When employees steal from their employers, it is called embezzlement. Employees who embezzle money from their employers often get criminal charges once an internal or external audit reveals that not all the money to which the employee had access went where it was supposed to go. By contrast, it is much easier for employers to get away with mishandling money. It is almost impossible to tell whether the people who attended the dinner paid for by the company’s expense account were there to discuss work, for example. Therefore, it probably will not surprise most employees that employers sometimes get away with paying employees less than they earned. This can go on for a long time until the employee takes legal action. The law is on your side if you have evidence that you worked, and your employer did not pay you, or that the amount your employer paid you for your work was less than the amount that you earned.
If you have an employment contract, then disputes over pay are sometimes within the scope of breach of contract claims, but even if you do not have an employment contract, you still have the right to sue your employer if your employer does not pay you the full amount of agreed-upon compensation for your work. The failure to pay wages lawyers at Boulder HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you if your employer has not paid you all the money you have earned at your job.
Employers Do Not Have the Right to Withhold Your Last Paycheck, No Matter Why Your Job Ended
Disputes over an employer’s failure to pay wages or other compensation often arise when the employment relationship ended on bad terms. For example, if an employee quits before his or her contract ends, the employer might not pay the end-of-service bonus indicated in the contract. These disputes are usually straightforward to resolve if the early termination procedures in the contract are unambiguous. If the contract says that the employer must pay the employee some or all of the end-of-service bonus if the employee quits before the contract period ends, then the employer must pay; sometimes, all it takes to get the employer to pay is a letter from a Boulder employment dispute lawyer, stating your intention to sue.
Even if you do not have a contract, your employer must still pay you all the money you earned. This remains true no matter the circumstances under which the employment relationship ended. Your employer must still pay you your last paycheck even if you walked out in the middle of a shift and never came back. Your employer must also pay you if your employer fired you for misconduct, even if the misconduct was so serious that you are also facing criminal charges, such as if you used illicit drugs at work. Withholding an employee’s last paycheck is a form of wage theft, and if your employer does it, you have the right to file a wage theft claim and get the court to order your employer to pay you the unpaid wages, as well, perhaps, as compensation for other financial losses you incurred because of the wage theft.
Disputes Over How Much Your Employer Must Pay You
Even if you and your employer are on the same page about how much time you spent at work earning money, you might disagree about how much your employer must pay you. For example, if you are a tipped employee, your employer must normally pay you a base salary of $3.02 per hour, because most of your pay comes from tips. If it is a slow day at work, and your tips are so little that the amount you earned during the shift, base pay plus tips, does not add up to the minimum wage per hour, the employer must pay you the minimum wage per hour for that shift. In most places in Colorado, the minimum hourly wage is $15.16 per hour, but in Boulder County, it is $16.82 per hour. Especially if customers pay some of your tips in cash, or if the amount you earned in a shift was close to making up the difference to get the minimum wage, your employer might try to get away with paying you the lower amount.
Likewise, employers and employees might disagree about whether the employer owes the employee overtime pay, and for which hours. There are enough exemptions to eligibility for overtime pay that employers can take their pick of excuses not to pay it. Your employer might claim that your job is seasonal, even though it goes on for most of the year with just a few months’ break in the off-season. Your employer might also try to claim that you are a managerial employee and therefore exempt from overtime; if you get paid by the hour, even if your job title includes the word “manager,” you are entitled to overtime pay, even though you might need the help of a Boulder employment lawyer to state this claim decisively. Finally, your employer might have categorized you as an independent contractor and issued you a 1099, even though the work you do and the permanence of your position should qualify you as an employee.
Boulder Wage Theft Dispute Lawyer
If your employer has not paid you as much money as you earned, you have the right to take legal action to get the money that your employer owes you. The first step is to contact a Boulder wage theft lawyer to choose the best way to frame your legal claim. If it is only a matter of wage theft, you may not need to go to court. If your employer’s unfair treatment of you also involved discrimination based on a protected characteristic or retaliation for engaging in a protected activity, the situation is more complicated.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, About Failure to Pay Wages
The Boulder employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, can counsel you about disputes over failure to pay wages. Call the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Boulder, Colorado, to set up a consultation.
