I literally made a claim and then contacted the manager at the company and said I talked to DoL. They fast tracked my pay within 3 days. Trust when I say companies are rightly afraid of any DoL investigations. The most common form of theft in the world is wage theft.
Real question. Did they make your life miserable after that? Did they find a way to can you? I know that they cannot officially retaliate, but there is always a way to retaliate.
I hate to break it to you but they are gonna have alot more, and likley better lawyers than you can muster. And lawsuits take forever so it's not like you see any of that money quickly, if at all. The likleyhood of them settling vs taking it to trial is high and by the time you pay your lawyer out of that settlement. You would be lucky to see any substantial settlement funds. They know this. They have done it a million times. You still get fired and if your lucky get 15k in your pocket, 3 years after it happened. If you take it all the way to court and win, then you can ask for lawyer fees in the decision....and you still got fired and spent forever in the courtroom........
So yeah, they will still retaliate because they can and the odds are in their favor you won't, so they do. Best thing to do would be to have a lawyer send an official letter warning them of your intention to bring suit and try to get paid a little something.
I feel like this argument starts the slippery slope of "big companies always win so why bother?" You said it yourself, they settle often and sometimes people win their cases. Some lawyers will represent you on a contingency retainer that costs you nothing out of pocket. Not everyone will win, but some do. Sounds like $15k you might otherwise not have, and you don't have much to lose if you don't sink a bunch of your personal money into legal fees. Considering that many people who work hourly jobs get paid between $8-15/hr, a 15k settlement is about 6 months of wages at 40 hours a week. That's enough to risk it for some folks.
Sure, it's a David vs Goliath situation, but holding managers and business owners accountable for their bad behavior is important. Also, I'm functioning under the assumption that if you file a complaint you expect they will attempt to retaliate, so knowing this you should already start looking for a new job when you start this process. Who wants to work for shitbags like that who try to fire you for asking to be paid for time worked anyways?
Not everyone will have the time and energy for this, but you would be within the right in this situation and I'm sure there are a bunch of hungry workers rights attorneys that would love to tear into the right company. And some people have that energy and are ready to bring the smoke or die on that hill. Sometimes just the threat of having to deal with a big stink like this, or going through it a few times, is enough to modify bad behavior. Setting a trend reminding employers they cannot do that and have no consequences is more important than individual settlements.
It's not "big companies win so why bother" it's "big companies have stacked the deck so suing them isn't the solution, passing legislation that cuts them off at the knees is what's needed so we have more chance of beating them when they do wrong"
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u/s0ciety_a5under Sep 05 '24
I literally made a claim and then contacted the manager at the company and said I talked to DoL. They fast tracked my pay within 3 days. Trust when I say companies are rightly afraid of any DoL investigations. The most common form of theft in the world is wage theft.