Legal Question in Employment Law in California
I'm working for a Client, X through two level of consultants A& B, out of which A is my employer and I'm on their W2. I've signed a one-year contract with A for the project with the Client X. My problem is that my employer is not paying me on time. I had signed in for a Monthly salary agreement. Even after one month, I didn't receive my first salary. I had to email them twice. Then they deposited the salary for the first two weeks telling that they're running a bi-weekly payroll. And they said the last 2 weeks' salary for the previous month will come on 16th of the next month and so on. That is at any point of time, 2 weeks salary will be due. I was even okay with that, but even the 2 weeks pay they're not giving on time. I'm always having to ask for my salary to get it. This is humiliating considering the fact that I'm an Engineering professional working for an Automobile giant and that I've never had to face this situation from my previous employers. I'm totally dissatisfied working for my employer. Is it possible legally to break free of the contract as the employers themselves are not sticking to the terms of it? I'm fully satisfied working for the Client X and by the prime vendor B. If I break the contract, will it be legally possible for me to continue working with X & B ?
3 Answers from Attorneys
Possibly, however, your questions cannot be answered without having read the contract that you signed. You can find an employment law attorney to read and analyze the contract and consult with you for a fee of approx. $300-$400.00.
In addition, your attorney may be able to get you waiting time penalties/money plus reimbursement of her/his fee for the late payment of wages.
You need to review your contract with A, but it is virtually certain that you are prohibited from quitting A and going to work for B or X directly. There are extremely strict laws limiting what employers can contractually prohibit former employees from doing, but one of them is landing work through the employer and then quitting the employer and going to work directly for the customer. Otherwise no employer could stay in business who provides workers to other businesses on a contract basis - they would just become unpaid employment agencies.
What you CAN do, however, is file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement of the California Dept. of Industrial Relations. More information on how to do that is found here: http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/dlseWagesandHours.html
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