This can't be right

[finnsixtythree]

New Hampshire, The collision repair shop I work at pays based on a per job basis.

If I get a job that the insurance company will pay 10 hours labor, and I can get it done in 5 I still get 10 hours pay. Although I am employed by the company, paid by the company, receive benefits. I am considered a sub contractor. We call It flat rate. Work is assigned to technicians to complete. When the supervisor has it out for someone instead of firing them, he stops giving them work. In effect keeping them from earning money and forcing them to seek other employment. My supervisor is proud that he has no lay offs and no one that I know has ever received any unemployment compensation. Who will speak for me and the countless others subjected to this?

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

As long as you earn minimum wage for the hours worked and any overtime per state law, you are being treated correctly unless your company has different rules they decided on.

 

[justalayman]

If you are a subcontractor, which I suspect is an unlawful misclassification, there never will be any layoffs since you are not technically an employee of the shop. You are your own employer.

Who will speak for me and the countless others subjected to this?

nobody because there is nothing illegal about it. If you don't like the system, find work elsewhere to your liking.


either that or kiss the supervisors ass so he gives you more work.

 

[justalayman]

As long as you earn minimum wage for the hours worked and any overtime per state law, you are being treated correctly unless your company has different rules they decided on.

given he states he is a subcontractor (which is almost certainly improper) there is no requirement he receive minimum wage or overtime.

 

[eerelations]

He says he's a subcontractor but also says he's paid by the company (sounds like he means he's on a payroll) and that he's on the company benefits plan (which the carrier wouldn't allow if he was an IC). So I think someone has told him he's a subcontractor when he isn't really, he's an employee.

OP, it's perfectly legal to stop giving you work until you just fade away. However, if you're on the company payroll and your supervisor stops giving you work, you can apply for - and access - UI benefits to cover your loss in wages. You don't have to be formally laid off or fired.

 

[commentator]

Any full calendar week, Sunday through Saturday that you do not get any work, or get less in work than you could draw in a weekly unemployment payment, you can and should file for unemployment insurance. Just say they had no work for you that week. The "starving you out" technique is an old one, and has been tried diligently by employers ever since the inception of unemployment benefits, and was part of the reason they started unemployment insurance in the first place.

But it is a legal thing for them to do. What you can do is file for unemployment benefits, though you are still employed. if the employer is classifying you properly, as in paying in taxes on you, having you on a payroll, giving you a W-2 at the end of each year to file your income taxes, then there would be wages for setting up unemployment benefits on record.

If he is in any way, misclassifying you, telling you that you are a subcontractor, not doing take outs, yet supervising you as a regular employee, and he suddenly does this little "I don't like you any more so I don't have any work for you this week" you could still file for unemployment, and when they tell you that you are not monetarily eligible because you have not worked for a covered employer, you would file an appeal, stating that you were misclassified. They would go after him, let you go on and start receiving benefits if it were determined you were being misclassified, and eventually get them started on paying their unemployment taxes correctly.

But from what it sounds like, you can anticipate that if you don't keep kissing his butt and doing exactly what he wants, he'll get you eventually. And if you ARE being misclassified as a subcontractor and you are not having taxes taken out, you desperately need to get out of there and find a legitimate employer who doesn't cheat either you or the government.