Duane Reade Employees Caught With Their Pants Down, Monitored For Shrinkage

by Sun Kersor · January 20, 2011

    Sixteen Duane Reade workers are suing their employer for placing surveillance cameras in the bathroom of the company's Maspeth, Queens warehouse. Why should you be concerned?

    As The Daily News Reports, Duane Reade higher-ups hid a camera in an air vent of the facility's bathroom to spy, we're guessing, on any naughty behavior and, say, to make sure the workers washed their hands after they dropped a deuce.

    Company managers say they wanted to regulate any tampering with company merchandise and account for shrinkage (inventory shrinkage, that is: petty theft).

    When employees discovered the device in 2008 and veered toward mutiny, managers threatened to can anyone who continued complaints about the cameras in the can.

    This little latrine voyeur matter has manifested in an impressive $110 million suit.

    Duane Reade has made the news of late for other fascinating business strategies: as the Times reported, the company's new Williamsburg store has a beer bar so as not to compete too closely with a local pharmacy.

    But after a few bottles of Fire Island Lighthouse Ale, are you really going to use the potentially-bugged bathroom?

    [Image via Daily News]