So back in late summer of 2021 I went to work for my uncle with the promise of great pay. It was a typical contractor shitshow, he was always promising impossible deadlines then working our skeleton crew 12 hours a day in order to try and make it work. Over time I dealt with the typical shady work stuff: not including travel time in hours paid, no per diem while traveling etc. I ignored it because I was just making enough to be happy.
He promised a good bonus for a certain job last summer but I later found out that he was just legally required to pay prevailing wage, which just so happens to be double what I made at the time.
I guess he decided to make back that money too because he cut my pay to below fast food levels immediately afterwards hoping I wouldn’t notice. He had a brand new $200k boat in the warehouse while trying to pay me much less than flipping burgers. All that for weeks on the road doing 70+ hours.
I finally snapped in the middle of a project across the country. He had me go into a clearly unsafe pit and work. When the site safety officer saw she raised hell. I thanked her for letting me know its unsafe.
The next day after shoring up they had me in the same pit, this time they left a generator running right next to the edge with the exhaust pointed over the hole. The gas meter started beeping and my uncle himself simply lifted the gas meter out and told me to keep working, without even bothering to move the generator.
When I finally got out I perhaps exaggerated a little “oh I feel a little dizzy after that” out loud. Which prompted our own safety guy to get startled and look around for anyone that heard.
Between the rampant safety violations, the months of unexplained reduced pay, and the overall dishonesty in every aspect of work. (“we” cheated on government contracts, in one case very significantly on a very high profile military location). I had enough. That next morning I called my uncle and demanded back pay that instant or I wouldn’t put my hard hat on. He sent me the money I demanded, he couldn’t afford to lose workers.
I booked myself a plane ticket home, worked the rest of the day then ubered myself to the airport. It felt petty at the time but I let the rest of the crew know. I’m pretty sure his own partner also left shortly after for similar reasons.
It pretty much destroyed my mental health to know I had worked for a cheat for two years, probably under the table. Add on it was my own uncle trying to screw me for a buck…
Almost a year later I thought about trying to rebuild the bridge because of the family relationship. Until I found out more of the story. He cheated on his wife, which normally would be too personal of a detail to include, however relevant is the way he committed heavy tax fraud against her. He claimed to be paying her a huge salary for years. Now the irs thinks she owes almost $100,000 in unpaid taxes. He also built his McMansion in his parents’ name so he wouldn’t lose it in the divorce.
Now I feel this terror of the same fate. I never got paystubs. Call me young and dumb but I never cared as long as the pay came in. He very well could have fudged the numbers to claim to be paying me more than he was, while also not paying any taxes the whole time.
What can I do if I suddenly receive a bill higher than my entire income from the past two years?