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Terminated, company refuses to pay me

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jefframsey

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Georgia


I worked for a warehouse company in Atlanta, Georgia for the past seven years. I have never received any disciplinary actions, never missed a day, other than vacation days.

We had a staff meeting on January 1st, and the Warehouse main manager informed us that the next two weeks our hours would vary, some of us would get overtime and ot will be double pay for only those two weeks, and we MUST WORK OUR SCHEDULE, no if, ands or buts about it. For those two weeks anyone missing a day would be terminated immediately. We were having the upper management coming in the last week of January for an inspection.

I, along with the other employees, got our work schedule for those two weeks. I was schedule: Monday through Friday 5am to 5pm the first week and Tuesday through Saturday 5am to 5pm the second week.

I worked my scheduled hours, even worked an overtime shift of eight hours due to scheduling errors***, the 2nd shift only had three workers scheduled one day.

I was called in on January 19th by the Warehouse main manager. He questioned why I had so much overtime. I showed him my schedule and he informed me that there was a scheduling error. The human resource manager admitted that when she did the scheduling she copy & pasted "5" instead of "8". So my hours should have been 8am to 5pm. ***Not only did she mess up my schedule she messed up numerous other employees, but mine was the most drastic.

Now the company refuses to pay me nearly $2,400 pay (80 hrs at regular pay $17.75 and 38 hours &35.50). The Warehouse main manager and human resource manager had a paper for me to sign stating the company will pay me my 40 hours and 8 hours overtime, but not the other 30 hours of overtime. i refused to sign it, so they terminated me for stealing company time.

Its been two weeks and I still have not gotten paid, what can I do?





Also i did not know if this should be in salary & wage issues since it dealt with both salary and wrongful termination.
 


LdiJ

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Georgia


I worked for a warehouse company in Atlanta, Georgia for the past seven years. I have never received any disciplinary actions, never missed a day, other than vacation days.

We had a staff meeting on January 1st, and the Warehouse main manager informed us that the next two weeks our hours would vary, some of us would get overtime and ot will be double pay for only those two weeks, and we MUST WORK OUR SCHEDULE, no if, ands or buts about it. For those two weeks anyone missing a day would be terminated immediately. We were having the upper management coming in the last week of January for an inspection.

I, along with the other employees, got our work schedule for those two weeks. I was schedule: Monday through Friday 5am to 5pm the first week and Tuesday through Saturday 5am to 5pm the second week.

I worked my scheduled hours, even worked an overtime shift of eight hours due to scheduling errors***, the 2nd shift only had three workers scheduled one day.

I was called in on January 19th by the Warehouse main manager. He questioned why I had so much overtime. I showed him my schedule and he informed me that there was a scheduling error. The human resource manager admitted that when she did the scheduling she copy & pasted "5" instead of "8". So my hours should have been 8am to 5pm. ***Not only did she mess up my schedule she messed up numerous other employees, but mine was the most drastic.

Now the company refuses to pay me nearly $2,400 pay (80 hrs at regular pay $17.75 and 38 hours &35.50). The Warehouse main manager and human resource manager had a paper for me to sign stating the company will pay me my 40 hours and 8 hours overtime, but not the other 30 hours of overtime. i refused to sign it, so they terminated me for stealing company time.

Its been two weeks and I still have not gotten paid, what can I do?





Also i did not know if this should be in salary & wage issues since it dealt with both salary and wrongful termination.
Make a complaint with the DOL, and apply for unemployment. The company is totally in the wrong here. You didn't steal company time. You worked the time you were scheduled. They had no right to not pay you.
 

jefframsey

Junior Member
Make a complaint with the DOL, and apply for unemployment. The company is totally in the wrong here. You didn't steal company time. You worked the time you were scheduled. They had no right to not pay you.
Thank you. I know Georgia is a right to work state, so they can use that against me.
 

commentator

Senior Member
Yep, working "unauthorized overtime" is a thing they can fire you for legally, but they cannot, repeat, cannot evade the wage and hour laws by asking you to sign something saying you agreed to work without pay or that you did "volunteer" your time or something like this. I have heard the wage and hour officers warn employers specifically about this, and clarify the wage laws concerning this too many times. That they have tried to do this, get you to sign something waiving your right to overtime or pay shows that they don't have a real good grasp of the laws that apply.

Because they elected to terminate you, to keep you from receiving unemployment insurance, which costs them money, they would have to show they had a valid misconduct reason to terminate you. If you had repeatedly failed to follow their instructions about how many hours to put in, they might have been able to show that you had been warned and knew that this working might lead to your being terminated. In the circumstances you describe, you have a very good chance of being approved for unemployment because you genuinely thought you were doing what you were told to do. So you have this. The unemployment system will NOT deal with your no pay issues, you will count those hours of work as if you had been paid for them when you tell them the last day you worked. It is highly likely you will eventually be paid for those hours.

As it has been said, a quick call to wage and hour for your area will help resolve your lack of pay. And it being an "at will" state has nothing to do with that. Their being able to fire you for any reason is what " at will" means. It doesn't excuse them from having to pay you at least the minimum wage and/or appropriate overtime for hours worked.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
FYI this is in no way a wrongful termination as defined by law. It may or may not have been unfair; it was not wrongful (illegal).
 

PaulMass

Member
You should at least talk to an attorney. It possible that this could be considered retaliation.

See http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs77a.htm

Any employee who is “discharged or in any other manner discriminated against” because, for instance, he or she has filed a complaint or cooperated in an investigation, may file a retaliation complaint with the Wage and Hour Division or may file a private cause of action seeking appropriate remedies including, but not limited to, employment, reinstatement, lost wages and an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.
It seems pretty obvious they wanted to protect themselves from a retaliation complaint with the waiver they wanted you to sign. Whether this is sufficient to support a complaint is a question that deserves investigation.
 

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