Every job I’ve had has had a contract, and it’s usually “we pay what we want, we terminate you when we want, and you quit when you want.”
Now, sure, it's true that some elements of an employment agreement may constitute contracts and may have been enforced by courts. Back wages are a big one, obviously. Likewise promised benefits being denied, etc... But at-will compensation and termination just don't qualify. They don't. The Amazon workers can't sue for their mistake raises under contract law becuase those raises don't constitute contracts. Period.
Banks offer accounts with “whatever we feel like” interest rates. Bonds can have “whatever we feel like” interest rates. Stocks can have “whatever we feel like” dividends. Short term rentals have “whatever we feel like” rental prices.
In practice, the payer offers a very short term guarantee: “for the next pay period, you will get $50 an hour”, but after that pay period they change it.
There are contracts behind all these things.
One party offers something on a continuous basis: labor, money, etc. The other party walks away when they don’t like what they’re getting.
I'm pretty sure if you do work, as contractually agreed, the contract requires you be paid for that work.
It's just a contract agreeing rates for work done, not a contract guaranteeing work will be done.
Yes it does (and I even said so in the comment you replied to), but compensation plans, raises, offer letters, etc... are not payment for work done, and are not contracts for work for the reason stated. These Amazon folks aren't getting a penny, and it absolutely stuns me that people want to argue otherwise.
>note that at-will employment simply lacks several (the big one being "certainty"). In particular a "contract" that says "you can do whatever" is clearly not a contract under common law.
Which was in reply to a comment about every job having a contract.
Further your other examples could be contractually enforced.
If you accepted an employment contract based on the compensation plan, that forms part of the contract. Raises are updates to the contract, unless you're saying it's potentially ok to claw back 40 years of pay raises when some one retires. Offer letters are probably more questionable but if there's a specific start date and pay has already been discussed, it seems to me that that would form a contract.
The key thing in this particular situation seems to be that there was an error, and the error was rectified quickly.
That’s theirs.
But going forward, they don’t have any right to any level of pay above minimum wage.
I’ve personally dealt with this. I had an employer run out of money and be acquired by a new company. The new company owes paychecks for last pay period, but wants to pay everyone lower salaries.
Going forward the new company could pay whatever (above minimum wage). But they owned all the debts of the previous company including that last months wage.
We only had at will hiring agreements, but that didnt matter.
Work done for contract is a real thing, it's just not applicable here. When you hire a plumber or a caterer or a security consultancy, you write up a contract ahead of time describing exactly the work to be done and the bill to be paid, and then get the courts to enforce that when needed. That is simply not the way that salaried employment works in the USA. It's not.