Dispute Resolution

Have you ever had a dispute with an employer over payment? How did you handle it?

I used to work for a nightmare employer who refused to pay one of her contractors because she didn't like the work he returned. I was the liaison (not mediator) in the matter and quite frankly, I think she could have better handled it. She didn't want to pay him a penny. The work wasn't that bad and it was pretty unfair for him to spend all the time he did working on it to end up having someone not want to pay him at all.

He was performing the duties of a writer/editor for her digital documents about a certain business. He was on board before I came on board so I'm not sure the procedure for getting the project she put him through but there were procedures/tests in place for me and others so I'm assuming he did undergo some sort of procedure/test or show some of his past work for her to hire him. She wasn't the type to just hire anyone without checking them out.

With that said, she had to have felt his work would be satisfactory. He had written for her prior to this dispute and she kept him on board so, to me, it made it even more unfair/shady of her to pull what she did on him.

It's not that he did the work incorrectly, she just, apparently, wasn't thrilled with it or would have done it differently if she had been doing it.

Quite frankly, the whole project was a huge mess in the first place. Everything was unorganized, so many had come and go that there was confusion about whether or not things had been done, if this or that had been edited, which version was the up-to-date version, etc.

She was a nit picky employer who wanted to consume as much free time from people as possible - which I quickly learned. I felt she handled the situation with him unfairly and later learned of similar situations in which she had done similar things to others. Plus, I was undergoing my own terrible experience with her.

Long story short, we all went back and forth for a good week or two and he ended up not getting paid a penny. He was mad and I don't blame him. Worst case scenario, I think she should have at least paid him a negotiated fee for the work he did. She just didn't want to. So he worked for free, like many others unwillingly ended up doing for her.

Sometimes you're just going to get one of these unsavory employers but thankfully, for the most part, they seem to be few and far between. She's the only one I've had like that and I terminated our relationship pretty quickly.

In order to try to avoid these types of problems, it's best to have a dispute resolution solution in place. It doesn't necessarily have to be anything fancy; just something outlined of how disputes will be handled. This way there are already courses of action laid out in the event there is a dispute. This can be done in several ways.

A few things to consider:

• There are third parties that will act as mediators for disputes - designate someone to mediate disputes. Designate who will pay for the mediator (i.e. split the fees or the losing party, etc.)
  

• Determine which state's laws will have jurisdiction - use the state you reside in, where the work will be performed.
  

• Determine the method of notification and the amount of time in which an employer must give notification of a dispute and the amount of time in which you must respond. (i.e., if the employer is unsatisfied with something they must give written notice within xxx days of receipt of the work and you must respond within xxx days. If on the xxx day there is no agreement, it will go to the mediator.)
  

• Indicate that the two of you must make a valiant effort to resolve the dispute before taking other action.
  

• Consider using escrow accounts so that the money is in an account that neither of you can touch until the work is complete or the dispute is resolved if there is a dispute.

Working online is a real business and it must be handled as so. It can seem like there is no need for having things like this in place or it may seem like a hassle but you need to cover your butt or you could end up like the guy I was talking about - getting no money for a week or two's worth of work. Had there been a dispute resolution process in place, maybe he could have gotten something.

A lot of ICs don't have any contracts in place. While, luckily, there frequently doesn't end up being a need for one there are times that one finds themself wishing there were contracts in place. Not only for disputes either but we'll talk about other contracts in separate posts.

Til later!