Do this if you don’t get paid for your work
For an employment relationship to work there needs to be two things. As an employee, you need to comply with your employment contract by going to work (among other things), and in return, the employer must pay a salary amount stipulated in the contract.
So what to do if your employer doesn’t pay you?
If you have lived in that incomprehensive situation where it is time to get paid, and you don’t get your paycheck, you spend a month or two still working with no payment, and you start to ask yourself these questions: Will I be fired? If I leave, I won’t have a job anymore. Can I sue? My employer didn’t pay me, do I complain? So you’ll face the dilemma of waiting to see if you finally get paid or directly go to the court to claim the amounts owed to you. So to answer some of your questions, we will try our best with this article to explain everything to you so that you make the correct decision.
If the company accumulates delays in the payment of payroll, the worker has three options:
1.Talk to your employer
The first thing you should do is talk to your employer. It is a good idea to bring recent payment receipts to that meeting and present evidence of your claim in writing. Although an employer should not retaliate against you for filing a more formal claim with a government agency or court, it can strain employment relationships and create an uncomfortable work environment. Consequently, whenever possible, you should clarify things with your employer before getting involved with outside agencies. However, you should be advised of any potential deadlines for filing complaints with government agencies or for filing a lawsuit if those actions do not succeed.
2. Claim the accumulated amounts
The amounts you can claim go from the entire payroll to part of your holidays and extra hours. However, before you start a more official claim, remember that our first advice is always to try giving notice to the employer and solve the possible problem with the company itself.
If it is not possible to communicate verbally or you do not get an answer on their part, you can request payment of your payroll or the concept that is, in writing. Send an email or fax that will let you know with certainty that the document has been received by the interested party, in addition, you can request that the request goes with a content certificate, in this way you will have a proof of your request claiming the payments directly to the company. If you have troubling putting into words your situation, you can always order custom term paper so you can express your situation in the perfect way.
If you consider that the employer’s reasons for you to be not paid for work are not credible or reasonable, or if, simply, they simply don’t respond; You must go to an employment attorney to file for settlement.
The settlement proceeding must specify the quantities that are claimed and the concepts to which they refer. It is possible to claim 10% of arrears on the amounts owed.
Filing for settlement (or a conciliation paper) is often made to try to reach an agreement with the company without the need for a judge to intervene, so that, if the two parties (with their respective lawyers) agree, it will not be necessary to reach a trial.
It is important to know that the deadline to make a claim of this type is only one year.
3. Request the end of the contract
In some cases, the situation of default is constant, the worker feels a lot of economic instability, and that makes him decide that the best thing for him is to leave the company. Each case must be examined by a judge to determine whether or not to finish the contract. We must bear in mind that the defaults must be continuous and of significant amounts. In case the worker had the right to terminate the contract, it would not be called voluntary redundancy, but rather a dismissal by the company. This way, the worker would be entitled to unemployment benefit and compensation by the company equivalent to unfair dismissal. The steps to follow are the same as in the claim for overdue amounts: conciliation paper and, if there is no agreement, trial. The worker will not be able to stop going to his job until there is a firm ruling that indicates it; even if the defaults continue to occur. If he decided unilaterally to leave his workplace, he would lose the right to the final payment when leaving a job and compensation. Sometimes, when the company gets the demand, they prefer the payments to avoid going to trial. The worker continues in his right to request the ending of his contract even if this happens.
Keep in mind that, even if a company is in a complicated economic situation, that doesn’t mean that it can stop paying its workers. The law offers different alternatives to deal with those situations without the need of not paying the workers. In case of doubt, you should always consult an unemployment attorney in order to make a smart decision and knowing the consequences that could happen if you start a claim and as well as what could happen if you don’t.