ourselves on providing a rewarding work experience for all our team members as we seek to provide the best possible experience for our guests."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the video has been viewed almost 4 million times.