Legal Question in Employment Law in Massachusetts
Terminated from a startup
In November I took a position with a
small design agency. Sensitive to her
small business size, I agreed to a lower
rate, temporarily. In 3mos she said she'd
raise my rate, if she could afford to. She a
also said that I would be brought up to
full-time. I would only be paid for
20hours/week, no matter what I worked
and I had to work more because she
misbudgeted time required to complete
projects. We were all working towards a
goal, of growing a small business. We
were told to do without asking. I
cautioned that we would have conflicts,
do things differently, she said we'd work
through conflicts. On May 7, I was
terminated and she lied about the
details. The things she said didn't
happen. I tried to take the higher ground,
but I feel... abused and taken advantage
of. There are no employment
procedures, no handbook, no anything. I
signed no contracts. I'm not allowed to
use screenshots of my work in my design
portfolio -- and threatened with 24hours
to remove them. Something is wrong
here...
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Terminated from a startup
Its unfortunate, but you took a risk joining on with a start up at a reduced rate, with the promise of benefitting in the future if it took off. You were an at-will employee, so the owner was entitled to terminate you whenever she wanted, and for no reason at all. She may have made verbal promises, but they assumed things would develop positively for everyone. Apparently that is not what happened and, unfortunately for you, the risk you took joining on in these circumstances.
The design is most likely hers as well, even if you developed it yourself in your capacity as an employee or agent of her company. She may not have filed for legal protection of her design, so there's not much she can do to stop you from using it, however, unless you agreed not to convert company design for your own use.
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