Ferraro Vega Employment Lawyers gets aggressive on behalf of workers in Washington who lose out on wages and benefits they’ve worked hard to earn. This can include the miscalculation of overtime hours when employers ignore Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) benefits. This error can lead to employees losing out on thousands of dollars in pay. If this has happened to you and you want to know how to hold your employer fully accountable, contact us today for a free legal consultation.
Do I Need an Employment Lawyer to Recover RSU Benefits?
If your overtime pay or benefit problem only involves a small amount of wages, you may not need a lawyer for your case. If your employer is trying to fix the issue and appears willing to award you what’s owed, you might not require a lawyer’s help.
But when the overtime hours and stock shares involved start to grow and an employer seems to want to ignore the problem, it may be time to contact a skilled Washington Unpaid Overtime Lawyer.
You may benefit from turning your case over to a lawyer in the following circumstances and in other instances:
- If the back overtime pay you are owed will add up to a substantial sum
- If your case is complex
- If more than just one employee has experienced the same loss of income and benefits
- If your employer indicates a desire to fight your claim
- If you’ll be facing the employer’s lawyers
- If you feel you may have to go to court to earn justice
- If you feel your job may be in jeopardy for reporting your RSU problem
How Restricted Stock Units Are Supposed to Work
An RSU program allows employees to earn shares of the company stock for their time at the company and certain milestones. However, unlike normal stock options, the shares aren’t fully theirs until they’ve worked at the company for a pre-determined amount of time. The shares are received or “vested” when the employee has been at the company for a certain period and other conditions have been met.
RSUs are awarded as an alternative to stock options. Many companies in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane offer this added benefit in addition to a salary. Businesses like Google, Starbucks, and Amazon provide RSUs to qualifying employees.
Asking employees to work overtime should be no small thing. Workers lose valuable personal time and also endure additional wear and tear as they go past (often well past) a 40-hour work week.
It’s a sacrifice, and all employees should earn their fair overtime pay and any benefits they are guaranteed. They should find what they are owed on their paychecks without a hassle.
Earning Support for Workers Who Have Missed Out on Overtime Pay
Companies might undercalculate overtime earnings when they don’t understand the differences between stock benefits and RSUs.
When overtime wages are figured up, most companies pay employees time-and-a-half for their hourly rate for any work week over 40 hours. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) won’t let businesses pay less than this rate for overtime worked.
When companies look at the employee’s salary to figure out overtime pay rates, they usually don’t need to factor in stock options. But RSUs are different.
The value of vested RSU stock should be added in when calculating an employee’s rate of pay for overtime. Of course, this would raise an employee’s take-home pay any time the worker clocked overtime hours.
A recent court decision sided with employees in finding that overtime wage rates must factor in RSU values.
If overtime pay has excluded RSU share values over many years, the loss to employees may be substantial now and in the future. What’s more, an entire company or corporation could have hundreds or thousands of employees who are due additional earnings.
How Can a Lawyer Help Me Secure a Better Outcome for My Unpaid Overtime Case?
When you lose out on wages or on benefits due to an overtime miscalculation, you may feel powerless. Especially when dealing with the major company or corporation you work for. Having a lawyer on your side can help make sure an employer can’t ignore your paycheck issue involving overtime wages and RSU compensation. Your lawyer can also protect your case and your job.
Turning your case over to a skilled Washington Unpaid Wage Lawyer may be the only way to get your case taken seriously. Your lawyer can also often force employers to pay everything in back pay they owe and, in some cases, even more.
These are just a few of the protections our attorneys can provide to hard-working employees:
- Fully investigate your case and your employer’s payroll policies and records
- Find totals for your lost income and benefits, and add in the effects a loss of money has had on your efforts to save for the future
- Take on the company’s team of lawyers and prevent them from trying to cover up an issue or blame you
- Take legal action if a company threatens to fire you for simply seeking what you are owed
- Negotiate for much more than you could usually secure for yourself, sometimes more than you are owed
With evidence in hand, we demand the full reimbursement of your back pay and that the problem be fixed immediately.
Contact a Washington State Unpaid Overtime RSU Lawyer Today
If your employer isn’t reimbursing you for your overtime work and your hard-earned RSU benefits that come with it, you have legal rights that need to be protected.
At Ferraro Vega Employment Lawyers, we’re here to help you make sure you get paid. We take up the fight until you receive what you are owed. We help victims of wage loss in Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, and across all of Washington.
At the same time, we safeguard your job security and shield you from any retaliation from employers. Our legal team knows the city, state, and U.S. labor laws and will work hard to hold your employer accountable. Don’t wait–contact us today for a free consultation.