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What are my rights as a full time employee working for a small business?

This will be a long read, so please only answer if you plan to invest the time in reading thoroughly and have useful, knowledgeable answers to give.

Here are the facts:

I am a full time employee for an independently owned America's Best Value hotel in ILLINOIS that employs far less than 50 people

I work 72-88 hours in which i get paid twice monthly

I and others do not receive any benefits of any kind and that includes: Sick days, vacation days, raises, breaks during shifts, paid maternity leave and even sometimes honored requested days off.

Here are the problems:

We are required to perform managerial tasks with minimum wage pay.

We do not get paid overtime, we do not get paid for the time for when we stay at work late or come in early.

We work 8 hour shifts with absolutely NO breaks

We are NEVER paid on time or in a timely manner, we have waited as long as 5 days for pay checks. He also never informs us when pay checks arrive or calls when we ask to be called when they are ready.

Rather than putting work schedules up in advance, he posts them days late, leaving us to wonder when we work next and having to call in daily, numerous times a day to learn when we will work next.

I am aware of 3 housekeepers who have (and currently still do) work for him whom of which are foreigners without visas, whom of which get paid cash under the table, 2 of which LIVE in the hotel for free.

He pays one housekeeper a portion of her wages cash under the table and subtracts times from her paycheck so that he does not have to pay her. For example, if she works 6 hrs and 32 minutes, she does not get paid for the 32 minutes of time.

He chooses how he wants to pay housekeepers. Some get paid hourly and some get paid by room. There is no equality.

I told him before he hired me that I was absolutely not willing to work what I call "flip shifts" meaning working the night shift and then having to be back to work the next morning for the next shift. Now I am pregnant, suffering from insomnia and he has scheduled me to be at work at 7:30 am after just finishing my last shift at 11:30 pm. He has ignored my numerous requests, even after telling him my doctor does not recommend such an insufficient amount of time off work between shifts as it does not allow me to get enough rest.

I know that he has been under investigation by the Department of Labor for not paying former employees their rightful wages in the past.

I also know that he weasels his way out of having to pay unemployment to former employees. I know this bc he has had me write up documents to the employment office with reasons as to why he will not and should not pay them unemployment.

Not only is he a terrible boss, but he is a terrible customer service provider in terms of taking care of customers, meeting their needs, resolving issues or just flat out CARING. He does not take care of issues, keep maintenance on the building, resolve disgruntled customer's issues, etc etc etc. He leaves it up to us to do his job for only 8.25 an hour and then complains about HOW we handled the issue, when they shouldn't be our responsibility to handle in the first place.

I am asking bc I have addressed some of these concerns and issues with him recently, expressing my frustration and asking that he resolve these issues in a timely manner bc it is making MY job nearly impossible to do between resolving HIS problems and dealing with frustrated customers, and completing tasks that others should have completed during THEIR shifts. When I expressed these concerns to him, he told me i have no right to be frustrated bc there are no issues, that im the only one that has a problem, that he doesnt like how i resolve these issues (that shouldnt be my responsibility to resolve in the first place) he asked me when i was going to put my two weeks notice in. I told him that i was not quitting, that the issues i have could easily be resolved he was willing to cooperate as a businessman and employer and do HIS job so that I could do mine and that if he didnt want me to work there he would have to fire me. He told me he wasnt going to fire me but that not to worry, he wasnt going to give me a single penny either. Im assuming of course he wont fire me bc wouldnt that make me eligible for unemployment? I have a feeling hes just going to cut my hours and push me to quit so that he wouldnt have to pay me unemployment. It is also the end of the work schedule and I do not know when ill be schedule next and I can guarentee you he will not call to inform me either.

What are my rights here? How should I handle this and where do I go, who do i talk to to handle it?

1 Answer

Relevance
  • Henry
    Lv 7
    10 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    You need to meet with a labor lawyer.

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