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Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>I have trained a worker of ours for over 700 hours that I have documented with phone call conversation minutes, emails, photo taking procedures with time and date stamps on all the images and so forth. The General Contractor whom has not paid me for the work I did also poached my worker using the following tactic: He did not pay me the full amount of what I was supposed to get paid causing me to eventually not be able to pay the worker, causing the worker to seek out who the general contractor was that gave us the work so they could call to complain and upon calling my client/the general contractor, the general contractor paid the worker and offered him work and hired him to work now for him directly and bumped me out of all the work, thereby using me to train this worker for his work and processes. HOW can I invoice for these hours? I have the General Contractor on a recorded phone call where he is poaching my trained workers. How can I get paid for all this time? Please find a legal way to be able top do this. Thank you

I have trained a worker of ours for over 700 hours that I have documented with phone call conversation minutes, emails, photo taking procedures with time and date stamps on all the images and so forth. The General Contractor whom has not paid me for the work I did also poached my worker using the following tactic: He did not pay me the full amount of what I was supposed to get paid causing me to eventually not be able to pay the worker, causing the worker to seek out who the general contractor was that gave us the work so they could call to complain and upon calling my client/the general contractor, the general contractor paid the worker and offered him work and hired him to work now for him directly and bumped me out of all the work, thereby using me to train this worker for his work and processes. HOW can I invoice for these hours? I have the General Contractor on a recorded phone call where he is poaching my trained workers. How can I get paid for all this time? Please find a legal way to be able top do this. Thank you

New YorkConstruction ContractPayment Disputes

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Oct 16, 2018
This sounds frustrating, and I'm sorry you need to worry about whether the employees you have spent a long time training will be snatched away from you.

While there may be relatively straightforward remedies for not getting paid by the GC, the rest is likely a rats' nest. To the extent that actual physical work or materials were furnished to a distinct improvement to property, a mechanics lien may be able to be filed to secure the amount due from the GC. If, however, the work performed was not for a specific project and was something like training work, or other non-project-specific jobs, a mechanics lien is probably not the correct path. In that circumstance, an action directly against the contractor is more likely the appropriate path forward. Depending on the agreement with the GC, an action for nonpayment of invoices may take a couple of different forms. It is probable that there would be an action for breach of contract, at the least.

With respect to poaching employees, it is difficult. The poaching of employees may be additional damages related to the breach pf contract and failure to pay by the GC and that could be recovered in a breach of contract lawsuit. Depending on your agreement with the employees themselves, there could be interference with contract by the GC, or there could even be a non-compete clause or something similar in the contract with the employee themselves.

This is probably a situation in which working with a local attorney to fully examine the issues and help you to move forward.
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