My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: CA
Spouse worked in the classified department of a local newspaper for 12.5 years. Loved her job for years but we all know what the newspaper business is doing these days. She was paid minimum wage plus commissions. Over the past five years her annual salary has dipped from $36k to $21k even though her sales figures are much higher. A year ago her manager quit and they did not replace her. Three months ago her supervisor quit, no replacement as of yet. Stressed out at having no one to give her direction, answer questions, sign her time card she was nearing the end of her patience. The person whom the publisher told to be "in charge" stated "I am not your manager". She had nobody to forward customer issues to. She finally snapped and wrote a resignation letter, slipped under the door of the publisher who was rarely present and cleared out her desk. She quit, but I believe with good cause. They were pissed because she handled about 75% of their classified advertisement (line ads). She never heard from anyone. They made a "final check" deposit into her bank account.
During here employment she would get paid twice a month. On the first and the sixteenth of the month. The check of the 16th would include commissions from the previous months sales. When they deposited her "final check" in July it did include Junes sales. In August they sent her a check for July sales that she had sold & booked into the sytem. Those ads ran in July. She still has order that were sold and booked into the system that ran in the paper in August. They refuse to pay her for those stating "it is against our policy". Corporation is out of Nevada, we are in California, I think they owe her that money. Thinking I should file in small claims court or maybe there is a Labor Board type agency in CA for this type of thing. Need some guidance on getting paid.
They objected to her filing for unemployment of course and CA EDD denied her unemployment claim. We just filed an appeal.
She has been searching for a new job for 2.5 months now and we just learned from a potential employer that when they called the paper to confirm that she had been employed there for 12 years the newspaper HR department stated "we will not confirm nor will we deny that she worked here". Can they do that?
Thanks!

