

Ask HN: $45k wages unpaid. What should I do? - antarium

Hi HN,<p>Hope I could help some help here. I don&#x27;t really know where to start, but here the facts:<p>Our employers started to have troubles to clear pay-check since June 2014. 
The CEO went to SF to raise money.
They promised us to clear all the pay-check no-matter what happen.
They gave us some cash to pay rent&#x2F;eat&#x2F;reimburse loan these last months.
They owe us a total of $45K.
The company is a LLC, HQ is in Texas.
We work from China.
International team (FR, US, CN, KR).
For some reasons, the CEO ask us to shutdown the sales until we get some investors [it would be easier to find investors?].
They send us an email few weeks ago saying to start to find an other job, and wait for the money until we get investors. 
Email saying we could sell everything in the office. We did it.<p>We have a website getting many quote requests [at least 4 a day] for machines from $200 to $1M. Rank pretty well for some machines on Google.
I was thinking about selling the website to maybe get some money from it.<p>Now I realised that there was many signal for me to quit the company. However, I was blind by the promise the CEO made us, and thought that everything would be OK. Lesson learned, the hard way. We all start to find jobs and try to move on. However it put some of us in many trouble (need reimburse loan, next rent etc...).<p>If you guys have any advices, I&#x27;ll be happy to hear about it. 
My email : antarium [at] fastmail.com
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bavcyc
Talk with a lawyer is your best course of action, as a great deal of this will
depend on documentation, e.g. contracts, emails; and your relationship with
the company.

Best of luck to you.

~~~
antarium
How much will cost a lawyer?

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techjuice
You would need to Lawyer up, the costs would be set by the lawyer. Each of
them have their own costs for their services. You may even be able to get your
case or if it is multiple people that were unpaid class action done for free
or low cost if you look around.

Just a future suggestion for you in the future. If your employer doesn't pay
on time even if it is the first time it is time to leave (from personal
experience). The longer you stay the higher the wage and time losses will
become.

An employer should always have money set aside for payroll, payroll taxes and
pay the employees first. If this is not possible it should be a hint to the
employees that the business is failing and will eventually start bankruptcy
proceedings or closing up shop.

If your boss does not let you go before they are in this state as they know in
well in advance before this ever occurs, it is an even worse sign that their
pride and emotions are now running the business.

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AgentGreasy
I am not a lawyer.

Unfortunately, if you are in China, while I'm sure there are some laws that
protect you, you aren't subject to all of the American labor laws unless you
were qualified for work in America. Texas has strong labor laws that protect
this sort of event - including subsidized representation. It is possible that
they may still represent you, depending on the situation, and if the company
failed to pay wages beyond just simply yourself. If nothing more, they can
point you in a helpful direction I should hope.

[http://www.twc.state.tx.us](http://www.twc.state.tx.us)

They are specifically around Texas workers of course, however it is also their
job to police Texas companies. Ultimately, if indeed you have a US citizen in
your work force, you may have a greater leg to stand on.

As others have said, your single greatest asset is representation by a lawyer.
If at all possible, I suggest having one of your US counterparts start with
the Texas Workforce Commission as I stated before. Have all of the
documentation ready, including the contract, emails, and so on.

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MalcolmDiggs
IMHO, legal action across country lines may not be worth your time unless
you're absolutely certain that they _have_ the money, and just aren't giving
to you. If they're really broke, a legal win in your favor isn't going to help
you much; the defendant will just end up on a payment plan paying you a
hundred bucks a month for years and years. It'll be quite awhile before you
even recoup the costs of suing them in the first place.

I would just walk away.

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chrisbennet
I'm not sure a lawyer will be able to put any money in your pocket. If the
company ran out of money, it maybe some time,if at all, before they have money
to pay you even with a court order.

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metaphorm
Lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer.

