Location: Texas
Backstory: I worked at a customs car shop as a vinyl installer for 8 months. When i got hired i was the only installer and there was 2 other guys who got hired at the same time as me, their dutties were prep vehicles for the vinyl. I had just completed a 5 day training course to learn how to apply vinyl to different surfaces. The 2 guys had 0 experience inthe auto industry.
The owner of the shop did not provide training and was rarely at the shop, leaving us 3 new employees to figure things out.
We got the hang of running the shop, communicating with the customers and doing the job. The only thing we didnt do was take payments (the owner asked for it to be zelled or cash apped to him).
For the first few weeks we were all getting paid on time, he would give us cash or cash app. A few weeks go by and he starts delaying our pay by a day or two, saying he was waiting on payments from his customers to come thru. This happened many times but we were still getting paid. However, later on he was only paying us a portion of what we were supposed to get, he would tell us he would get us the rest the next day or a couple days later. He created “tabs” of what he was behind on as far as our pay, and it quickly grew into the thousands. He got so behind on pay and eventually stopped paying us.
For the time i was there he went thru about 15 employees that all left xue to him not paying them. Only 1 guy that started with me was still working there.
The owner owes money to everybody, from customers, employees, family members, friends, to his shop warehouse landlord. He didnt pay his rent for a while, this caused us getring locked out a few times and it is currently locked to this day due to non payment.
I left during this time because 1. I wasn’t getting paid and 2. We kept getting locked out.
Now onto the issue that i am looking to get advice for: I filed a wage claim for the unpaid wages through the Texas Workfoce Commission. I have a offer letter that i had signed when i got hired, it specifies how much i get paid per hour and the comission that i got per vehicle completed, as well as the details of my dutties and the expectations from both parties (employee and employer). It mentions that i will be paid after 2 days of completion of the job as long as there is no chargeback on the customers end, which he failed to do for many months. Also the “tab” that he had for me was wrong because i forgot the specifics of the “contract” (offer letter) that we had, and he was updating it with the wrong amounts (it should be more than what he has me down for).
So i put all this info down on my claim and the TWC sent me a letter with the owners response. His respose mentions that i left my position without providing a 2 weeks notice, abandoned my responsibilities in “several critical areas” and i disrupted the workflow and created operational challenges for his company. He claimed i left multiple jobs unfinished, as well as damaged company materials and customers vehicles. He said that the damage was not only a setback in terms of repais but has affected his “customer satisfaction levels and reputation of availability service”, and that my hourly pay was ancient on till and proper (not sure what that means), and that my bonus “was not earned due to failure to complete tasks and the disruptions which impacted both individual preformance and meeting company targets”.
Ok so to start, the owner stopped paying me MONTHS before i left the job, so his response is automatically invalid because he claims that me leaving caused his all his problems. Also its not a “bonus” , its a comission per vehicle completed, i have a list of the vehicles i did and tooks pictures and also recorded myself working on the vehicles. And damaging company materials, i brought in my own materials to work with, and nobody has come back due to “damage” to their vehicles. There is no damage that i or anybody is aware of.
His “setbacks” were his own fault for never ordering materials to work with or his other employees quitting because he didnt pay them either.
There are so many details that can help me with my case, i just want an outside opinion on what i can respond to all these lies, because this guy is really good at BSing his way out of trouble, he just isn’t smart enough to hide his paper trail.