Hello all,
I work for an employer that requires me to make deliveries to many independent businesses, and I've met a lot of wonderful people through this job. This post is not about me, though.
One person I've met, who I will call Tom, works for one of these independently owned stores as an hourly employee. Tom is very kind, a very hard worker, the store is always clean and tidy for every delivery and he has excellent customer service skills.
Tom's employer, who I guess we can call Jerry, has very questionable business practices. As I made my last delivery, Tom is telling me about how he needs to be extra careful checking my delivery to make sure all the product is there, because the last few times Jerry got mad at him for doing it “wrong” and punished him by docking his pay and threatening to fire Tom if it happened again. (side note: the delivery was checked in 100% correctly and they were billed for exactly what they received.)
As Tom is writing me a check to pay for this delivery, I noticed that the name signed is not his, it's Jerry's. I asked Tom why he wrote the owner's name, and he said that he is told to by Jerry, again under threat of termination and withholding pay. It's at this point Tom tells me that when he is on shift, every item that is stolen, the owner takes off of his pay. At this point Tom sounds on the verge of tears.
An important detail is that since this is a small business, Tom is paid in cash and therefore has no paystubs to show as proof of anything.
How can I make sure Jerry gets what he deserves? I know it's not the first employee that Jerry has done this to because this place has struggled to keep a long term employee until tom came along. I've already told Tom better places in the area to apply to and have put in good word to people I trust to be on the lookout for an application, but I want to make sure Jerry pays.
Tl;dr: Employer withholds wages as punishment for performance and forces employees to forge his signature under threat of termination and withholding even more wages. How can I make him pay for these egregious violations of workers rights?