Would you be willing to accept less money than you should if you were working for your family, or would you want to be paid fairly and legally?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he knows his uncle is not paying him fairly or legally when he works overtime. But he doesn’t seem very good at confrontation.

Let’s read all about it.

AITA for complaining to my fellow employees about not getting paid overtime?

I work for my aunt and uncle’s landscaping company as a project manager/delivery driver.

My uncle has us working at least 10 hour days 5 days a week.

He sends 40 of our hours through his payroll company then cuts a personal check for the rest of the hours he owes us at our regular hourly pay, not paying any overtime (which is illegal).

He justifies this by saying we are making about the same as we would from overtime after having to pay taxes through his payroll company.

He really wants to be paid overtime.

I talked/complained to other employees about this (they’ve all only worked there for a couple months) after I started having to take more responsibility and essentially take over as the company manager without getting a pay raise.

I also talked to the office manager, who is my uncles brother in law (Not actually related to me) and he said that paying us a regular hourly wage through a personal check doesn’t come close to what getting paid overtime even after taxes would be.

My aunt and uncle then called me into their office for a meeting and called me out on complaining to other employees about how we’re getting paid.

They said, “everyone is fine with how they’re being paid”, “you are dragging our names through the mud and jeopardizing my family’s livelihood by saying we’re not paying overtime just to enrich ourselves”, “if you have a problem you should talk to us directly instead of BSing with other employees about it”.

He backed down.

I said I was sorry and I was fine with how I’m paid and left the office.

They’re my family, and I don’t want to insult them or hurt our relationship, but I totally feel they are exploiting their workers and I can’t tell them that to their face.

I totally feel used by my own family, but no one else is speaking up to them about it.

But, he’s not fine with how he’s getting paid. They’re guilt tripping him into accepting less than he should be paid.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

He really shouldn’t have lied.

Here’s a similar thought.

This is exactly what they’re doing.

The employees have a couple options.

This is the best advice of all.

Working for family shouldn’t mean being underpaid.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.