I'm leaving my job at a cafe soon for a (thankfully) better position. I don't actually mind my day-to-day duties, and I like my coworkers, but it's hard to understate how disorganized and disrespectful management can be. People often get paid late, get scheduled during unavailability, get their hourly rate changed without prior notice, etc. And, of course, my boss wonders why we're always short-staffed when she's paying people minimum wage to deal with this shit.
Like many of my coworkers, I've had issues getting paid on time, and my boss is so disorganized that she scheduled me after my last day – AND I clearly told her when my last day would be and gave her over a month's notice, with reminders. That's her problem, not mine, but it kills me that I've always tried to be a courteous, conscientious employee, and she never gave me a morsel of the same respect. I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm amazed that she can't even give me the bare minimum.
In any case, I used to get my paychecks through direct deposit, but my boss started paying us through CashApp to avoid paying payroll taxes. This has been the source of many of the late paychecks, as these payments aren't automated. There are some other things she does that I'm pretty sure are illegal in my state, but those aren't relevant to payroll problems. She's also just generally unresponsive and hard to get a hold of.
Because of all this, I'm concerned that she'll forget (or “forget”) to give me my last paychecks, or at least “forget” give them to me on time. What are some polite, but firm, ways I can nag her? Worst comes to worst, I'll threaten to report her to the labor board if I don't get paid, but I don't want to go there if I don't have to. If I can exploit her by getting a reference out of her, I want to leave that possibility open. I also know that I could report her for payroll tax evasion, but I don't know if I could get in legal trouble for blackmail if I threaten to do that. I've dealt with being underpaid, overworked, etc. in the past, but I've never had a boss quite like this one, so any advice is appreciated.