Long story short, a year ago I had an internship with an interior design firm doing floor plans for real estate agents. It wasn't my only internship, but because mine was part time I decided to do this 1-2 days a week. The job was basically measuring a house and drawing it in CAD roughly. It was supposed to be paid by business created by the referrals, technically. It had a contract. I was a "designer" on paper... I was an actual employee too.
Never got paid. It was pretty infrequent so I did it for 3 months. Obviously it was a scam, but it didn't look it. The co-op office at my school had had people do co-ops here before, one of the guys at my interview was legitimately a student at my school, and 4/5 of my classmates were also doing it (full time though).
Can I do anything legally? I tracked all my hours. The only thing would be that I was supposed to be paid by a certain percentage of the referral project (I know, I'm a stupid, naive kid) but how should I know if they ever got referrals?
What is the "referral project"? Who is referring what? I am confused.
But yeah, sounds like you got screwed. Need more info for a full conclusion on that, though. Might not be a scam, if there were no "referrals", then you get no pay.
I am confused as well. Legally, if you have a case it will be difficult to pursue and not worth the time and money invested on your end.
You can contact the ID firm again and again, be persistent, and demand to be paid. You can also alert your school so that they will not recommend the firm in the future. You can contact your local IIDA, NCIDQ, AIA, or BBB boards to file a complaint.
When anyone tells you they can't pay you for the work they want you for, but say there's plenty of future work in it for you, hang up the phone, run away, delete the email. This is a tired old saying by people trying to get something for nothing from the eager and naive. You just learned this lesson the hard way. It sounds like an awfully vague contract. Undefined payment based upon referrals that come from your work?
you were working for commission; good luck establishing that they made any money absent filing a lawsuit, which almost certainly makes no sense financially.
walk away from the $, but i'd go talk to whoever runs the co-op program at your school and give them a ration of shit.
agree with jeffe (hey jeffe, how's albucrackee?) stir up a shit storm at the coop. email all students and let them know these guys are scam artists. once bitten, twice shy.
I've seen a variation of this "business model" before. Mostly with window treatment, closet and kitchen 'specialists'. Basically the company offers to do schematic design for the client prior to the client agreeing to services. They'll send you 'the design specialist' to measure the work, and someone in-house wil quickly overlay a proposed design. Then you hope the prospective client likes it and signs on the dotted line.
Perhaps it's the future of architectural services as well? To be fair, we are not that far from it right now.
Due89, if I were you, I'd imediately contact your state's labor office. Hopefully your state is labor friendly. Since you were an actual employee, you are owed back wages. Even if it's minimum wage, it's better than nothing. Depending on your state, the labor office may even help you by directly collecting your wages. Don't give up on this. Do it in the name of other employees who are yet to be screwed over.
el jeffy, certain companies will do anything in their power to call their employees contractors. In many cases that shit just won't fly. You know that.
Heck, I'm sure Wallmart would love to put their greeters on commision. Their legal advised them not to.
If your job is to only field measure houses, and you have very little control over the process of landing a new 'commision' or 'client' or whatever they want to call it, then chances are you are probably not a commisioned contract worker.
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
Agreed. Nobody is going to give you anything out of kindness or because it is the right thing to do. Chances are that in this case you will have to take matters into your own hands.
If you feel you have a snowballs chance in hell, it might be worth pursuing with a more official entity if only at the information gathering level. Never hurts.
If you feel you have a chance and choose to do nothing, then you are no better than the people on that whine about their lack of income and refuse to even entertain the thought of changing their ways of working. Man/Woman up and defend yourself.
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
If you feel you have a snowballs chance in hell, it might be worth pursuing with a more official entity if only at the information gathering level.
Man/Woman up and defend yourself.
Always it's fight, fight, fight. You deserve to. You got screwed. How dare they do that. Really?
Do you even know how much it costs to man/woman up and defend yourself? You're going to pay an employment lawyer $200/hr to get back your $8.00/hr?
How about a conversation when you take the job where you say things like, "Okay, when do the checks come out?" "When are the pay periods and how much will my check be?" "Where is my letter stating my offer and my hourly rate?"
The best labor rights center around the employee asking the right questions and being informed before negotiating and before taking the job.
I can appreciate where this advice comes from. However, to pursue victory through the courts or the department of labor in this case would be, at best, a phyrric victory if successful - which success is by no means assured.
The mistake was made when this arrangement was entered into. As I do the math from the OP's description, we're talking about maybe 144 hours of work -- at even $15 / hour, the total sum involved is just a little over $2,000.
If direct face-to-face appeals to the firm is question do not produce results, accept the lesson you learned, vow never to repeat that mistake, and move on.
While $2,000 isn't chicken feed, pursuing a formal grievance is going to involve time, and angst, that will grossly outweigh the value involved.
I'll agree with you that details are skimpy from OP. Otherwise you are full of baloney. Someone not asking the right questions during contract negotiation is not a license for other party to screw them over. You still have to observe applicable laws.
Have you ever done contract preparation in architecture before? Turns out you can put whateverthehell you want in your documents, but they will not necessarily mean shit in the eyes of the law.
Bottom line is, the OP is entitled to at least minimum wage for the work he performed. That's the law. All commisioned employees still have a base salary to meet the law requirements. And no, OP doesn't need to hire an expensive lawyer in order to collect the money owed. He needs to speak to his state's labor office.
Normally I would never respond to someone with such a horrid level of reading comprehension. Hopefully you will do better with this one and manage to read and comprehend the whole post rather than just one line.
Let's break it down:
If you have a snowballs chance in hell = Implication that there are risks, and you should evaluate the potential losses and gains.
it might be worth pursuing, ... if only at the information finding level = do some preliminary investigation to evaluate whether it is worth your time and effort.
I never said "YOU! Disadvantaged intern! Storm the federal court system and demand your money back, with no heed of the cost, because you are going to get it all back with that airtight case of yours!"
With regard to your generally unpleasant attitude, it's pretty easy to sit behind a computer and tell someone that they "should have done something from the beginning" when that opportunity is long gone. How about instead of bringing about an unapplicable hypothetical scenario reminiscent of "I told you so!," you instead focus on options the OP has that can actually improve their situation and move forward?
And since you asked, I know exactly how much it costs for legal fees- I am a forensic A+E and my wife is a laywer. And no offense, but if your lawyers are only charging you $200/hr you probably don't have very good representation.
rusty - how is he owed "at least minimum wage"? If a sales person is commission based and they don't make any sales, do they get paid?
Unless you can quantify your time/efforts, then you are more or less left with calling them and being persistant.
I dunno, maybe I see things from the hiring side more, but if it was clear at the start and (presumably) the employer did not have any commissions based on his work, then how it is foul play?
I do wish collections were as easy as you say. Even with solid contracts, there are many times where you just have to balance loses with time/money.
Can't hurt to send your hours to them, propose a fee, compromise or whatever to make it look more friendly.
trace, minimum wage laws are applicable to all types of employees. The only exception is high commision workers who wouldn't want to be salaried anyways. Think really expensive medical equipment or real estate sales.
That store clerk who works on commission down at the mall? Well, they actually get paid minimum wage + commissioned sales.
In OP's case, field measuring of real estate hardly counts as full time outside salesposition. In other words, this sales position is in name only. Yes, I know contract conflict resolution can be messy, but this one is pretty straight-forward. File a complaint with department of labor and your state's equivalent (if your state doesn't suck). In many cases they will get the money for you.
In any case, I'm tired of these motherfuckers running businesses that rely on deceit in order to be profitable. DOL knocking on their door may at least slow them down.
maybe if you give out their phone number we can all give them a call. I will call your non paying boss if you call my non paying client. It is kind of a play it forward business plan. If you collect I will give you a cut, if I collect I will give you a cut. I figure this is the way we can drive away dead beat employeers away along with dead beat clients. How much does your dead beat client owe you? You don't have to be specific other than the number of zeros following a numerical digit. Mine is four zeros!
rusty - so where is the line drawn? I am genuinely interested in knowing more about the details (certainly not enough to do my own research, though)...if said salesman is making $150k selling/leasing re (which are the only sales people I know) when times are good, then they suck and they are making close to $0, do they get to claim minimum wage?
Wouldn't this simply be a waiver at the contract signing? "I, blah blah, agree to work on commission based fee only".
The only difference between this scenario and the one our poster (where'd you go?) listed was the dollars made (we have to assume our poster was convinced he'd be making some money at some point).
I hear you about being bitter. I, too, can't stand the typical approach most businesses have - never pay until paid, leverage everyone to absurd levels, then bs forever, etc., etc.
We can see this clearly in Wall St., corporate profits are at record highs and unemployment is barely budging. Good time to be at the top, I suppose.
Don't waiters make less than minimum wage, since they are supposed to get tips to supplement their $2.25/hour? People who don't tip deserve an extra-thirsty spot in hell.
timotheysadler is absolutely right, though, that these kinds of problems can be avoided early on, and I'm assuming that the OP here is not the only young intern reading this thread. So thanks for the head's up and words of warning on the part of all those newbs getting into the working world now, tim!
But yes, businesses that treat their labor force like crap deserve to be the eternal benches on which those extra-thirsty non-tippers in hell sit (I've been listening to a lot of Julia Sweeney lately, so the biblical references).
Donna, tipped workers fall under a very special (well defined by law) category. Their pay varies greatly based on the state they're in. See this chart.
Also, Timmy is too jaded to be right about anything. His opinion is based on a personal feeling of the matter (libertarian herp derp), as opposed to any interest of laws at hand.
But your point still stands. Even tipped workers are not allowed to work for tips alone.
trace, I am not sure how the line is drawn. I would say if you are a professional salesman and can do itemized deduction on your taxes, than your expenses/payoffs are significant.
The tipped workers mentioned above can make as little as few bucks an hour, but only with the understanding that their tips will at least pull them over the minimum wage.
In any case, producing a bunch of work for your employer without any compensation would seem to put you well under that line, whatever the line may be.
not sure if it was the best way to go about it, but i emailed my employer and asked/demanded to be paid at $15 an hour for the 110 hours I worked. I cited some of the points brought up on this board... mainly the threat of contacting organizations and filing a complaint.
Here's an excerpt:
If this is so, then what you have is called a scam. I would like to be paid for the 110 hours I recorded. If not then I along with my former coworkers will be filing a complaint with the IIDA, NCIDQ, AIA, and BBB. Additionally, your office approved these hours this summer for NCARB IDP credit, which describes the job as a paid position in an architecture related filed, among other requirements of which your office also signed off on. Aside from that, any kind of free work is illegal, under any circumstance.
I am requesting a rate of $15 an hour.
I got an email back:
I would be happy to set up a meeting with you (and any of your classmates) to discuss your complaints.
If you still have a copy of your employment agreement(s), or any other paperwork, you should review them and bring them to the meeting.
Let me know.
Based on what my classmates/co-workers have said, they usually just ignore emails regarding this (we didn't see the boss much... it was an email from home kind of job). Also sent an email to the owner of the firm, who wasn't in charge of this really, so the pressure gets put on this guy more with the threat of possible legal action. I asked if they could forward me a copy of the contract I signed but I don't think they have it. What they DID do is sign off on the hours I worked for IDP, so there's a record.
Unfortunately now I can't just throw around acronyms and other things... I have to actually look them up. At least I have a starting point, so thanks to everyone here.
Definitely a lesson learned. Mostly out of the desperation of the recession, but I guess its better to have made it now, while I'm young and don't need the money to live. Also damn lucky I didn't waste my whole co-op on it like some of my buddies.
Can I say the name of the firm here? Don't know if its against forum rules, but I'd love to destroy their reputation. Archinect has a huge internet presence. You guys can hate mail the hell out of them.
Due89, I'm very happy that you did that. I hope you get some kind of a compensation out of it. Try not to resort to threats too much. Be firm in your stance though.
trace, it's a sad world we live in where a ton of people would kill for $15/h.
from what I understand posting the firm's name here would likely cause this thread to be taken down - which means future readers won't benefit from your experience. it's happened a few times.
toaster, archinect has all grown up now! Now they'll just remove the offending text unless you bruise the moderator's ego. But hushhhh. We don't talk about that around here.
anyway - I wouldn't post their name in a public place unless you're sure you have protection under the law - I'd just spread word amongst others in your program that this place is bad news.
I missed all the vitriol earlier (thankfully) but wanted to chime in with a thought.
I worked at a place once that owed me back pay, which I eventually received because another employee contacted the state's department of labor, who promptly investigated & gave the place 2 weeks to pay all back pay or else face strict consequences. We were paid up.
I note this because a lot of people on this board seem to instantly assume that getting your wages due will necessarily require paid legal support - and that's just not the case. In labor law probably more than most other forms of law there are actually a lot of a) non-profit legal activists / lawyers who donate time pro bono, or otherwise will advise you for free and b) government agencies that work to protect the interests of the little guy.
Whistle-blowing with the Department of Labor is a good first start - even at the most minimal level they will hear you out and help you determine whether you have a legitimate claim. If you do, they might just investigate it for you. I suggest heading to your local office & starting the process to file a claim, at a minimum.
The letter you wrote is also a great idea - sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, and surprise, you might end up getting what you want. I tend to agree with Rusty that this forum tends to be surprisingly defeatist. There are often small steps you can take on your own, for free, that end up producing surprisingly large results. Recently I got $100 knocked off my rent per month simply by writing to my landlord and asking. You never know what you might be missing out on if you don't reach out and try.
This was a co-op through your school correct? If you're still in school you might want to check and see if your school offers legal services to students. I took advantage of it when I was an undergrad for some innocuous legal paperwork - its a resource I never knew about until I was in need of it but I was glad it existed. I would check around with your school if you do indeed end up needing some legal advice and best of all its usually FREE
Not paid - Anything I can do?
Long story short, a year ago I had an internship with an interior design firm doing floor plans for real estate agents. It wasn't my only internship, but because mine was part time I decided to do this 1-2 days a week. The job was basically measuring a house and drawing it in CAD roughly. It was supposed to be paid by business created by the referrals, technically. It had a contract. I was a "designer" on paper... I was an actual employee too.
Never got paid. It was pretty infrequent so I did it for 3 months. Obviously it was a scam, but it didn't look it. The co-op office at my school had had people do co-ops here before, one of the guys at my interview was legitimately a student at my school, and 4/5 of my classmates were also doing it (full time though).
Can I do anything legally? I tracked all my hours. The only thing would be that I was supposed to be paid by a certain percentage of the referral project (I know, I'm a stupid, naive kid) but how should I know if they ever got referrals?
What is the "referral project"? Who is referring what? I am confused.
But yeah, sounds like you got screwed. Need more info for a full conclusion on that, though. Might not be a scam, if there were no "referrals", then you get no pay.
I am confused as well. Legally, if you have a case it will be difficult to pursue and not worth the time and money invested on your end.
You can contact the ID firm again and again, be persistent, and demand to be paid. You can also alert your school so that they will not recommend the firm in the future. You can contact your local IIDA, NCIDQ, AIA, or BBB boards to file a complaint.
In the end, life lesson learned.
When anyone tells you they can't pay you for the work they want you for, but say there's plenty of future work in it for you, hang up the phone, run away, delete the email. This is a tired old saying by people trying to get something for nothing from the eager and naive. You just learned this lesson the hard way.
It sounds like an awfully vague contract. Undefined payment based upon referrals that come from your work?
you were working for commission; good luck establishing that they made any money absent filing a lawsuit, which almost certainly makes no sense financially.
walk away from the $, but i'd go talk to whoever runs the co-op program at your school and give them a ration of shit.
agree with jeffe (hey jeffe, how's albucrackee?) stir up a shit storm at the coop. email all students and let them know these guys are scam artists. once bitten, twice shy.
I've seen a variation of this "business model" before. Mostly with window treatment, closet and kitchen 'specialists'. Basically the company offers to do schematic design for the client prior to the client agreeing to services. They'll send you 'the design specialist' to measure the work, and someone in-house wil quickly overlay a proposed design. Then you hope the prospective client likes it and signs on the dotted line.
Perhaps it's the future of architectural services as well? To be fair, we are not that far from it right now.
Due89, if I were you, I'd imediately contact your state's labor office. Hopefully your state is labor friendly. Since you were an actual employee, you are owed back wages. Even if it's minimum wage, it's better than nothing. Depending on your state, the labor office may even help you by directly collecting your wages. Don't give up on this. Do it in the name of other employees who are yet to be screwed over.
"Since you were an actual employee, you are owed back wages."
what wages? they were clearly commission based earnings, not hourly or salaried.
however, perhaps the labor dept. would like to know about the company not reporting income?
(freaking windy here vado, but spring is always welcome!)
el vado is still closed and vacant, btw.
el jeffy, certain companies will do anything in their power to call their employees contractors. In many cases that shit just won't fly. You know that.
Heck, I'm sure Wallmart would love to put their greeters on commision. Their legal advised them not to.
If your job is to only field measure houses, and you have very little control over the process of landing a new 'commision' or 'client' or whatever they want to call it, then chances are you are probably not a commisioned contract worker.
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
Agreed. Nobody is going to give you anything out of kindness or because it is the right thing to do. Chances are that in this case you will have to take matters into your own hands.
If you feel you have a snowballs chance in hell, it might be worth pursuing with a more official entity if only at the information gathering level. Never hurts.
If you feel you have a chance and choose to do nothing, then you are no better than the people on that whine about their lack of income and refuse to even entertain the thought of changing their ways of working. Man/Woman up and defend yourself.
I am dissapointed by the defeatist attitudes dished out as advices on here. Sadly, you have to fight for every one of your labor rights these days...
If you feel you have a snowballs chance in hell, it might be worth pursuing with a more official entity if only at the information gathering level.
Man/Woman up and defend yourself.
Always it's fight, fight, fight. You deserve to. You got screwed. How dare they do that. Really?
Do you even know how much it costs to man/woman up and defend yourself? You're going to pay an employment lawyer $200/hr to get back your $8.00/hr?
How about a conversation when you take the job where you say things like, "Okay, when do the checks come out?" "When are the pay periods and how much will my check be?" "Where is my letter stating my offer and my hourly rate?"
The best labor rights center around the employee asking the right questions and being informed before negotiating and before taking the job.
"Man/Woman up and defend yourself."
I can appreciate where this advice comes from. However, to pursue victory through the courts or the department of labor in this case would be, at best, a phyrric victory if successful - which success is by no means assured.
The mistake was made when this arrangement was entered into. As I do the math from the OP's description, we're talking about maybe 144 hours of work -- at even $15 / hour, the total sum involved is just a little over $2,000.
If direct face-to-face appeals to the firm is question do not produce results, accept the lesson you learned, vow never to repeat that mistake, and move on.
While $2,000 isn't chicken feed, pursuing a formal grievance is going to involve time, and angst, that will grossly outweigh the value involved.
buy some paint and go banksy on their shit buildings.
jeffe how long has the vado been vacant?
timothysandler. Can I call you Timmy?
I'll agree with you that details are skimpy from OP. Otherwise you are full of baloney. Someone not asking the right questions during contract negotiation is not a license for other party to screw them over. You still have to observe applicable laws.
Have you ever done contract preparation in architecture before? Turns out you can put whateverthehell you want in your documents, but they will not necessarily mean shit in the eyes of the law.
Bottom line is, the OP is entitled to at least minimum wage for the work he performed. That's the law. All commisioned employees still have a base salary to meet the law requirements. And no, OP doesn't need to hire an expensive lawyer in order to collect the money owed. He needs to speak to his state's labor office.
@vado - a couple years now - a local developer with a less than stellar record wanted to tear it down for a housing bubble project.
@timothysadler
Normally I would never respond to someone with such a horrid level of reading comprehension. Hopefully you will do better with this one and manage to read and comprehend the whole post rather than just one line.
Let's break it down:
If you have a snowballs chance in hell = Implication that there are risks, and you should evaluate the potential losses and gains.
it might be worth pursuing, ... if only at the information finding level = do some preliminary investigation to evaluate whether it is worth your time and effort.
I never said "YOU! Disadvantaged intern! Storm the federal court system and demand your money back, with no heed of the cost, because you are going to get it all back with that airtight case of yours!"
With regard to your generally unpleasant attitude, it's pretty easy to sit behind a computer and tell someone that they "should have done something from the beginning" when that opportunity is long gone. How about instead of bringing about an unapplicable hypothetical scenario reminiscent of "I told you so!," you instead focus on options the OP has that can actually improve their situation and move forward?
And since you asked, I know exactly how much it costs for legal fees- I am a forensic A+E and my wife is a laywer. And no offense, but if your lawyers are only charging you $200/hr you probably don't have very good representation.
rusty - how is he owed "at least minimum wage"? If a sales person is commission based and they don't make any sales, do they get paid?
Unless you can quantify your time/efforts, then you are more or less left with calling them and being persistant.
I dunno, maybe I see things from the hiring side more, but if it was clear at the start and (presumably) the employer did not have any commissions based on his work, then how it is foul play?
I do wish collections were as easy as you say. Even with solid contracts, there are many times where you just have to balance loses with time/money.
Can't hurt to send your hours to them, propose a fee, compromise or whatever to make it look more friendly.
well i want the sign!
trace, minimum wage laws are applicable to all types of employees. The only exception is high commision workers who wouldn't want to be salaried anyways. Think really expensive medical equipment or real estate sales.
That store clerk who works on commission down at the mall? Well, they actually get paid minimum wage + commissioned sales.
In OP's case, field measuring of real estate hardly counts as full time outside salesposition. In other words, this sales position is in name only. Yes, I know contract conflict resolution can be messy, but this one is pretty straight-forward. File a complaint with department of labor and your state's equivalent (if your state doesn't suck). In many cases they will get the money for you.
In any case, I'm tired of these motherfuckers running businesses that rely on deceit in order to be profitable. DOL knocking on their door may at least slow them down.
I like to get kissed before getting fucked
Wrong profession for that med.
maybe if you give out their phone number we can all give them a call. I will call your non paying boss if you call my non paying client. It is kind of a play it forward business plan. If you collect I will give you a cut, if I collect I will give you a cut. I figure this is the way we can drive away dead beat employeers away along with dead beat clients. How much does your dead beat client owe you? You don't have to be specific other than the number of zeros following a numerical digit. Mine is four zeros!
rusty! You live in such a great world! Life is good!
Put upon or on the wrong side of a misunderstanding? Make those motherfuckers pay! It's easy, just file a claim!
Didn't get what you deserve after the fact? Didn't ask questions before you started? They're obviously in the wrong!! The law is on your side!!
Where do you live rusty!? I want to move there immediately.
Timmy, at least you're a passionate defeatist.
shiiit that business plan doesn't work, "I will be giving Timmy a cut if I help him get his money....
tim,
Glad to see you are still stirring things up and have no constructive feedback to help the OP move forward.
rusty - so where is the line drawn? I am genuinely interested in knowing more about the details (certainly not enough to do my own research, though)...if said salesman is making $150k selling/leasing re (which are the only sales people I know) when times are good, then they suck and they are making close to $0, do they get to claim minimum wage?
Wouldn't this simply be a waiver at the contract signing? "I, blah blah, agree to work on commission based fee only".
The only difference between this scenario and the one our poster (where'd you go?) listed was the dollars made (we have to assume our poster was convinced he'd be making some money at some point).
I hear you about being bitter. I, too, can't stand the typical approach most businesses have - never pay until paid, leverage everyone to absurd levels, then bs forever, etc., etc.
We can see this clearly in Wall St., corporate profits are at record highs and unemployment is barely budging. Good time to be at the top, I suppose.
Don't waiters make less than minimum wage, since they are supposed to get tips to supplement their $2.25/hour? People who don't tip deserve an extra-thirsty spot in hell.
timotheysadler is absolutely right, though, that these kinds of problems can be avoided early on, and I'm assuming that the OP here is not the only young intern reading this thread. So thanks for the head's up and words of warning on the part of all those newbs getting into the working world now, tim!
But yes, businesses that treat their labor force like crap deserve to be the eternal benches on which those extra-thirsty non-tippers in hell sit (I've been listening to a lot of Julia Sweeney lately, so the biblical references).
Donna, tipped workers fall under a very special (well defined by law) category. Their pay varies greatly based on the state they're in. See this chart.
Also, Timmy is too jaded to be right about anything. His opinion is based on a personal feeling of the matter (libertarian herp derp), as opposed to any interest of laws at hand.
But your point still stands. Even tipped workers are not allowed to work for tips alone.
trace, I am not sure how the line is drawn. I would say if you are a professional salesman and can do itemized deduction on your taxes, than your expenses/payoffs are significant.
The tipped workers mentioned above can make as little as few bucks an hour, but only with the understanding that their tips will at least pull them over the minimum wage.
In any case, producing a bunch of work for your employer without any compensation would seem to put you well under that line, whatever the line may be.
This may contribute something to the conversation above about the relationship between minimum wage and contingency compensation:
http://www.ehow.com/list_6679133_minimum-wage-commission-laws.html
Note in particular the last section labeled "Exceptions"
not sure if it was the best way to go about it, but i emailed my employer and asked/demanded to be paid at $15 an hour for the 110 hours I worked. I cited some of the points brought up on this board... mainly the threat of contacting organizations and filing a complaint.
Here's an excerpt:
If this is so, then what you have is called a scam. I would like to be paid for the 110 hours I recorded. If not then I along with my former coworkers will be filing a complaint with the IIDA, NCIDQ, AIA, and BBB. Additionally, your office approved these hours this summer for NCARB IDP credit, which describes the job as a paid position in an architecture related filed, among other requirements of which your office also signed off on. Aside from that, any kind of free work is illegal, under any circumstance.
I am requesting a rate of $15 an hour.
I got an email back:
I would be happy to set up a meeting with you (and any of your classmates) to discuss your complaints.
If you still have a copy of your employment agreement(s), or any other paperwork, you should review them and bring them to the meeting.
Let me know.
Based on what my classmates/co-workers have said, they usually just ignore emails regarding this (we didn't see the boss much... it was an email from home kind of job). Also sent an email to the owner of the firm, who wasn't in charge of this really, so the pressure gets put on this guy more with the threat of possible legal action. I asked if they could forward me a copy of the contract I signed but I don't think they have it. What they DID do is sign off on the hours I worked for IDP, so there's a record.
Unfortunately now I can't just throw around acronyms and other things... I have to actually look them up. At least I have a starting point, so thanks to everyone here.
Definitely a lesson learned. Mostly out of the desperation of the recession, but I guess its better to have made it now, while I'm young and don't need the money to live. Also damn lucky I didn't waste my whole co-op on it like some of my buddies.
Can I say the name of the firm here? Don't know if its against forum rules, but I'd love to destroy their reputation. Archinect has a huge internet presence. You guys can hate mail the hell out of them.
Due89 - good luck with that $15/hr, I know a ton of people that would kill for that.
Thanks, quiz, that was informative.
Due89, I'm very happy that you did that. I hope you get some kind of a compensation out of it. Try not to resort to threats too much. Be firm in your stance though.
trace, it's a sad world we live in where a ton of people would kill for $15/h.
from what I understand posting the firm's name here would likely cause this thread to be taken down - which means future readers won't benefit from your experience. it's happened a few times.
toaster, archinect has all grown up now! Now they'll just remove the offending text unless you bruise the moderator's ego. But hushhhh. We don't talk about that around here.
anyway - I wouldn't post their name in a public place unless you're sure you have protection under the law - I'd just spread word amongst others in your program that this place is bad news.
dude I'm not asking for a business name ...just post their phone number. The rest us up to the bad ashe bill collectors....
I missed all the vitriol earlier (thankfully) but wanted to chime in with a thought.
I worked at a place once that owed me back pay, which I eventually received because another employee contacted the state's department of labor, who promptly investigated & gave the place 2 weeks to pay all back pay or else face strict consequences. We were paid up.
I note this because a lot of people on this board seem to instantly assume that getting your wages due will necessarily require paid legal support - and that's just not the case. In labor law probably more than most other forms of law there are actually a lot of a) non-profit legal activists / lawyers who donate time pro bono, or otherwise will advise you for free and b) government agencies that work to protect the interests of the little guy.
Whistle-blowing with the Department of Labor is a good first start - even at the most minimal level they will hear you out and help you determine whether you have a legitimate claim. If you do, they might just investigate it for you. I suggest heading to your local office & starting the process to file a claim, at a minimum.
The letter you wrote is also a great idea - sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself, and surprise, you might end up getting what you want. I tend to agree with Rusty that this forum tends to be surprisingly defeatist. There are often small steps you can take on your own, for free, that end up producing surprisingly large results. Recently I got $100 knocked off my rent per month simply by writing to my landlord and asking. You never know what you might be missing out on if you don't reach out and try.
Thank you manta for that great post.
See kids? Department of labor will indeed work on your behalf to protect your basic employment rights.
I'm not taking crazy pills. Not tonight at least.
This was a co-op through your school correct? If you're still in school you might want to check and see if your school offers legal services to students. I took advantage of it when I was an undergrad for some innocuous legal paperwork - its a resource I never knew about until I was in need of it but I was glad it existed. I would check around with your school if you do indeed end up needing some legal advice and best of all its usually FREE
This may also be a stupid question to ask at this point, but did you receive course credit for your work?
Another thing you can do is notify your school and other schools in the region to keep students away from there.
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