My company is now purposefully breaking federal labor law (attached email)

[Phoenixmgs]

So I worked over 40 hours last week because I was on-call and a critical ticket came in and had to attend to that. I asked how to submit overtime hours because they forced me into salaried pay as I was hourly. My position is not exempt from overtime FLSA law (I have the Department of Labor letter saying that) and they were forcing me to take comp time instead, which is illegal in the private sector.

I called them out on it and mistakenly got sent the following email threatening my job and starting they are perfectly fine with breaking the law and are purposefully doing it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I seem to recall a thread where we discussed wage theft, and you very brazenly said that wage theft is the employee's problem and only exists because they don't push back on it. Then you bragged about all the times you've pushed back on your company regarding wage and accounting issues.

Well, this is what happens when you push back against companies that are actively performing wage theft. You get fired.

You are very lucky that you received this email by accident, because your company is incompetent. Take time to document everything, and talk to an attorney. When you get fired you'll have a really good claim against the company for illegal termination. Most people are not this lucky.

I hope you've learned something.

Also, as someone who works in the space of legal compliance for employment, I would advise you to take down this post, or at the very least do a better job redacting it. This is a matter to be discussed between you and a lawyer, not in the public space, and discussing it publicly can potentially fuck up any settlement the company is willing to make.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Jesus, do they know you have that email?? Because that is damning evidence I'm certain they don't want you to have. If they try to fire you, keep that little nugget handy; see how they feel about settling a lawsuit over paying a few extra hours of OT.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Also, as someone who works in the space of legal compliance for employment, I would advise you to take down this post, or at the very least do a better job redacting it. This is a matter to be discussed between you and a lawyer, not in the public space, and discussing it publicly can potentially fuck up any settlement the company is willing to make.

Anyway, good luck.

Definitely. B**** is borderline doxxing himself by giving us his name and the company he works for.

 

[Summerstorm]

I have been hanging around the subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ (A bit morbid for me. it is mostly US-American posters and the circumstances are different there)

There is TONS of this stuff though.

Also: Agree. Take out your name, and everything except the main text. (I now know your first name, first name of the HR-Lady in charge and the company (or subcompany)) Way too much.

Also: Wow, they sent you an cc... how... nice of them, hehe. (Gather all, offline, critically log everything pertaining to employment and do backups offline - reviews, e-mails, orders, commendations. Just having a e-mail from anybody saying: "Eh, good job. You came through as always. It wouldn't work as good if you weren't here", would be worth gold if fired)

On the other side: If you have a lot of "Wait a second... i am slower than i should be... i am terrible and way to costly..." Well, always at least two ways to see things (Comes from me... i am pretty bad at my job - super-ineffective)

EDIT: Ah yeah. Man. The whole Web2.0 bullshit is really is bad. LinkedIn told me who the HR person is, and i don't even have an account there... if i had i could maybe find more. Personal HR and C-Suite really is the most attackable positions in a company. (I had be doing some IT-Cybersecurity base-knowledge workshops in my company. Everything bad comes from there, hehe.)

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Don’t forget, “Warmest regards,” and “HAPPY 4th of JULY”!!

You got the upper hand here now with a saved copy of the email, but delete it off anyplace you might’ve posted like others have said. Either they comply with the OT per law or they can face legal consequences. Either way you’ll probably have to start watching your back because they’ll now be looking for any excuse to get rid of you legally. They were put on the spot and it would not surprise me in the least if they’re the resentful type based on that “private” email.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I seem to recall a thread where we discussed wage theft, and you very brazenly said that wage theft is the employee's problem and only exists because they don't push back on it. Then you bragged about all the times you've pushed back on your company regarding wage and accounting issues.

Well, this is what happens when you push back against companies that are actively performing wage theft. You get fired.

You are very lucky that you received this email by accident, because your company is incompetent. Take time to document everything, and talk to an attorney. When you get fired you'll have a really good claim against the company for illegal termination. Most people are not this lucky.

I hope you've learned something.

Also, as someone who works in the space of legal compliance for employment, I would advise you to take down this post, or at the very least do a better job redacting it. This is a matter to be discussed between you and a lawyer, not in the public space, and discussing it publicly can potentially fuck up any settlement the company is willing to make.

Anyway, good luck.

People have more power than they realize. If the majority (probably not even majority) of employees would stand up for such things, the company wouldn't have enough employees to do competently do business. I understand some people are young, needing experience and money and not in a good space to put themselves in a position to get fired. People have more control over their lives than they realize. For example, I don't care if I get fired and I probably have at least a year and a half of money saved to where I don't need any income to pay all my bills. I already have considered this company not worthy to work for and figured I should look for another job anyway. I purposefully put myself in a position that if something happens, whether random chance or even my direct doing, it's not going to affect me much. Everyone can do that if they want (I've never made over 40k/year and I did that).

My main reason for challenging this isn't the OT hours. It's because they force employees to work 8.5 hours/day instead of 8. Since I was hourly until very recently, I was either getting OT for working those extra hours each week or I left at 4:30 instead of 5 when they said they weren't paying OT anymore. I only then challenged this because it's in relation to the other thing that they will probably tell me to do. Funny thing is, I personally would prefer comp time for on-call hours like that but it wasn't just about that.

Also: Wow, they sent you an cc... how... nice of them, hehe.

Oh, I'm in the "To:", not even the "CC:" lol

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

People have more power than they realize. If the majority (probably not even majority) of employees would stand up for such things, the company wouldn't have enough employees to do competently do business.

Yes, that's why unions exist, because historically this is impossible to do without a formalized framework.

I understand some people are young, needing experience and money and not in a good space to put themselves in a position to get fired. People have more control over their lives than they realize. For example, I don't care if I get fired and I probably have at least a year and a half of money saved to where I don't need any income to pay all my bills. I already have considered this company not worthy to work for and figured I should look for another job anyway. I purposefully put myself in a position that if something happens, whether random chance or even my direct doing, it's not going to affect me much. Everyone can do that if they want (I've never made over 40k/year and I did that).

I like how you prefaced this part with how you understand that people have different circumstances than you and then proceeded to not at all understand how people have different circumstances than you.

Like I said, you're lucky your company is this incompetent and we'll leave it at that.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Yes, that's why unions exist, because historically this is impossible to do without a formalized framework.



I like how you prefaced this part with how you understand that people have different circumstances than you and then proceeded to not at all understand how people have different circumstances than you.

Like I said, you're lucky your company is this incompetent and we'll leave it at that.

I didn't do anything any other person couldn't do. Unions are an improvement but aren't required.

I didn't run into any money from like the lottery, some settlement, inheritance, etc. I make less than the average income in the US. If I can do what I do, no reason a good chunk of people (if not majority) could do the same as well.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I didn't do anything any other person couldn't do. Unions are an improvement but aren't required.

I didn't run into any money from like the lottery, some settlement, inheritance, etc. I make less than the average income in the US. If I can do what I do, no reason a good chunk of people (if not majority) could do the same as well.

I like how you prefaced this part with how you understand that people have different circumstances than you and then proceeded to not at all understand how people have different circumstances than you.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Unions aren't really a perfect solution either, they're mostly about making money for themselves. We had a union at the place I used to work and they were completely useless. We had a union meeting where we brought all our complaints to the union and it was around 4 months before they got off their butts and had a meeting with our management because they were just too busy with other stuff. Could have sworn that we were paying union dues too, but I guess it didn't count for anything.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Quote....

Do you not realize it goes both ways...? You can not only see how something would be hard for certain people and also see how something could be easy for certain other people as well. Like, you know, when you watch a Youtube video on how to fix something, then you do it yourself and you're like "that was easy like anyone can do that".

Unions aren't really a perfect solution either, they're mostly about making money for themselves. We had a union at the place I used to work and they were completely useless. We had a union meeting where we brought all our complaints to the union and it was around 4 months before they got off their butts and had a meeting with our management because they were just too busy with other stuff. Could have sworn that we were paying union dues too, but I guess it didn't count for anything.

Any organization made of people can not only have the good of people but the bad of people as well. Unions can get complacent, lazy, or in bed with the company even.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Like, you know, when you watch a Youtube video on how to fix something, then you do it yourself and you're like "that was easy like anyone can do that".

Yeah, it's really easy if you're an able bodied person with time on their hands and all the necessary tools and equipment or the money to buy them (and a place to store all of those tools an equipment).

There's always caveats.

Like I said, you lack the imagination to understand circumstances that are different than your own.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I just figured out that I can actually submit a Department of Labor claim. Yesterday I tried to do that but they said I can only submit a claim if they owe me money basically. I was really good about making sure I wasn't working over 8 hours initially as they wanted me to work 8-5 but I would leave at 4:30 since that was 8 hours of work. I was then told to work to 5pm but to put in the extra half hour on the timesheet (so 2.5 hours of OT a week in essence). Then, they forced me to switch to salary instead of hourly because they think salary magically makes you OT/FLSA exempt. They also gave me a pay raise (that was technically a pay decrease) that I refused to sign as they tried to trick me into becoming salaried with a pay raise (but I read things), then they made me sign that or they'd let me go. So the last pay period was the 1st time I worked OT since becoming salaried because of on-call critical tickets outside of normal work hours. I then pushed hard on getting OT for my on-call hours on Monday because I kept getting told "there is no OT, only comp time" and I kept telling my manager that was against the law. I got HR involved and finally got to submit my OT.

So now you might ask, how do they owe me any money? Looking over my past paychecks today, I noticed that my shitty ass company can't not fuck up simple math (they've been fucking basic math up since the very 1st offer letter I got and declined). All the OT hours (only 12 total) I've worked they have only paid my normal hourly wage and not time and a half so they actually do owe me some money. And the current pay period I just submitted probably won't get paid properly either as they probably don't even know how the fuck to get hourly rate from salary based on how incompetent they are. Thus, I will be opening up a claim with the Department of Labor tomorrow. It's not really to get my money (as it's not that much obviously) but to get them to stop taking advantage of all the other techs and forcing people into "EXEMPT" positions as the fucking HR lady put in the email.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Yeah, it's really easy if you're an able bodied person with time on their hands and all the necessary tools and equipment or the money to buy them (and a place to store all of those tools an equipment).

There's always caveats.

Like I said, you lack the imagination to understand circumstances that are different than your own.

Most people are able bodied people... And tons of things you can fix watching a Youtube video don't require special tools and money to buy those tools. Part of the reason why I learned computers vs like cars or something was because the tools required to learn/fix computer hardware is just like a screw driver kit.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I just figured out that I can actually submit a Department of Labor claim. Yesterday I tried to do that but they said I can only submit a claim if they owe me money basically. I was really good about making sure I wasn't working over 8 hours initially as they wanted me to work 8-5 but I would leave at 4:30 since that was 8 hours of work. I was then told to work to 5pm but to put in the extra half hour on the timesheet (so 2.5 hours of OT a week in essence). Then, they forced me to switch to salary instead of hourly because they think salary magically makes you OT/FLSA exempt. They also gave me a pay raise (that was technically a pay decrease) that I refused to sign as they tried to trick me into becoming salaried with a pay raise (but I read things), then they made me sign that or they'd let me go. So the last pay period was the 1st time I worked OT since becoming salaried because of on-call critical tickets outside of normal work hours. I then pushed hard on getting OT for my on-call hours on Monday because I kept getting told "there is no OT and I can only get comp time" and I kept telling my manager that was against the law. I got HR involved and finally got to submit my OT.

So now you might ask, how do they owe me any money? Looking over my past paychecks today, I noticed that my shitty ass company can't not fuck up simple math (they've been fucking basic math up since the very 1st offer letter I got and declined). All the OT hours (only 12 total) I've worked they have only paid my normal hourly wage and not time and a half so they actually do owe me some money. And the current pay period I just submitted probably won't get paid properly either as they probably don't even know how the fuck to get hourly rate from salary based on how incompetent they are. Thus, I will be opening up a claim with the Department of Labor tomorrow. It's not really to get my money (as it's not that much obviously) but to get them to stop taking advantage of all the other techs and forcing people into "EXEMPT" positions as the fucking HR lady put in the email.

If I remember correctly you're from Illinois?

In Illinois, any overtime that has not been properly been paid out can be collected up to 3 years from the date that overtime work was completed.

I know you haven't been doing OT for 3 years there, but if you're intending to submit a claim to the department of labor I would suggest talking to your teammates about this and having them submit claims as well for any unpaid overtime going back up to 3 years. You can also make a claim with the Illinois department of labor separately from the US department of labor (which allows you to claim overtime going back 2 years).

Since you only have 12 hours of OT owed to you the DOL likely won't treat this as seriously as they would if your entire team was involved.

Here's the information about how to make these complaints.

File A Complaint - IDOL

The Department of Labor processes the following types of employment-related complaints. You can visit any of the offices for the Department of Labor and submit a complaint in person. Depending upon the type of complaint, you may need to provide certain documents such as W-2, pay stubs, and/or...

labor.illinois.gov

How to File a Complaint

www.dol.gov

 

[Phoenixmgs]

If I remember correctly you're from Illinois?

In Illinois, any overtime that has not been properly been paid out can be collected up to 3 years from the date that overtime work was completed.

I know you haven't been doing OT for 3 years there, but if you're intending to submit a claim to the department of labor I would suggest talking to your teammates about this and having them submit claims as well for any unpaid overtime going back up to 3 years. You can also make a claim with the Illinois department of labor separately from the US department of labor (which allows you to claim overtime going back 2 years).

Since you only have 12 hours of OT owed to you the DOL likely won't treat this as seriously as they would if your entire team was involved.

Here's the information about how to make these complaints.

File A Complaint - IDOL

The Department of Labor processes the following types of employment-related complaints. You can visit any of the offices for the Department of Labor and submit a complaint in person. Depending upon the type of complaint, you may need to provide certain documents such as W-2, pay stubs, and/or...

labor.illinois.gov

How to File a Complaint

www.dol.gov

I moved to Indiana a couple years back, the physical place (also in Indiana) that I work at is still the same even though I switched companies (my old company lost the contract essentially). My main reason for opening the claim is to get the Department of Labor to look at my company. It seems like a complaint is more of "hey, this company is doing some bullshit, check them out" vs "I'm owed like $120.23 so force them to pay me that". They said I couldn't make a complaint myself because I'm not owed anything, but I realized that I am. I want to make a complaint for the company to get checked out and put in their place basically vs getting my money. I also don't feel like doing more emails currently because the email is rather threatening.

How to File a Complaint

www.dol.gov

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I also don't feel like doing more emails currently because the email is rather threatening.

No, email is good, it's documentation. Try to do as much of your communication with the company by email as possible, and forward yourself the emails to a personal email account, don't just save them in your work email.

If HR wants to talk to you in person or on the phone, immediately after the conversation send them an email reiterating the talking points and ask "did I understand all of that correctly?" so that you have a paper trail of everything they tell you. This will be useful if you get fired and want to sue for wrongful termination.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

No, email is good, it's documentation. Try to do as much of your communication with the company by email as possible, and forward yourself the emails to a personal email account, don't just save them in your work email.

If HR wants to talk to you in person or on the phone, immediately after the conversation send them an email reiterating the talking points and ask "did I understand all of that correctly?" so that you have a paper trail of everything they tell you. This will be useful if you get fired and want to sue for wrongful termination.

If I email them about it and they fix it, I wouldn't be able to make a claim. That's another reason why I don't wanna email about it yet.

I also moved all the emails and Teams chats to my gmail. Also got an appointment with a lawyer next Wednesday.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If I email them about it and they fix it, I wouldn't be able to make a claim. That's another reason why I don't wanna email about it yet.

Given that they're already pretty set on firing you I would say the best thing for you to do is continue pushing the issue so that they fire you sooner rather than later. The email already shows that they're planning on paying you, but the sooner that they fire you after that email the more relevant the content in that email is to your firing. If they fire you a year from now it's a lot less clear that they are looking for an excuse to fire you than if you get fired a month from now.

I also moved all the emails and Teams chats to my gmail. Also got an appointment with a lawyer next Wednesday.

Good, then it's probably best for you to follow the attorney's advice once you meet with them rather than some dudes on a random forum.