Labor law question.

So.. I mostly just lurk around on here reading threads and rarely post. I had a situation come up recently at work and wanted some advise.

I work in the automotive industry as a technician. I am on a team commission system as a team leader over 5 other techs. At the end of every day we take all of the hours the team has made as a whole, and split it evenly among the 6 techs.

A few years back we were on a shop comission system where out of 24 techs, the commission hours were split evently among all 24 techs (sucked). Back then management decided to enact a rule where if any tech broke a component or damaged something, for every $200 it cost the dealership, it was a 1.0 labor hour deduction from the entire group split. After about a year of this one of the older techs pointed out to management this was against Virginia Labor Laws. They quickly stopped doing this, no money was returned, it was never talked about again.

Come to last Friday, one of the other team leaders came to me mad because management was back stubbing them 15.0 hours labor for a job done over a month ago. One of his techs did not get a warranty stamp for faulty parts on an engine job, and the company rejected the warranty claim for a procedure error even though the engine job was still completed. Since they rejected the warranty claim, my dealership was debited the job, and management rolled that on to the team. I can't imagine how minimal the money the dealership is recouping by doing this..?

When I found out about this I was furious. I had a feeling it was illegal for them to do this and I presented all of the following info to the other team leader. He is afraid to say anything to management because he does not want to be on the so feared "shit list". Me personally, our hours have been terrible, management has been very negative, and if this was my team, I would have been in our general manager's office demanding it doesn't happen. If it was and hour or so, whatever, but 15.0 hours is a pretty big thing to swallow these days..

VA Labor law states an employer cannot with hold any wages for time worked without the written consent of the employee unless for tax reasons, they cannot require that the employee give them written consent as a requirement to be hired or to continue employement, and if they do and the wages are under $10,000 it is a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

Sections C, D, and E.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+40.1-29

My sister is a HR manager for a bigger company so I talked to her about it. She confirmed that everything I had found was correct, and since the job was done on behalf of the company, the tech needs to be compensated for the job he completed.

After talking to the tech that messed up, I found out he had already emailed the Department of Labor asking if what had happened was legal. He got a response this morning confirming it was illegal and they asked for documentation, which he has.

I came to work this morning with full intentions of going to our HR manager, who happens to be higher in command than the manager that made this call, who is still pretty high up, to explain to her what was going on and point out that it is illegal. But, after finding out the Department of Labor had inquired about it to the tech, my sister feels they will be coming to do a full audit of the dealership. She advised me to keep quiet since the wheels seem to be in motion already and will quickly turn into a shitstorm. I am wondering if the tech will submit the proof or not. Everyone seems to have a lot of fear of retaliation from the manager who made the call, but with the way thing have been going the past couple of months/years, I wouldn't be apposed to moving on to another dealership. I am still pretty furious about it.

Any input/suggestions. Seems the logical thing to do is to keep out of it, but everyone on the team affected is pretty down about it and the fact their team leader won't do anything about it. I stayed about 30 minutes late deciding if I wanted to talk to our HR manager and ended up just going home..

Sorry for the long winded post..

 

Document everything said and done. If they run someone off for whistle blowing, they could find themselves in deep shit and subject to lawsuits.

 

Encourage the tech to submit the proof and bring the DoL pain onto management. Sounds like the shitty manager you're all trying to avoid pissing off is the one who needs to find a new dealership, not you guys.

 

+1

The retaliation you guys are fearing should land him in a way deeper pile of shit than he's already in.

 

I would start looking for a new job.

 

Should I bring any of this to the attention of lower and/or higher level management? I am willing to do something about it, just don't know if I should or not..

 

He shouldn't be scared of getting in trouble for supporting his crew.

 

Why should he have to walk away from his job? Get this handled and continue to make money.

 

I would think the feds will handle the notification at this point.

 

Sounds like someone needs to. If he won't, then I would.

 

Sounds like you need a team "leader".

 

I would keep quiet to your company. Tell the truth to the labor board if interviewed .

We had a issue where my company wouldn't pay us to load trucks ordrive time. I know the labor board doesn't tell on the people who talk because I was accused of being the rat.

I have a big mouth and everyone thought it was me that made the call . A foreman stepped up and took the blame and quit. Come to find out his wife was a big shot lawyer. She sent my company tall the labor laws they were breaking in a fax with the lawyers firm in the Letter head.

A lot of drama , but at least things were made right.

 

Depending in the shape of the dealership how much longer will it be open if the DOJ and DOL go to town on them. That was my thinking.

 

I learned a long time ago that if you live your life in fear (supervisor, neighbor, etc), that you are going to have a miserable time, most of the time. As I've gotten older, I've learned to be, shall we say, a bit more diplomatic in my approach, but the bottom line is that right is right and wrong is wrong and if you don't stand up for yourself, then you are destined to be shit on at every opportunity.

 

How the F' do you share the book hours you worked with the other techs? That seems crazy to me. Is everybody teaming up to work on one car then moving on a s a group to the next on?

A senior tech is getting F'd if he's teamed up with lesser experienced techs, or lazy techs.

On them back charging the team for the warranty work, that's BS and illegal.
Make sure someone follows through, because your guys may be next.

 

Pretty sure they cant charge you for issue you create during working hours (breaking parts etc.) That is the reason THEY are the business owers, they take the risks and have the insurances and THEY make the profit. I think our guy broke more than his fair share one week and I asked the boss man "why dont you just make him pay for it?". He told me it was illegal to do that.

 

Thanks for the advise everyone. Still debating whether to keep my mouth shut tomorrow or not. I've been talking to the other tech tonight and I think hes going to submit that stuff to the DOL. He seems to be fed up with being shit on, its a shame..

There are 3 customer teams (I am in charge of one), 1 new/used car team, and a waiting oil change team. I have 2 service writers that feed my team, same for the other two customer teams, the other two are diff but its irrelevant. It doesnt matter if I know what another team does or vise versus. Actually every day I get an excel spread sheet to see what everyone in the shop turned and what their split was, among other info. Its really not a big deal. I have various level techs under me. I usually diag cars and when work is upsold I send it over to another tech on my team to do it. It works out for us because none of my techs like or are good at diag. If I dont have anything like that to do I knock out whatever else is in line, oil changes, transmission jobs, engines, whatever. Other teams do it different, but that works for us.

 

Good advise :up:

 

Would I get a vacation if I said something like.... "obama owns the dealership"....in jest of course....hypothetically speaking of course....