Hi all, this isn’t really an anti-work post but it’s definitely an “anti sleazy work ethics” post – and I guess I’m being scammed out of deserved money.
So, I’m a freelancer who works on projects for companies. I get brought into companies as a temp employee to work on week long projects. This time, I was onboarded into a company for a 5 day project. They asked me what my day rate was, and I said it was X per day.
I received a contract from HR with my day rate converted into hourly. This amount, if multiplied by 8 hours, made my day rate. So, usual working hours there. It also stated what my overtime pay was. So I assumed they wanted me to work 8 hours. No issue there.
I worked the first three days for the company and for each day put in 8 hours in the timesheet. After the three days I was scheduled for a break and only have two more days next week.
Today, and only now after I worked three days does the department I work for send me an email asking me to acknowledge and “accept” this new contract that says that I’m actually supposed to work 10 hours a day. This means that if I only work 8 I get a lot less money than the day rate I requested. I told them that I was not informed of this before I started working and that the information in the contract provided to me by HR stated differently. They replied by saying this was how my contract was, and that to hit my requested day rate I would have to hit the 10 hours. So for the days that I only worked 8, thinking I would get my day rate as per my HR contract… I’m actually getting a lot less.
If I’d had been informed about this before I actually started working none of this would be an issue!!! I’m so angry. I’ve now lost a total of 20% of what I thought would be my full salary for 5 days because of this.
Since the contract I signed with HR says differently, do I have any recourse here? Could I take this to the state’s Labor board and get those 20% back?
Thanks all!