The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Fiscally date raped by my Boss
Reverend_Chaos
Suit Up!Spokane WARegistered User regular
Suit Up!Spokane WARegistered User regular
I have been having problems with my boss for months now. He called me into his office two friday's ago. He told me that because I was no longer a supervisor (he demoted me 4 months ago) that he was going to have to change my wage from $10 an hour to $8.07 (min wage in WA state). I asked him when this would be taking effect. He told me that he would have to check and that he would get back to me. This is at 10am on the LAST day of the pay period....
Last friday I get my check and guess what? My wage had already been changed, so I worked for two weeks at what should have been $10 an hour and now my wage has been changed without prior notification. So after getting my check I walked out before my shift ended and I didn't go into work today. I am looking for another job, but I want to make a complaint. I am trying to get ahold of the Labor department and file a complaint.
Isn't this illegal? I couldn't walk into work and tell them, "Oh, by the way you need to pay me $20 an hour for the last two weeks." so how is it they can pull this crap on me?
Before you advise me to go to HR or talk to me supervisor, let me tell you how this will go down. The HR/Payroll lady will tell me that there is nothing that she can do, and that I will have to talk to the Boss. The Boss will tell me that there is nothing he can do as the order came from corporate, and that he will "check into it and get back to me" which is code for "please leave my office and I will never get back to you." I know for a fact that he can pay anyone at my work up to $10 an hour without answering to our corporate HQ in TX, so I know that he is the one that changed my wage, and made it effective when he did without prior notification.
Any advice guys?
Last friday I get my check and guess what? My wage had already been changed, so I worked for two weeks at what should have been $10 an hour and now my wage has been changed without prior notification. So after getting my check I walked out before my shift ended and I didn't go into work today. I am looking for another job, but I want to make a complaint. I am trying to get ahold of the Labor department and file a complaint.
Isn't this illegal? I couldn't walk into work and tell them, "Oh, by the way you need to pay me $20 an hour for the last two weeks." so how is it they can pull this crap on me?
Before you advise me to go to HR or talk to me supervisor, let me tell you how this will go down. The HR/Payroll lady will tell me that there is nothing that she can do, and that I will have to talk to the Boss. The Boss will tell me that there is nothing he can do as the order came from corporate, and that he will "check into it and get back to me" which is code for "please leave my office and I will never get back to you." I know for a fact that he can pay anyone at my work up to $10 an hour without answering to our corporate HQ in TX, so I know that he is the one that changed my wage, and made it effective when he did without prior notification.
Any advice guys?
“Think of me like Yoda, but instead of being little and green I wear suits and I'm awesome. I'm your bro—I'm Broda!”
Reverend_Chaos on
0
Posts
PSN: TheScrublet
The only other things I can think of that you can do is:
1) File a complaint with whatever governmental labour board is in your area. They won't and can't do anything to get your money back, but they might be able to act as a mediator to "resolve" the dispute, and may investigate a bit. This should be done no matter what.
2) Speak with the boss/payroll department/HR/etc. I know you said it won't do any good, and you're probably right, but it's a necessary step. It's the first thing the labour board will ask you to do, and it's necessary for my third suggestion as well. Have a meeting with the boss, explain the situation and why it was done this way. If he can't give you a satisfactory answer and resolve the situation, tell him you'll be submitting a request in writing to him and the corporate office, along with contacting the labour board and lawyer to receive your proper wages. If that doesn't scare them into giving you the money, your last step is:
3) Take them to small claims court for the money. Obviously this is a laborious, potentially expensive idea, which is why I don't entirely suggest it. But in all likelihood, this is your only way of getting the money back, if negotiating falls through. Use it more as a threat than a means to an end, since the amount of money you got ripped off wouldn't likely even cover the costs, time and effort to take them to court.
If your boss demoted you 4 months ago... and the current wage is related to your job.. then you should have been making 8.07 for many weeks before this.
so he is left with the fact he is telling you at that moment he is demoting your wage.. so you should not have seen that lower wage until the NEXT pay.
Get all your facts straight.. and write them down. pull any supporting documentation. look for a new job regardless.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Oh, and I was given a raise to $10 an hour before I was ever made into a supervisor. Unfortunately, because WA is an at will state, they can lower my wage without reason or cause. I have worked there for over a year and I am worth more than minimum wage. My boss has been trying to get rid of me for months. I think he finally found my breaking point. I have put up with being treated like crap and all of that, but I just can't afford to work for that little.
(first, I'm not calling you a prick, but that's how you will come off. Second, in some states, leaving a job and just not showing back up is grounds for them to withold any termination benifits, like reimbursement of annual leave, first two weeks pay, etc.)
Call HR, call CORPORATE HR, call the CEO of the company if you have to, just be professional. Put in a proper notice of at least a week, preferably two, and preferably after you've already found a new job.
I don't think they have a legal right to withhold your last paycheck... but indeed, in some states they could withhold the other things you mention (which sucks). But indeed, if you walked out I sure wouldn't list it on my "prior experience" portion of the resume, at the least.
But definitely look for a new job. It sounds like if you got demoted, probably something bad happened there. Finding a new place might "clean the slate" and allow you to start moving UP the money chain again instead of DOWN.
You would be 100% in the right to tell your boss to put this rate lowering in writing on exactly when it took affect. I can't find any exact law or wording on this situation... but its up to you to decide what you want out of it.
At most.. they get fined. at worst.. they tell you that you have no case. Ether way you should be looking for a new job.
Did you sign anything when you got a raise?
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
It could just be an oversight.
Point out to him that until he verbally (and a strong case could be also argued that it should really be in writing) told you that he lowered your pay you and he had an agreement that you would be paid X amount. Therefore you need to be paid that amount until you were orriginally paid until you were informed about your pay decrease.
Satans..... hints.....
My friend (17) earns $12 an hour at Hoyts cinemas
I earn more than that at woolworths and I have been working for about 4 months
You can do better
So yeah, I hope things go well for you man.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
Second, job abandonment is not just some scare tactic. In that fifty sheet pile of shit you sign when you start a job, there could very easily be a clause there regarding it. We just lost an employee who walked out without notice and he didn't get to take his benifits or saved annual leave because of it. It varies state by state, but it's not just some "scare tactic".
You need to find a new job on your off time, put in a notice, and be professional, even if your employer isn't.
Yes, it is legal for them to drop my wage. It is NOT legal for them to drop my wage without informing me BEFORE I worked the hours. Since my Boss did not tell me WHEN my wage decrease was to go into effect, I have technically worked for 3 weeks now at a decreased wage without knowing. THAT is illegal, but getting paid for those wages is going to be difficult.
Now under normal circumstances I would agree with you, put in a 2 week notice, get a new job. I work in a sales call center and if you put in a 2 week notice they basically just tell you to leave now. If the Boss hears that you are even looking for a new job, he will fire you, or at least that is what he makes you think. He calls you into his office and tells you that he heard you are looking for another job, so maybe you should just go ahead and pursue that. Then when you go to file for unemployment he fights it saying that you quit, because he didn't "fire" you, he just told you to leave and get another job. He has already tried this one with me. I argued with him and then he got a phone call and told me to leave his office. So I just went back to my desk and went back to work. He never brought it up again. That was over a month ago.
Call your local labour board and explain your specific situation, and then you can arm yourself correctly when going to see your boss. There are likely some specific words and phrases you could use when speaking to him that would let him know you are well informed of the law and he has no wiggle-room.
"At will" means that the employment contract can be ended by either party for basically any reason whatsoever, at basically any time.. While it's still illegal to fire someone for being black or female, you can come up with practically anything and it's very difficult to fight. So yes, the employer can in fact fire you for turning in your two weeks notice. (Why they would do this, when most likely it means they would pay unemployment, is beyond me)
Not they way they did it. The first notice he got that "you are now working for $8/hour" was when he got his paycheck, after he had been working for what he thought (and they never informed him otherwise) was $10/hour.
Had the manager said "it's effective as of now," then he would be hosed. But that's not what the manager said.
Even if he had said, "effective now." This was the very last day of the pay period, meaning that they would have had to pay me $10 an hour up to 10am that friday, and then I would have gotten paid $8 an hour for the rest of the day, which was 5 more hours. I was told that he would inform me of when it went into effect. Now mind you that HE is the one who decides how much I make, so I knew that he was just jerking me around. I am going to talk to the HR/Payroll lady tomorrow, but she won't do anything. I am then going to file a complaint with the Labor board. I just have to get down there and file the complaint.
I have been unsuccessful as of yet in finding a job, so I am going back to work tomorrow. My Boss is gone, so I am just going to do my work while looking for a job. I technically have still not recieved any kind of formal notice on my wage.
One other thing I found out. At my work, we are paid from 7:00am to 3:30pm mon - fri. The payroll lady is not "authorized" to pay any of us outside of these hours, so if I stay until 4pm or come in @ 6:30 I don't get paid. Now when I go to the Labor Board, this is another thing that I will bring up, and the labor board will investigate this and my company is going to end up paying people back for the last 5 years, since they opened. This will be my big F*** You on my way out the door, leaving them in the middle of an L&I investigation facing all kinds of fines, and back pay for overtime that they have never paid out.
Yeah, I wasn't arguing that, I was just saying that it is legal to decrease someone's pay in general, someone was arguing it wasn't earlier. What they did was pretty shady.
Reverend, do you punch in on a computer, old punch cards, or is stuff just written down or assumed to be 7 to 3? because unless the individual employees show records for the last five years of where they came in early or worked late, chances are payroll just shows that they were there from 7 to 3, so they aren't just going to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seriously man, don't be an ass just because you hate your job. It sucks what they did, but dropping to their level on your way out the door isn't going to help your career in any way whatsoever. You work in a call center. It's a crappy job, the world knows this. Also, if you haven't already done it, I'd make sure I list a friend that works there as your immediate supervisor, so when they call he can give you a good reference.
Your boss sounds like an asshole. You need to find a new job, and stat.
Once you find said new job - take on all the possible responsibilities you can at your current job. Get a bunch of high priority work with some big deadlines.
Do no work on these projects. Just before these deadlines hit tell your boss you are quitting. Make it damn clear that you have been screwed and are ready to walk. Make an outrageous demand (double my pay or else; you won't get it) then when they refuse say "Well, good luck to you" and walk out immediately.
A silent pay cut is complete bullshit; this company has treated you like garbage; get out and do as much legal damage as you can while you do it.