Paycheck Not Received

[jmunsters]

In effort to get the best advice possible, I would like to explain this thoroughly. I apologize for the length.

I am employed full-time at a hotel, as well as part-time for the management company that runs the hotel. For my full-time position I work as a manager at the hotel. For the part-time position, I do IT work for the management company as well as all of the hotels it runs.

For my full-time position, I am paid a bi-weekly salary at the hotel by the owner of the hotel. For the part-time position I am paid a monthly salary by the owner of the management company. The owner of the management company and the owner of the hotel are two different people, and two different companies.

To verify, both of these checks I receive are payroll checks. State and Federal taxes are taken out of the checks as I am employed and on payroll with both companies.

I am paid promptly as I should by the hotel for my work there as a manager. However, tomorrow will be three weeks that I have not received my salaried paycheck from the management company. In short, my paycheck is three weeks past due and this is where I have my problem.

When I did not receive my paycheck three weeks ago I called the office of the management company to ask where it was the day it was missing. I was informed by the woman who does payroll that she can only print checks, not authorize them and I would have to speak to the owner of the management company. Since I have had no problems in the past I assumed it was just an oversight and I left a voicemail with the owner of the management company to let him know that I did not receive my paycheck. This was on a Friday.

On Tuesday I still had not received a phone call back, so I called the office once again, spoke to the woman who does payroll, once again who reiterated the same line stating "I need to talk to the owner about it because she can not doing anything about it."

I've been doing this for 3 weeks now attempting to get a hold of the owner, leaving him now seven voicemails in the office and on his cell phone and I still have no word why I have not received my paycheck.

At this point I assume the position was terminated, but I have not received any notice, verbal or written, that this is the case. Instead I am left with calling every other or third day to question why I have yet to receive my paycheck.

Up until now I have had a very good relationship with the management company, and I would like to keep it that way. However, it is apparent the owner of the company is avoiding the situation. I would like to remain in good standing with the company as I am a college student and the part-time position pertains to my major and would be an excellent reference. I would, however, like my paycheck though.

I feel to a certain extent that I am being discriminated upon based on the position as it is only part-time as well as my age. I feel like I'm being put on the back burner because I'm a "younger kid" and I can wait until it's convenient for them.

My questions for the situation are: Are there any laws that pertain to this? How do I make it so the owner of the management company will actually contact me in regard to where my paycheck is, when I can expect it, and why it is so late? Am I entitled to be paid until I am notified the position has been terminated? Should I take legal action for this, and if I do will this likely destroy the possibility of having a reference?

I appreciate any advice and help with this matter, as I would like the issue resolved as soon as possible. I want to thank you all for the time you have already put into reading this, as well to thank you in advance for your responses.

[cbg]

Are there any laws that pertain to this?

There are laws that require that you be paid for time worked. There are, surprisingly enough, no laws that require thaty they notify you that you have been terminated. In addition, discrimination on the basis that the position is part time is legal. So is discrimination on the basis that you are a student.

How do I make it so the owner of the management company will actually contact me in regard to where my paycheck is, when I can expect it, and why it is so late?

You can't. They have free will too. While they certainly SHOULD contact you, there is nothing whatsoever you can do that will force them to do so.

Am I entitled to be paid until I am notified the position has been terminated?

No. As I said above, they have no legal obligation to inform you that you have been terminated. However, you are entitled to be paid for all the work you actually performed. How long you want to continue working without being paid is up to you.

Should I take legal action for this, and if I do will this likely destroy the possibility of having a reference?

What I would suggest is that you contact the state DOL and file a complaint for unpaid wages. There is no need, at this point, to pay for an attorney - the DOL will take care of it for free. There is no way for anyone here to judge how that will affect a reference; that's too situation-specific to tell and we don't know the manager and how he reacts to things.

[jmunsters]

I appreciate the prompt response and detailed advice. I feel much more enlightened on the situation now knowing more. It's unfortunate that employers are not obligated to contact an employee when they would like to terminate them. I will be contacting the MDOL and discontinue my work with them. Thank you very much once again.

[jmunsters]

In effort to look for continued advice on the situation, and help others that may be posed with a similar situation looking for advice, I'm going to post an update on the progression.

I decided to be patient and wait it out until the three week mark to submit anything to my state's Department of Labor. In the meantime I was still calling and leaving voicemails with the owner of the management company.

There was another in the management company aware of the situation that was higher than me that helped to get the ball rolling knowing that they would contact her about it, since they were blatantly avoiding me. She made a phone call to the owner who acted as if he was mostly unaware of the situation and told her that the Vice President of the company would be handling it, despite the fact that I had be continiously referred to speak to the owner/president. She made them aware of my frustration with the matter and explained to them I would be contacting the DOL if I did not receive a response from them. I was told by the person within the company helping me that the VP would call me, which of course did not happen.

On the three week mark I called the VP in effort to resolve the situation without involving the Department of Labor. Our very long conversation can be summed up as follows:

I was told that I would not be receiving a paycheck. He told me that there was a miscommunication on my part. He said that it was the intentions of the management company to employ me and pay me a salary on a bi-annual or annual basis. When I told him that I had already received two monthly paychecks signed by the owner, the first of which presented to me by the owner, he put me on hold for several minutes.

When he finally came back he said that those two monthly paychecks I had received were "two monthly installments of the total of my bi-annual pay, not monthly paychecks."

The original terms I negotiated personally with the owner was based on a monthly salary for on-call, and objective-related work in IT Administration with flexibility to preform otherwise if agreed and needed. This was not to be paid quarterly, bi-annually, or annually, and most definitely not in "monthly installments" of such.

The VP then explained that what he thought my duties were and stated that he is confident the owner of the company would never have agreed to my terms, although the owner did and signed my first check in front of me for the position. Essentially he denied the verbal terms I agreed to when I re-negotiated part-time employment with the company.

He then asked me to, for the third time in the 9 months I have been employed by the company, resubmit a proposal on the work I would be doing with new salary requirements that would be paid quarterly or bi-annually in one lump sum so that we could once again re-negiotiate terms of employment.

When asked why I was never made aware of these terms of employment when I started, or why I had not been contacted in the past three weeks after leaving numerous messages he said that he didn't know, that I should have been, and that he's sorry. It would seem that if this were such a simple miscommunication on my part that I would have promptly received a phone call asking me what I was talking about and explaining their position three weeks ago when the first phone call was made after my paycheck was missing. Instead I've been subjected to blatant avoidance and brushed off until the situation was posed in an urgent manner to keep the DOL from contacting them.

So to completly sum this up, the position, nor myself were terminated. They actually asked me to stay in the position and redraft a proposal for salary requirements. I'm sure those of you reading this know just as well as I do that their story is incredibly bogus, and they were looking to buy time or hope the situation would pacify itself.

Given this update do I still have a case with the DOL? Is their story, although being terribly constructed, legitimate enough for the DOL to say, "Well it's good enough for me."? What sort of documentation should I provide to the DOL to help ensure that I can still receive my missing paycheck, or am I even entitled to one? I would almost be content letting the missing paycheck slide and just washing my hands with the situation except the missing paycheck is slightly over $600 net and that's not just a drop in the sink to a college student.

The agreement I had with the company was verbal, there is absolutely no paperwork beyond check stubs and hopefully a payroll history I can receive from the company to prove that I was paid monthly. I may be able to get the woman who helped get the ball rolling to verify that I had tried to contact them numerous times to no avail, state that fact to the DOL, but I can't guarantee that she would if she feels her job would be in jeopardy.

As a side note that holds little bearing on this, the VP then had the audacity to call me an hour after our conversation to ask for technical support from me, which I did politly help him complete, as I was still pondering what I should do with the situation.

I did submit an immediate resignation from the position today instead of continuing employment and renegotiating it. Any further help with this would be appreciated once again. I also hope that this post proves helpful to anyone that may experience it in the future. If that is the case, you have my deepest sympathy with the matter. Thank you all once again.

Note: Edited to correct and add content.

[cbg]

Since you resigned, at this point the only thing that matters is getting paid for the time you actually worked and did not get paid for. To that end, yes, by all means contact the DOL.