employees made to pay for stolen merchandise?

I work at a cell phone store and a couple of our stores have recently been robbed. The company is saying the employee is responsible for anything stolen while we are there. The most recent example was an employee had a PDA phone on the counter and the customer/thief all of a sudden just grabbed it and ran out the door before paying or giving his info to set up service, jumped into a car with no license plates and was gone. The employee called police and described the thief and the car, but the company is saying if the merchandise is not recovered the employee will be charged for it. Is that legal?

[annjd]

No that is not.

You could consult your nearest Department of Labor office to briefly discuss the issue with them first...you may also want to ask the company to put what is happening in writing and explain to them that you may have attorneys review the situation...try speaking to a higher level of management about the issue; they may override the other managers. If none of these efforts resolves the issue, let us know.