a few of my former delivery drivers went to some people rights protection agency and through them are requesting their overtime money and claiming they didnt make minimum wages. this agency is saying i have to pay or they will bring the case to Attorneys General Office. Has any of you faced this situation before? they were getting paid 7 an hour plus 1 dollar per every delivery plus their tips. minimum wage is 8. they did work over 40 hr a week (cash) i cant prove how much money they made in tips. these are bad people. they were fired because they stole. some of them dont have papers, but The Attorneys Genaral complaint form doesnt even ask them for a ssn to file a case. My filekeeping is poor and lot of things are lost, as 2 of them were hired a year ago.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Talk to an attorney first and see what they have to say.
Also, Shame on you for not reporting their wages.
Also, Shame on them for not reporting their tips.
I do not know what the labor laws are in MA. There probably is a minimum wage for Tipped Employees (IN NY it is 4.60/hr). and tipped employees are required to report their tips.
You got a headache. Talk to an attorney or just pay them.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Are you serious? You paid illegals under the table and now you think you can fight this case?
If I were you, I’d pay up and be happy that it isn’t the IRS calling…
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Sorry, THEY are bad people?? You have duties as an employer which you have haven’t paid the slightest attention to you. Not paying the IRS, not keeping records - I hope they through the book at you! If you can’t be bothered running your business properly you don’t deserve to be in business - yet alone complaining on here about how to get yourself out of a whole you dug for yourself - SHAME ON YOU!
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
I am not going to pile on other than to say tsk, tsk.
In his defense, this happens a LOT here with immigrant owned businesses. Many of the countries they came from do not have the labor laws we have here. No excuse, but it happens more than you think.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
You might be deep in the doo-doo. The next and most important step you take is to begin to get yourself in compliance with the labor laws. Create kits for each employee with at least a completed and verified I-9 form - ensure that two forms of IDs or a passport have been copied and the form completed; a completed W-4; a completed application for employment or a form you would use to hire new people that details their earnings; a personal contact information sheet with personal references and emergency contact numbers.
Clearly you have missed the boat as to how critical this record keeping is. ADP for small business, for a small weekly cost. will partner with you and manage this area. I sugguest you contact them for a consultation in the interest of processing your payroll. All it takes for a small organization is a work sheet with employee’s name (after building the employee file with ADP) -you phone in their hours-REG, OT, Holiday, etc. and you will have all your checks printed, your taxes deducted and impounded if you select to do so, the tax deposits made, the quarterly reports filed, their earnings reported and your records clean and organized.
SBS.ADP.com or locally (781) 890-2500.
I’m curious why this did not first go through the Massachusetts Department of Labor, Wage Investigation Unit. ( It’s possible an illegal would not go there). I am wondering, if you don’t mind posting, the name of the organization that is contacting you.
PD
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
- Get an attorney.
- Stop trying to cheat the system.
- Get ready to pay. You owe it.
This is what happens when you don’t follow the rules. Employees know you are cheating and they know you are vulnerable.
You hired employees that stole from you while you were stealing from them and from the rest of us. Go figure.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Oh, the irony of calling these people “bad” because they stole. What does that make somebody who is knowingly breaking the law and cheating the U.S. Government?
I may not agree with what I have to pay in taxes, I may not agree with some government policies, I may not agree with immigration law… But I follow all of it and pay my share of taxes.
It ticks me off to no end when I see a business owner that doesn’t.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
I agree with the above posts, however I have been accused, on more than one occasion, of thinking outside the box, ( a trait you ascquire when you are self employed).
So, to play the devil’s advocate…if you did not report their wages to the proper authoritites, how can they prove that they did in fact work for you? There’s no paper trail from you to them.
No one should be throwing stones at you because we all have “glass” in our “houses”, but the lesson you need to learn right now, and I do mean RIGHT NOW!!!, is to $uck it up, pay what you need to pay, and learn from your mistakes.
State and federal agencies tend to become ornery when you don’t pay them their due monies.
Bubba
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Assuming that the drivers were driving their own cars, the $1 per delivery you paid was not wages… so
- You paid less than minimum wage to begin with.
- You admit you did not pay overtime.
- You paid cash and therefor did not withhold taxes or pay the employers share of fica, work comp, unemployment (thereby making rates higher for the rest of us)
- Since you are paying cash, I can assume you also do not fully declare sales and are therefor stealing sales tax revenue from your community and avoiding your own personal tax obligations on income.
- You hired illegals.
I am done with you. You deserve what ever happens to you.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
Here is something that might make a person think twice about not paying what they are required.
October 31, 2008 - A Toronto pizza chain has been given one of the biggest fines ever over unpaid wages - money that the court ruled has been owed to the workers for more than three years.
Amato Pizza and its owners were fined more than $300,000 for failing to pay wages owed to six employees.
The Ontario Court of Justice found the company “committed numerous violations of the Employment Standards Act in connection with wages owed to former employees.”
The court ruled that the workers were legitimately owed $42,000 in pay from 2005 that the company wouldn’t pay.
Lawyer Mary Gallatly of Parkdale Legal Services, who represented the workers, said the fine sends a message to employers.
“I think it’s excellent that these guys were brought up and finally prosecuted. They were very arrogant when the Ministry of Labour ordered them to pay. They refused to pay, you know, year after year. So I was really happy to see that they were finally prosecuted for not paying these workers their wages,” she said.
Gallatly said one worker is owed $17,000 in pay and overtime.
“So, it’s nice to see, finally, the government beginning to take action against employers, like Amato’s, who have been going years not paying workers’ wages,” she said.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
How long did they work for you?
Did you pay them 100% cash?
Did you give them a free meal with each shift?
You have rights also. as one poster said about everyone has glass houses, he’s right.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
The Owners that pay under the table and to illegals is a sore spot for me. I had three indys on my route I did not need to compete with but who took qualified people and catered to their needs to “hide their cash”. I was the one paying for the recruiting and advertising while they were cutting wages and paying under a decent wage in consideration of breaking the law. The comment above is so true and sorta funny when rereading all the posts.
I have the same sore spot with the illegals that literally prey on shops to hire them when they are so under the gun for help.
In this case, I honestly hope the employees get deported after the Owner pays them what they can negotiate due to them.
PD
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
“as one poster said about everyone has glass houses, he’s right”
No. In fact, many of us do not skirt the law when it comes to employent practices and wages. I don’t doubt that we have made mistakes, but you will not find examples of cheating on wages, taxes or employment law in my business.
We recently went through a random sales tax audit for a three year period (PITA!). The result? We did not owe a penny. The same would be true with regard to our wage and hour practices.
There are employees out there that make a practice of nailing employers who cheat to the wall. Overtime is the most common, since the employee wins but if your practices include cash payments of greater than $600 in a year to a single individual, payment below minimum wage, failure to declare wages to wrok comp or sales to the taxing authority you are vulnerable. All it takes is a single pissed off former employee.
Re: fired deliv. drivers requesting overtime thru Atterney’s
My daddy taught me early in my business career that if you want to sleep well at night you don’t…
mess around with the government, mess around with paychecks and you definitely don’t mess around with employees. You did two of those things. It’s time to pay up.