Here is the situation:
April 2005: I was selected to organize a academic and cultural study
program at my school. As an organizer my fee (and travel expense) for
the program was paid for. The program fee (and travel expense) is
approximately $3000 + 1650 (ticket).
April 2005-November 2005: I co-coordinated the program. Efforts
included organizing logistics, marketing (to get students signed up),
and organiziging meetings with companies we would visit.
October 2005: I missed couple of meetings (two-three).
November 2005: I was called by program director for a meeting and
asked what is going on? I said I need to reconsider if I want to be
co-coordinator. After consideration I said I wanted to be
co-coordinator. But I was removed from the co-coordinator role. I
was offered no compensation.
November 2005: After I was removed from the co-coordinator role, the
program elected another co-coordinator whose trip expense was paid
for.
I have spent approximately 12-15 hours a week on this responsibility,
for a period of 5 months. I would like to seek compensation from the
program.
I am trying to explore my alternatives. Here is what I can come up with:
My efforts: 5 months X 4 weeks X 12 hours a week = 240 hours.
Per hour pay: I made $110 K per year in my pre school job. After
school people from my school make on an average 150K a year. I made
$5800 a month during my summer internship. The school TA jobs pay
approximately $30 per hour. So with $30-50 per hour rate I get:
$7200-12000.
Program fee is $4650.
What is the best I can do with this scenario? I am willing to go to
small claims court and fight this out with the program.
I am located in the state of Pennsylvania. |
Clarification of Question by
wg06ajax-ga
on
12 Jan 2006 11:36 PST
I am seeking legal advice on what my legal options are.
Any ideas about how to negotiate this with the program organizer would be ideal.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
18 Jan 2006 05:27 PST
Have you asked them for compensation, or sent them a bill for your services?
Seems to me the first step would be to ask up front, so you'll know if
they are willing to pay you, or not.
pafalafa-ga
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Clarification of Question by
wg06ajax-ga
on
19 Jan 2006 13:59 PST
While I have not sent them for the bill for my services, I do want to
understand what my legal options are before I approach them. That way
even though we end up not disputing this in the court, I will know
what I can reasonablly negotiate. Hence I would like to find out what
my options truely are.
Look forward to more comments from you.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
19 Jan 2006 14:07 PST
OK. Now for my next question. Did you have some sort of contract
with these folks?
If not, then:
1) Do you know the details of any arrangements with your predecessors
in this position -- it's useful to know the history of what went on
before you took the helm.
2) What was your understanding of the arrangements -- pay, hours,
leave, benefits, and all the other accoutrements of a job. How did
you come by this understanding (a letter, a conversation, etc).
Looking forward to your reply,
paf
|
Clarification of Question by
wg06ajax-ga
on
19 Jan 2006 16:57 PST
The position was for once a year academic and fun trip (to India) that
is organized by the school for students. I (and two other student)
were elected as organizers. The school rule is that for such trips
the organizers' expenses are fully paid for. The role does NOT state
any hourly pay. As organizer you are supposed to put in as much
effort as required to make the trip a success and in return your trip
is paid for. While I am not certain there was an explicit document
stating that, it will be easy to produce evidence to support this.
NOTE: I suspect that if we go to court, the other organizers (and a
school administrator who is also a coordinators) may say that they
felt that my contribution was less that others. I had missed two
meetings. But I was sacked during first such discussion despite that
I had goal setting plan for each coordinator so that such
disagreements did not arise in future. After I was sacked, the other
two organizers elected their best friend to be third coordinator (I
believe the third coordinator's trip was also paid for).
The trip was on December 22nd 2005 till Jan 8th 2006. This was the
second year such a trip was conducted to India (but such trips to
China and Latin America have been conducted for many years). Every
year is a new effort. So there was no past work to draw from (apart
from schedule of last year).
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