profit sharing

[morton36]

What is the name of your state?california
I was terminated last week from a company that has quarterly profit sharing. The profit sharing check that employees are about to receive is from the last completed quarter, which I worked entirely, full time.The company policy is that, even though the checks are given out 2 months after the quarter ends, you must be currently employed to receive profit sharing. Do I have a case to claim my profit sharing for that quarter?

 

[cbg]

Not having seen your profit sharing agreement, I can't say.

I can tell you, though, that policies such as you describe are quite common and for the most part legal, unless the written agreement is worded in such a way as to make it a "deferred comp" plan.

 

[TWool]

Last Day requirement

Many plans have a "last day" requirement. The Plan's SPD will explain how the plan is run. It is a document that needs to be given to each participant of the plan... Ask the plan administrator for the SPD.

Without seeing how the plan is written it is hard to give an affirmative anserwer to your question. In the pension world, the plan document RULES!

 

[morton36]

none given

Employees are not given a copy of the profit-sharing plan at the company I worked for. All that was given to new qualifiers was a document that basically said that anyone who wanted to know more about the plan needed to call H.R..I never did.The sharing pool consists of: lenght of employment, hours worked that quarter, and meeting departmental goals. I met all of those requirements.
Also, when each employee receives the check (by the owner personally), stapled to it is a piece of paper with a $ figure that represents the $/hr that the check raised your wage to. That tells me that they consider it part of my wages.

 

[pattytx]

The profit sharing may be calculated using any method the company chooses (including hours worked and/or base compensation), and the company may call it "wages", but that doesn't mean the Division of Labor Standards will deem it so. The general definition of "wages" for wage and hour regulation purposes means compensation for time worked and, in California and a few other states, accrued vacation, but not much else. Plus, you could have asked for the policy, but you didn't.

In any case, you can contact the DLSE to inquire, but I doubt very seriously they will take this up.