2006Legal / Business Practices forum
Production company altering timecards and refusing to honor guaranteed employment agreements
20 years old. Gear and prices may have changed since.
DisputedParticipants disagreed and reached no conclusion. Read the findings as positions, not as an answer.
What the thread found
- A signed timecard is a legal document that cannot be changed by anyone except the employee who signed it
- A signed deal memo guaranteeing specific days of work takes precedence over standard union cancellation rules that require 12 hours advance notice
- Altering timecards without employee consent may constitute a federal tax violation
- Small claims court is a viable option to recover unpaid wages for agreed work that was not paid
- Meal penalties required by state law can be withheld when production alters timecards to remove penalty hours
- Documentation of timecards before submission can serve as proof if discrepancies arise after payment
- Production companies may deny signing or reading deal memos even when submitted through official channels
Depends on
- The original poster's deal memo was never confirmed as received by production due to being faxed on Friday before the work week
- Pursuing legal action against a production company may result in being blacklisted from future work with that company
- Non-union productions may present additional complications for enforcing meal penalty and wage requirements
- The thread discusses multiple situations from different years and jurisdictions (New York and California) with potentially different rules