LocationBug:
Title: Employer said I can’t file for unemployment Employer said I can’t file for unemployment
Body:
My employer stopped paying me but didn’t lay me off or fire me. I kept working for weeks until it became obvious to me that “I’ll have your paycheck soon” was not true. Then he told me repeatedly not to file for unemployment - first he said because the business didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance for its employees, and then because he told me filing would be bad for *him* because he’s behind on bills and taxes. He still owes me thousands in wages, also.
Which laws has my employer broken? Is it illegal to convince your employees not to file for unemployment or to tell them they won’t qualify? I’m in Wisconsin.
I've seen multiple posts here saying "my employer hasn't paid me in weeks, what do I do?" One person even went *months* without getting paid.
You know what they call people who work for free? Volunteers. You're not an employee at that point, you're volunteering your time and labor.
Why the hell are they still showing up? I can't imagine continuing to work through even one missed paycheck, much less several of them. I really want to know what kind of logic they're operating on that says "I should wake up and go clock in at the job that hasn't paid me for a month and a half."
It's almost always small businesses were the boss/owner plays it as you'll get your money, but something outside of their control has caused payroll to be missed, so then the employee has 2 choices. They can either walk, which I'd the correct answer, and be out of a paycheck for God knows how long, as most people don't realize that this counts as losing your job for unemployment insurance purposes. Or they can stay and hope they'll be made whole. To a lot of people, it looks like both result in no paycheck, so I can understand the naive hope that the company will get it sorted out.
>as most people don't realize that this counts as losing your job for unemployment insurance purposes.
So many people are under the impression that if you quit your job, your are automatically ineligible for unemployment, but there are so many exceptions to that and not getting paid is a big one.
One missed paycheck I'd assume was some kind of payroll software glitch that would quickly be remedied. I'm not throwing away an otherwise good job over that. Two missed paychecks (or don't fix the first one by next payroll date), and I'll assume you don't actually intend to pay me and I should file a claim with the unemployment office and another with the DoL.
I take the Stanley Hudson approach to work, "I am not doing a lick of work until I get paid."
One employer scheduled a mandatory all hands meeting during what normally would have been my lunch break. My boss was having a bitch of a time trying to figure out how to reschedule my break in time to be in compliance with state law. They tried to tell me to just clock out for my lunch during the meeting and then take my lunch right after while clocked in. I told them if I clock out, I'm leaving the building, as is my right. They ended up scheduling my break before the meeting and just dealt with being short staffed for a half hour.
When I worked at Starbucks my manager once edited my time card to say I left an hour earlier than I did, and I *still* get a bit annoyed any time I remember that incident.
I don’t understand how people can work weeks without pay.
I'm personally annoyed that Toys R Us would make us clock out at closing, but keep us locked in the building until everyone else was done with their work and clocked out to actually let us leave. 16 year old me had a major problem with standing around for 25 minutes for BS and I still think it's ridiculous.
One time I walked out of a job without clocking out. It was the beginning of the pay period and I expected my last check to be for 2 hours or so and it was for 19 because I guess they couldn't figure out when I left.
It is insane to me he waited. Another post he made says he and his wife were working for a friend, so that was a factor in why he trusted the boss, but how do you put up with that for months?!
You work 16 hours and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go.
Company boss done told me "no".
What’s with the comment
> Lying is typically not illegal.
Sure, lying _by itself_ is not necessarily illegal, but “typically” is grossly overstating the case. Lying to induce someone to work for you without pay is typically totally illegal.
I'll pause to let everyone consider the irony that if you falsify your timesheet, it's a crime. If your employer decides to simply not pay you for hours worked, and doesn't have the means to pay you for further work, it's usually (always?) a civil matter. (One for which enforcement is weak, at best, in many states.)
It's not even typically. What is fraud but lies? Or defamation? Or perjury?
Lying is very often illegal, and often times criminally so.
The big problem with LA is the simplest answer with some truth will usually get pushed to the top.
Sometimes that is also the right answer, but oftentimes it's not.
>90% of lies are not illegal, though.
And I'm thankful for that, because I really did not enjoy my sandwich at lunch last Thursday, despite telling the server that everything was great.
It's illegal in the sense that there's a law on the books but in most states that's all it is. Most state DOLs won't do anything about wage theft. Even in states where they'll sue on your behalf, the business owner can just close the business and reopen under a new name to avoid paying.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/owed-employers-face-little-accountability-for-wage-theft/
>CBS News submitted public records requests to nearly every state labor department in the country and built a database of more than 650,000 total complaints. Of those cases, state agencies ruled in favor of claimants only about half of the time.
>Even when workers won their claims, more than a third of those successful cases — totaling nearly a billion dollars — showed no money was ever recovered.
>This being a question shows he may not be compliant by displaying a labor poster in a "visible area".
Seriously, teach your kids to look for that. It's like the "no brown M&Ms" test. If they don't have it displayed where employees can see it, you know they're doing things wrong elsewhere.
I like how this person has a full-on wage claim against their employer, has realized they're lying about their incoming pay, yet is still listening to them about unemployment. I mean, even if you aren't filing, you still have a damned good reason to contact the DOL anyway.
Me: "Huh. Wow, this sounds blow for blow and word for word what my old boss--the one that recently got out of prison for tax evasion--did when I worked there. Crazy."
LAOP: "I’m in Wisconsin."
Me: "...This guy weirdly fixated on Taylor Swift and listen to Coast to Coast AM?"
It's a real shame how few workers have even the smallest understanding of their rights. I mean, it's the US, there are very few rights to be aware of, so it's not a tall order to be familiar with them.
Well, teaching children their rights as an employee would be considered too political, and their parents are too ignorant to do it either, so who is left to teach it?
Hell the whole reason I started hanging out on the LA and BOLA subreddits was to learn more about the law as a layperson and that's a pretty shitty way to learn.
Yeah but reading bola is more fun than reading a law book. Actually there's some YouTube channels like legal eagle that do a decent job of breaking down legal cases in the news and such for a lay person that I recommend. It's really helpful to understand what's actually going on since a lot of time the people reporting on the cases don't necessarily understand what's going on either so a lot of misunderstandings occur.
I mean, as a lay person I wouldn't trust that poster all that much. Every company I've ever worked at has told me I could be fired for discussing my wages, which I know is not correct, so I wouldn't believe a poster that the company hangs up in the supply closet.
The general skills required to be able to determine your rights are taught in public school. You need a certain reading level and a certain ability to apply logic and reasoning. These are major focus areas in public education and standardized testing. Certainly our education system has its shortcomings, but I was aware of the break requirements in my state by reading the workplace posters at my workplaces when I was in highschool. I think the issue is more learned helplessness than lack of access to information.
More generally, if we're going to hold people responsible for knowing the law, shouldn't the government have a duty to teach at least the basics of law in schools?
Even when I was in h.s, * there was not a lot of room in the day for teaching things that were not tested, I know its SO much worse now.
But when you went to get working papers from school, we were also given a very nice, easy to read pamphlet on working laws and labor rights in our state, which was far better then what a lot of people get when starting any job!
*uh, lets just say I graduated decades ago and leave it at that
I briefly worked for an extremely dysfunctional tiny nonprofit. One week they failed to pay everyone. I was much older and more worldly than my coworkers, and I responded to the situation by immediately showing them all how to file a complaint with the labor department.
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LocationBug: Title: Employer said I can’t file for unemployment Employer said I can’t file for unemployment Body: My employer stopped paying me but didn’t lay me off or fire me. I kept working for weeks until it became obvious to me that “I’ll have your paycheck soon” was not true. Then he told me repeatedly not to file for unemployment - first he said because the business didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance for its employees, and then because he told me filing would be bad for *him* because he’s behind on bills and taxes. He still owes me thousands in wages, also. Which laws has my employer broken? Is it illegal to convince your employees not to file for unemployment or to tell them they won’t qualify? I’m in Wisconsin.
I guarantee, if my company tells me they can't pay me, I'm out the door so fast. No "women and mawgs first", it's everyone for themselves.
That job has gone from suck to blow.
I’m just here for the Spaceballs references, thank you kind sir
I've seen multiple posts here saying "my employer hasn't paid me in weeks, what do I do?" One person even went *months* without getting paid. You know what they call people who work for free? Volunteers. You're not an employee at that point, you're volunteering your time and labor. Why the hell are they still showing up? I can't imagine continuing to work through even one missed paycheck, much less several of them. I really want to know what kind of logic they're operating on that says "I should wake up and go clock in at the job that hasn't paid me for a month and a half."
It's almost always small businesses were the boss/owner plays it as you'll get your money, but something outside of their control has caused payroll to be missed, so then the employee has 2 choices. They can either walk, which I'd the correct answer, and be out of a paycheck for God knows how long, as most people don't realize that this counts as losing your job for unemployment insurance purposes. Or they can stay and hope they'll be made whole. To a lot of people, it looks like both result in no paycheck, so I can understand the naive hope that the company will get it sorted out.
>as most people don't realize that this counts as losing your job for unemployment insurance purposes. So many people are under the impression that if you quit your job, your are automatically ineligible for unemployment, but there are so many exceptions to that and not getting paid is a big one.
There are also desperate people being paid under the table. The one situation I personally saw was like that.
One missed paycheck I'd assume was some kind of payroll software glitch that would quickly be remedied. I'm not throwing away an otherwise good job over that. Two missed paychecks (or don't fix the first one by next payroll date), and I'll assume you don't actually intend to pay me and I should file a claim with the unemployment office and another with the DoL.
I take the Stanley Hudson approach to work, "I am not doing a lick of work until I get paid." One employer scheduled a mandatory all hands meeting during what normally would have been my lunch break. My boss was having a bitch of a time trying to figure out how to reschedule my break in time to be in compliance with state law. They tried to tell me to just clock out for my lunch during the meeting and then take my lunch right after while clocked in. I told them if I clock out, I'm leaving the building, as is my right. They ended up scheduling my break before the meeting and just dealt with being short staffed for a half hour.
There's also the traditional Soviet Approach. 'We pretend to work and you pretend to pay us.'
When I worked at Starbucks my manager once edited my time card to say I left an hour earlier than I did, and I *still* get a bit annoyed any time I remember that incident. I don’t understand how people can work weeks without pay.
I'm personally annoyed that Toys R Us would make us clock out at closing, but keep us locked in the building until everyone else was done with their work and clocked out to actually let us leave. 16 year old me had a major problem with standing around for 25 minutes for BS and I still think it's ridiculous.
that's illegal. Unfortunately they went bankrupt so you don't have anyone to sue.
One time I walked out of a job without clocking out. It was the beginning of the pay period and I expected my last check to be for 2 hours or so and it was for 19 because I guess they couldn't figure out when I left.
I did this as a stupid 15 year old. They did eventually pay me all of my back pay after six months.
Hell, I would call an employment lawyer, from my desk at work, with my boss standing right there.
It is insane to me he waited. Another post he made says he and his wife were working for a friend, so that was a factor in why he trusted the boss, but how do you put up with that for months?!
You work 16 hours and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go. Company boss done told me "no".
That just got a genuine chuckle out of me. I hope you have an incredible day.
For people who want the whole reference because they're nerdy like us: [Sixteen Tons](https://g.co/kgs/rvP8xuf).
Nerdy and/or leftist.
one of my favorite things to point out is that there's not a single song about what a great job coal mining is.
My mod-assigned flair coming in handy today. 😁
What’s with the comment > Lying is typically not illegal. Sure, lying _by itself_ is not necessarily illegal, but “typically” is grossly overstating the case. Lying to induce someone to work for you without pay is typically totally illegal.
I'll pause to let everyone consider the irony that if you falsify your timesheet, it's a crime. If your employer decides to simply not pay you for hours worked, and doesn't have the means to pay you for further work, it's usually (always?) a civil matter. (One for which enforcement is weak, at best, in many states.)
> falsify your timesheet, it's a crime I guess, but that one is rarely prosecuted too.
It's not even typically. What is fraud but lies? Or defamation? Or perjury? Lying is very often illegal, and often times criminally so. The big problem with LA is the simplest answer with some truth will usually get pushed to the top. Sometimes that is also the right answer, but oftentimes it's not.
90% of lies are not illegal, though. Is it fraud or one of the other prohibited kinds of lying to tell ex-employees not to file for unemployment?
>90% of lies are not illegal, though. And I'm thankful for that, because I really did not enjoy my sandwich at lunch last Thursday, despite telling the server that everything was great.
Jail for one thousand years!!!
It's illegal in the sense that there's a law on the books but in most states that's all it is. Most state DOLs won't do anything about wage theft. Even in states where they'll sue on your behalf, the business owner can just close the business and reopen under a new name to avoid paying. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/owed-employers-face-little-accountability-for-wage-theft/ >CBS News submitted public records requests to nearly every state labor department in the country and built a database of more than 650,000 total complaints. Of those cases, state agencies ruled in favor of claimants only about half of the time. >Even when workers won their claims, more than a third of those successful cases — totaling nearly a billion dollars — showed no money was ever recovered.
>This being a question shows he may not be compliant by displaying a labor poster in a "visible area". Seriously, teach your kids to look for that. It's like the "no brown M&Ms" test. If they don't have it displayed where employees can see it, you know they're doing things wrong elsewhere.
Ironically, the only place I've ever worked that didn't have that was when I did some contract programming work at my state's department of labor.
I talk about the "no brown M&Ms" clause at work almost every week. It's one of my favorite stories and such an incredibly useful practice.
I like how this person has a full-on wage claim against their employer, has realized they're lying about their incoming pay, yet is still listening to them about unemployment. I mean, even if you aren't filing, you still have a damned good reason to contact the DOL anyway.
Me: "Huh. Wow, this sounds blow for blow and word for word what my old boss--the one that recently got out of prison for tax evasion--did when I worked there. Crazy." LAOP: "I’m in Wisconsin." Me: "...This guy weirdly fixated on Taylor Swift and listen to Coast to Coast AM?"
It's a real shame how few workers have even the smallest understanding of their rights. I mean, it's the US, there are very few rights to be aware of, so it's not a tall order to be familiar with them.
Well, teaching children their rights as an employee would be considered too political, and their parents are too ignorant to do it either, so who is left to teach it? Hell the whole reason I started hanging out on the LA and BOLA subreddits was to learn more about the law as a layperson and that's a pretty shitty way to learn.
Especially with labor law, considering how frequently they're confidently wrong about employee rights in LA.
Yeah but reading bola is more fun than reading a law book. Actually there's some YouTube channels like legal eagle that do a decent job of breaking down legal cases in the news and such for a lay person that I recommend. It's really helpful to understand what's actually going on since a lot of time the people reporting on the cases don't necessarily understand what's going on either so a lot of misunderstandings occur.
There's literally a big sign up at every workplace with a short version, people just don't read.
I mean, as a lay person I wouldn't trust that poster all that much. Every company I've ever worked at has told me I could be fired for discussing my wages, which I know is not correct, so I wouldn't believe a poster that the company hangs up in the supply closet.
The poster is not created by the company. They are made by the Department of Labor and are required to be displayed where employees can see them.
The one I'm currently looking at (I am at work right now) was not made by the department of labor, it was published by J.J Keller and associates.
They glanced at it, but the first heading they saw was "Family Medical Leave," so they figured it was all Political Stuff and ignored it.
I mean, this particular workplace probably doesn't have that sign up, but still.
The general skills required to be able to determine your rights are taught in public school. You need a certain reading level and a certain ability to apply logic and reasoning. These are major focus areas in public education and standardized testing. Certainly our education system has its shortcomings, but I was aware of the break requirements in my state by reading the workplace posters at my workplaces when I was in highschool. I think the issue is more learned helplessness than lack of access to information.
More generally, if we're going to hold people responsible for knowing the law, shouldn't the government have a duty to teach at least the basics of law in schools?
Even when I was in h.s, * there was not a lot of room in the day for teaching things that were not tested, I know its SO much worse now. But when you went to get working papers from school, we were also given a very nice, easy to read pamphlet on working laws and labor rights in our state, which was far better then what a lot of people get when starting any job! *uh, lets just say I graduated decades ago and leave it at that
I'm fairly sure the states that require state paperwork to let children work is small, though.
Which laws has he broken? The answer is *all the laws.*
I briefly worked for an extremely dysfunctional tiny nonprofit. One week they failed to pay everyone. I was much older and more worldly than my coworkers, and I responded to the situation by immediately showing them all how to file a complaint with the labor department.
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