mistertee
12-01-2005, 03:35 PM
I was hired by a company in October of 2005; a requirement was that "In consideration of and as a condition of Employee’s employment or continued employment ..." I had to sign a non-compete agreement (i.e. don't work in this field for 12-months after leaving employment with this employer).
To make a long story short, this thing was whacky from the get-go. Benefits, such as insurance, were supposed to begin on my start-date but they did not. I did actually get paid for one pay period (two weeks) but by the next pay period the company was apparently "out of money" and missed payroll although they did actually get health insurance going. For one pay period I got paid but had no benefits and for the other I got benefits but didn't get paid. I've had to file a wage-claim with DLSE and still have not been paid.
Our boss explained "we saw this cash-flow problem coming for months but thought we'd handled it"; nobody ever told me this when I was hiring in (indeed, i was assured that we had money to last for months) and I certainly would not have hired in had this been disclosed. There were some other funny things as well; I found out that the company never got an Employer ID # in the state in which I'm working (i.e. CA, they are in Virginia) and there is some question as to whether they've been making CA payroll withholdings.
I realize this is really a contract question but I thought I might be able to get some insight here. I've heard varying things about non-competes including that they are largely not enforceable anyway, particularly in California.
My question is, did my employer ever provide the "consideration" that was supposed to be provided when compelling me to sign the non-compete? In other words, they never for two seconds did the things they said they would do (i.e. provide salary AND benefits at the same time) and appear to have not done the legal things necessary (like pay unemployment insurance) to make me a bona-fide employee. So, isn't this "agreement" null-and-void?
To make a long story short, this thing was whacky from the get-go. Benefits, such as insurance, were supposed to begin on my start-date but they did not. I did actually get paid for one pay period (two weeks) but by the next pay period the company was apparently "out of money" and missed payroll although they did actually get health insurance going. For one pay period I got paid but had no benefits and for the other I got benefits but didn't get paid. I've had to file a wage-claim with DLSE and still have not been paid.
Our boss explained "we saw this cash-flow problem coming for months but thought we'd handled it"; nobody ever told me this when I was hiring in (indeed, i was assured that we had money to last for months) and I certainly would not have hired in had this been disclosed. There were some other funny things as well; I found out that the company never got an Employer ID # in the state in which I'm working (i.e. CA, they are in Virginia) and there is some question as to whether they've been making CA payroll withholdings.
I realize this is really a contract question but I thought I might be able to get some insight here. I've heard varying things about non-competes including that they are largely not enforceable anyway, particularly in California.
My question is, did my employer ever provide the "consideration" that was supposed to be provided when compelling me to sign the non-compete? In other words, they never for two seconds did the things they said they would do (i.e. provide salary AND benefits at the same time) and appear to have not done the legal things necessary (like pay unemployment insurance) to make me a bona-fide employee. So, isn't this "agreement" null-and-void?
