I think this manager forgot that he is just an employee like everybody else at Pizza Hut. Now whether or not you support him taking the stand that he did, what he did was insubordination, plain and simple, and he lost his job as a result of it.
Personally I think it is stupid for Pizza Hut to be open on Thanksgiving Day but that's not my decision to make and neither was it this franchise store manager's decision to make. He took a stand and he lost his job. Maybe it was calculated move on his part to get his 15 minutes.
That said, if I ran a pizza chain competing with Pizza Hut, I would consider hiring this guy to run one of my stores just to get some good PR and tweak the nose of my competitor.
Bull’s Eye!