Not Paid for Past 6 Months of Work

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: California
Both my husband and I worked for a company that has not paid its employees for many months. I was not paid from January till May of this year. My old boss has opened up a new name of the business and started accepting bitcoins as payment so he cannot show any income coming through. He also states the new business location is in Panama and under an LLC. If we go to the labor board it will take months then have to get a judgement for past payment. Many old employees have already complained about doing this. Is this the only course of action we can take. I know I should not have stayed after not being paid first check, but I was told over and over again that "next week" "next month". I had a long history with the employer (over 17 years) so I did trust to a fault. That part I know I was silly to stay, now I am wondering if there is any hope to get it back.

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Quoting jandj1975

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My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: California
Both my husband and I worked for a company that has not paid its employees for many months. I was not paid from January till May of this year. My old boss has opened up a new name of the business and started accepting bitcoins as payment so he cannot show any income coming through. He also states the new business location is in Panama and under an LLC. If we go to the labor board it will take months then have to get a judgement for past payment. Many old employees have already complained about doing this. Is this the only course of action we can take. I know I should not have stayed after not being paid first check, but I was told over and over again that "next week" "next month". I had a long history with the employer (over 17 years) so I did trust to a fault. That part I know I was silly to stay, now I am wondering if there is any hope to get it back.

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You have some of the most worker-friendly laws in the nation. Why would you not take advantage of them? I suggest you file a claim with the labor board in spite of how long it takes to get a resolution. The state needs to be made aware of this. After all, you gave this deadbeat six months of free labor. What's a few more months?

You can also consult a labor law attorney.

Why would you continue to work for someone who does not pay you? How on earth can you afford to do this? Are you independently wealthy and working just for the fun of it? Then go volunteer at a hospital or something!

Leave at once and find another job. You will still be owed the money from this one for the time you have worked but not been paid. Begin processing this with your state wage and hour at once. Who told you that "it will take months and they have to get a judgment for past payment" and discouraged you from going to them? Your employer? Really? They're more likely to get the money from him than any of his other creditors, as wages owed for work performed is very high precedence. California is a very worker friendly state, and they will get you paid for work you have already done. But don't do anymore of it.

Before you spend money on a labor law attorney, stop working for someone who doesn't pay you, and take this up with the first responder in this situation, which is naturally the state wage and hour division.

And go file for unemployment and look for another job.

And I suspect very strongly that unemployment will have no wages on file for this person. It will be quite interesting to see if the employer has paid unemployment taxes in appropriately. If she tells them she has officially quit, and stops working, then files a claim, it will start when she files. It will not cover any of those past weeks she has not been paid for, because she was not out of work. And there will be a lot of interesting maneuvering going on to determine what wages should be used to set up the claim, since none have been paid to her, which I assume means no check stubs, no proof of earnings (of course), Though when an employer has not been paying in his taxes and he is liable to pay in such taxes (some employers are not) it could be established that the employee did work for them and they can be paid out of the unemployment general fund, but the longer you work without being paid, the more complicated this whole process becomes.

The unemployment system considers not being paid a pretty appropriate reason to quit your job. However I think this OP has really overdone it with attempting to exhaust all reasonable alternatives to quitting. And that makes things a bit more complicated.
Actually, wage and hour may get you paid for this work long before your unemployment issues in this situation get settled.

I agree, the person should quit this darn job and file a claim for benefits right away. But the most they could hope for is unemployment approval in a month or so after quite a while and several decisions. Assuming the person needs income, I strongly suggest they try to find a new job quickly.