Life Sucks at the Labs, Too

I've been working at a national laboratory in [deleted] as a contractor for just over 11 years. In July, the lab took me away from the company that issues me my paycheck, and put me and 199 others into a new company. We were told that we have a choice: To continue working at this lab, or to go find a new job somewhere else. But if we wanted to stay where we were, we were going to have to "voluntarily" change companies.

We weren't given much advance warning. We weren't given the chance to state our disapproval with the way things were headed. Nobody called us into a meeting and said, "You are our chattle, and this is what we are going to do. What do you think?"

Naturally, I grumbled. But I went with the program because the alternatives didn't have much real appeal: Not working, finding a new job at less pay, being unemployed until I lost my house, etc.

A couple of months later, I was given a contract by this new company and told to sign it. I found a number of things I didn't like. Namely, that they could change the terms of employment at will. I tried to call my Ombudsman, but there was nobody to call. The "new way" didn't call for an Ombudsman. I mean, does chattle even need one? I called the HR person at my new company, who told me to sign the document or find another job. I talked to the contract manager at the lab, who told me that there's nothing he could tell me, nothing I could do, and nobody to talk to.

So the contract sat in my bag, unsigned, for several weeks. Two weeks ago, I got an email, "We need your signed contract." Having no other option, I signed it and dropped it off.

Then today, I received an email stating that I would not be paid this Friday. Today's Tuesday, and Friday is three days from now. Instead, payday was moved to two weeks hence and from now on, paydays would be two weeks after the actual work was performed (time card due on Friday, get paid two weeks later). This would be ok if it was a term of my employment. But I've been there for 11 years. This amounts to an interest-free loan for the complete term of mine (and 199 others') employment.

The excuse for this, aside from something lame about the economy, was that we were going from being paid every two weeks, to being paid twice a month. Then they sent out a spreadsheet that they claimed showed that we weren't actually losing any money, with simulated totals before such loss actually took place, conveniently lacking such totals after the loss occurred. I'm a software developer. A dog food salesman could tell 200 people were each losing two weeks' work, payable upon leaving the company.

This company recently signed a $150m/5 year contract with the Lab. That's $750K per employee it acquired. Yet, it suddenly can't make payroll without screwing its employees?

I don't know what I'm going to do about this. I love my work. I like the people I work with. But this company sucks. I have no recourse. So maybe I'll just take some advice from Jim Carrey:

"But what I'm probably going to do, is piss and moan like an impotent jerk. Then bend over and take it up the tailpipe!"

Then again, maybe I'll just go somewhere I'll feel appreciated.