My question involves employment and labor law for the state of: Maryland.
My partner is a US citizen that was living with me (spouse) in Australia for about 6-months before he was offered a position he thought was worthy of his skills. He is one of about 3 top scientists in the world.
A US company hired him as the critical scientific knowledge to a start up business in South Africa. It has been 3-years now and the business has had difficulties getting started due to slow govt framework for aquaculture. The company was a 50/50 joint venture US/RSA now 100% RSA owned due to fraud by the US partner. About that later.
In Feb 2006, my partner was flown from Australia to the US for 3-months preparation time whilst he documented scientific work for a start up aquaculture venture. He was then sent in May 2006 to the South African site where I met him in May 2006. We stayed in a hotel for 6-mths then transferred to a 1-bedroom house on the aqua site whilst they built the pilot plant. About 12-months into the stay, the US President & US CEO of the Maryland shelf company forced my partner under duress to sign a very one-sided contract with no benefits. I was not included in the contract.
The president (a well known embezzler) was sent home to Maryland where he and his cronies still try to embezzle money from unsuspecting wealthy persons. He also stole our IP and sold it to the Sth Africans for 2.6m.
Anyway, in the 2nd year? when the President was stripped of his shares and sent packing, my partners contract was assigned to the South African company. On a recent payslip as of last month we noticed all his holidays went missing. This was because no one had processed them for three years.
When we queried the fact the my partner should have 22-days leave, the RSA company refused to pay or honor the accrual from the US contract. What should have happened is that my partner either takes the leave upon termination or the leave is paid out so that the balance it zero with the new company. There was no discussion with us when it was reassigned, maybe the South Africans were nervous they would lose us to and quickly signed the contract over. The RSA Owner said to us that we need to go back and sue the US company for the leave owed; is this so? He is also a sneaky character. We are very nervous about the management here and want to depart but not before we get out expat contract benefits as we would be entitled to and want compensation for our IP. Feedback requested please.

