So… I worked for a federally funded program through the state of Texas. I was a civil rights advocate. I was LITERALLY hired because of my advocacy skills. My boss was promoted and I was hired to take his old position. Dude was an absolute dick. The least personable guy I have ever met.
Fast forward through my probation period… his promotion isn’t working out for him. He wants his old job back, meaning I am fired. It was labeled an “involuntary termination”. I literally didn’t do shit to get fired but here we are. I was offered 1 week of severance pay.
I got a termination letter that stated I would be paid on November the 6th for “all pay due” including my severance pay. They waited a week and emailed me again and said that it was an error and I actually had to wait until December to get my final check.
So, Texas has some TWC rules about employee termination and pay. If you’re terminated, they legally should cut you a check immediately but I’m a generous person and was willing to give them the 6 days but when they came back and said it would be weeks… absolutely not.
I sent a little snip of the TWC website and let them know I’d been generous offering them a few days when I was entitled to my pay on September 26th. But that I’d love to work collaboratively to try to remedy the situation in favor of a the best interest of all parties… for me, not waiting to get paid and for them not getting a wage claim through the TWC. And that since I was provided a signed termination letter that I was also asked to sign it seems that might qualify as a binding contract.
So, I got paid on the date listed in my letter and filed a claim with TWC regarding them attempting to violate state law. I found out yesterday they had to provide a bunch of documentation and still may get fined because I’m not the first person this has happened to and I triggered a full investigation.
Don’t hire advocates and then expect them not to advocate.