Sooo, some context. I was 19 when this story happened, I'm currently 20. I'm in my first year of studying music and the summer before I started I decides to take on a summer job to save up a bit. This was at a bakery, as a sales assistent.
At first, everything was great. They taught me how to manage the cash register ect. Eventually I also was allowed to help decorate treats sometimes, which was fun so I didn't question it.
For the first couple weeks that I worked there, I kept asking what my payrate would be, and they kept saying they would get to it.. Great
Eventually they told me it was decided by some sort of bakers regulation thing (I got no clue how to translate it, english isn't my first language)
They also didn't give me any sort of contract and when my first paycheck finally came, I didn't get a paycheck either. They just transferred the money to my account, without showing me their calculations.
Fast forward a bit and they asked me to run one of their stores.. By myself… As a 19 year old summer sales assistant who had been working for them for a month or so. I agreed and soon learned that I would be working with an oven, preparing food and would be responsible for so many other things. I didn't think anything of it at the time but later learned that that is illegal here. You have to work for a company for years in order to be allowed to do all that stuff, and they also have to move you to a higher payed group of employees, which they didn't do. I ended up managing a whole store, by myself for full days. My rate was €6 an hour. That's about 6,50 for all you americans reading this. I was payed minimum wage for my age, to do all that stuff.
Then I learned that I wasn't actually alone. They were keeping tabs on me through the cameras. One day they called me to tell me that I had arranged the bread wrong.. Keeping tabs on your employees with cameras is also very illegal here.
After all this happened, I got an offer. I got to sing backing vocals in a very good band, do a big live show and sing on tv and radio with them. I would be payed €100 per day of rehearsing (108 dollars), €100 per small gig (tv and radio) and 250 for the big show (272 dollars). Of course I accepted. This was a huge opportunity for me. At first, I was gonna try to keep doing my summer job as well, but later I realised that wasn't possible. I was done with rehearsels one day around 10 pm, and then I would have to travel 3 more hours to be back home and start working at the bakery by 8, then travel two more hours to be playing at the radio by 4. As soon as I realised that it wasn't possible, I texted my employer. I explained the situation and said I hoped they understood. At that point it was around 6 days before my next shift. She read it immediately, but didn't reply until about four days later. She said it was breach of contract (which I didn't have) to quit in such short notice and they would except me to continue to work. I told them I didn't have a contract and wasn't aware of what my notice should have been. Also I reminded them that I was just a summer help and we never even discussed when summer would end (this not very long before my summer break was over).
They ended up sending me an email demanding that I pay a big fine for breacb of contract.
Now here comes the good part.
Me and my dad made a list together, which included all of the illegal stuff they did during my time there. I'm pretty sure we left a couple things out at first to throw back at them if they would continue to push the fine.
We told them about the fact that I wasn't allowed to do the work I was doing.
We told them about the paychecks.
We told then that they were storing their merchandise outside of their bounds with an open door at a mall, which meant that dogs could freely get to it. That's a huge health violation.
I'm not 100% sure if we told them about the camera's at that point, but I think we did.
And the list goes on.
We demanded that I get all of my paychecks that I missed, that I would be payed my remaining hours in full and that they would drop the fine.
Some time later, I got an email with only my paychecks, nothing else attached. I got all my money, and we never heard from these people again.