Today, I feel like sharing a positive story. I had my first pro bono client this week, I was basically a California (CA) Human Resources (HR) law adviser. I earned him $804. Here's how...
The case was that an employee was fired and they came to me with questions about their contract. He was looking at his final paycheck when he noticed that he did not get his vacation pay. The client had thought that they should have been paid their Paid Time Off (PTO).
He was right, under CA law, the vacation needs to be paid upon termination and it is treated like wages because you already earned it. So he brought the issue up with the employer, they agreed on the missing PTO and cut him a check. They realized they broke the law and paid him.
Well this is when I stepped in. Now that I had them on record breaking the law, I decided to let my client know about late pay penalties. The law also states that you need to pay a fine for each day you withheld his money. This is how you train behavior by the way, and it usually works in the long run...and Oh mah gawd, a regulation that actually helps people get their money!
So he brought up the rest of the law with his employer. I said, mention to them that he had an HR friend that told him about this law too. A few scribbles later, he had two checks hand delivered that day from their in-house HR person. Vacation payment and waiting time penalties payment.
