We have an unpaid wage issue within the United States

Writing this is one of the hardest, most difficult things I have done. I never thought I would have to do something like this.

Let me start off with giving information about unpaid and underpaid wages to employees in California. I am writing mainly about California, as that is where I live and familiar with. This will surely hit everywhere beyond California. Then I will give some information about how this has affected me personally and my story around not being able to collect a legal court judgement on unpaid wages owed to me.

Here are some key and alarming stats/info from National Employment Law Project - https://www.nelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hollow-Victories-Unpaid-Wages-Report.pdf

Only 15% of employee judgements are collected

Before we go further, let's call unpaid wages what it really is. Wage Theft. Wage theft is much more prominent, unfortunately, in low paid workers; ie: people more affected by unpaid wages. But does happen to workers everywhere. Wage theft needs to stop. And any company participating should be held accountable. In our current climate people are, rightfully so, being held accountable for things they say and do that are known to the public. Businesses should be no different. Lower wage workers especially need to be taken care of and paid what they are rightfully and legally owed.

I will show stats below on California Wage Theft. California is on the employee side when it comes employee rights and wages, at the start. But as you will see not in actually helping or making a business pay those unpaid wages. DLSE (Department of Labor Standards Enforcement) is a great government office that does well to help Wage Theft. The problem is after the employee wins a judgement, collecting the money rightfully owed is extremely difficult and very easy for employers to avoid. Many lawyers or collection agencies will not take on collecting the money on contingency, because the chances of collecting are low and it is expensive. And then to hire a lawyer to not work on contingency is not something most can afford, again with low chances of succeeding. DLSE will try to collect the money for some if they meet wage requirements but it is a long and slow process.

I recommend reading the PDF I linked to above, as it shows the harsh reality of this situation. And again let's remember that the majority of people affected by wage theft are those in the low or poverty income level.

Workers whose employers have failed to pay them face serious challenges in recovering their hard-earned wages — even after state authorities have found in the workers’ favor and have issued a legally binding judgment ordering employers to pay. To a worker who has lost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, winning a judgment is often at best a hollow victory.

…employers’ failure to pay even in the face of a court-ordered judgment undermines faith in the basic operation of our legal system and the enforcement of our state’s labor protections.

• Between 2008 and 2011, workers recovered only 42 percent, or $165 million of approximately $390 million in total wages verified as owed by the DLSE. This figure includes amounts agreed to in settlement and after judgment
• Less than 1 in 5 actually collect anything from their judgement. Only 17 percent of California workers who prevailed in their wage claims before the DLSE and received a judgment were able to recover any payment at all between 2008 and 2011.
• Only 15% of total wages owed were actually paid.
• Although the DLSE issued awards for unpaid wages of more than $282 million between 2008 and 2011, workers were able to collect a mere $42 million—roughly 15 percent—of those awards from their employers.
• Employers who did not pay their workers, refused to settle, were found by DLSE to owe wages, and then became subject to a court judgment were more likely than not to have suspended, forfeited, cancelled, or dissolved business status within a year of the wage claim.

As you can see above it is very hard in California (and other states are the same) for employees that are rightfully owed money to actually collect. I hope you agree this is not, and the majority that are taken advantage of are lower income workers.

In 2019 the largest wage theft case for a private company was announced. Over $2 million in citations against RDV Construction. The case still hasn’t been settled, which means these workers are still out money owed to them.  https://www.kqed.org/news/11780059/were-being-robbed-california-employers-who-cheat-workers-often-not-held-accountable-by-state

It can take years, if ever, that workers can receive anything. Businesses can continue to do business and work, while these judgements go unpaid.

Minimum wage violations in California occur approximately 370,000 times each week….each week! This is something we do not talk enough about. This is wage theft, plain and simple.

To see how easy it is for businesses and business owners to hide from these judgements, read this article about American Airporter (about half way down the article) - https://www.kqed.org/news/11780059/were-being-robbed-california-employers-who-cheat-workers-often-not-held-accountable-by-state

Businesses can change bank accounts, so not easy to get liens against. They dissolve corporations and continue to do business still. They ignore Orders of Examination hearing; sometimes a bench warrant issued (which you have to fill out forms yourself and pay a fee, so more costs to try and collect money owed to you; and this warrant is not enforced often (https://www.judgmentbuy.com/CivilBenchWarrants.html)

So why am I writing this? Two reasons 1) I have personal story that I will discuss below and 2) it is just plain wrong. Unethical to the fullest extent. The majority of people affected live paycheck to paycheck. They are taken advantage of. Right now in today’s climate as a society we are calling out all sorts of wrongs within our society. I believe wage theft is some we seriously need to discuss more and fight against. It can be stopped….it can be fixed. We need to push to make this happen as a society. I feel that society needs to push for changes, and make sure companies know they will be held accountable when they do not page their employees fair and rightfully/legally owed wages.

Now for my personal story on this. This is hard for me to write. Some have told me not to, as it could be seen as a negative against me and worries some possible employers. Others have pushed me to tell my story and get the information out. End of the day, as you see, I have decided to speak out. If a company reads this and then is too worried to hire me I would not have wanted to work for them in the first place. Honest, ethical employers are the only employers I would want to work for anyways.

For my career I feel blessed. I have worked for some great companies and great people. Every company listed on my LinkedIn profile I would recommend to anyone. I have had great experiences with them all. But I do have one not listed, and it has been my only employer that I have not had a good experience with. 

A few years ago I hit a wall. I had some crazy health issues (see my older post about non-stop hiccups), and career wise I was trying to figure out what I really wanted in the future. In short…I was in a rut and looking to figure out my future. I decided to go work with a small company to lead and grow their Salesforce practice. I wanted to expand and do more; build a Salesforce team the way I thought it should be.

I will not go into details about the interworking of this company or work done; I will simply state that when I left I was not paid final money owed. I had to go to DLSE/DIR and file a claim. No settlement was offered or considered. I then won judgement against this company. Since this time of judgement, Nov 2019, and when I left, approx. Sept 2018, I have not received any money from this judgement. I am now going on almost 2 years of not getting my rightfully money owed.

Case Title: Labor Commissioner State of California & Greenhaw vs. SaaScend LLC

Case Number: 34-2019-00269633-CL-EN-GDS

This judgement is public information from the Sacramento Superior Court. The judgement can be viewed online at https://services.saccourt.ca.gov/PublicCaseAccess/Civil/SearchByCaseNumber . Choose 2019, then enter 00269633.

I will simply sum this all up with a few things/opinions. We need to stop wage theft. We need to implement ways that make companies pay their judgements to employees that have judgements against them, so it isn’t so easy to simply avoid paying. We need to only do business with companies that are trustworthy and ethical.

Thank you for reading.