What Wage Theft Looks Like

Wage theft occurs when an employer fails to comply with wage and overtime laws. These include a guaranteed minimum wage, breaks, and overtime pay when employees work long hours. An employer’s failure to abide by these laws is the same thing as stealing from its employees. Unfortunately, some employers who choose to violate their employees’ wage and overtime rights are good at disguising their misconduct. This makes it difficult for employees to know whey they are getting ripped off.

Regardless of whether an employee is classified as “exempt” or makes commissions, California laws are very specific in how much an employee must make in salary, or must make overall with commissions; but for our purposes, know that no employee should be making less than the minimum wage per hour. And this is where employees get trapped: because some employers work these employees such long hours that their average hourly rate per hour comes out to less than minimum wage.

Terminix May Owe Technicians Overtime

One company that may be violating its employees’ wage and overtime rights is Terminix. In fact, consider the reviews of several Technicians over the past several years about their employment:

• “Working at Terminix was not one of the best experiences I’ve had. Took over a year to get a route.Before that I was paid hourly, sometimes only working 4 days a week. When I finally got a route the pay was salary plus commission. Worked every other Saturday so I only had 6 days off a month. Through the summer months I worked 12-14 hours a day. Long work hours, long work weeks, difficult to understand pay system.”
• “You work 65+ hours a week 6 days a week. This company preaches safety but does not follow it. If you work here you will not have a family life. You basically live out of your truck.”
• “Worst Experience of my life so far. The management is horrendous. That’s all I need to say. They’re awful at scheduling and they give you no time to complete tasks. They don’t explain the way you get paid and completely leave you wondering where your hours are at the end of the week.”

The key here is that Technicians work ridiculously long hours without a clear understanding of how their pay works. This is not how the law is supposed to work.

Moss Bollinger Law Firm

If you have worked for Terminix as a Technician in the past four years, contact Moss Bollinger. Terminix may have intentionally made your pay confusing, but we can help clarify things for you. As an employee in California, you have strong, established legal rights against wage and overtime violations. We are passionate about stopping wage theft and are interested in helping you figure out whether you have a claim. Call Moss Bollinger at (310) 982-2291 to schedule a free consultation, or submit an online form.