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A Pleasanton-based staffing company is being criticized by workers who say they’re owed money for work they did but were never paid for.
The workers, 12 in Oregon and at least two in California, say they submitted timesheets to Aptitude Staffing Solutions and were repeatedly promised checks but never received them.
Now the case has moved into the courts and has been handed to officials in both states.
Carmen Meuter, a 70-year-old physical therapist who lives in Brentwood, is awaiting a hearing from the state labor board. She’s also filed a lawsuit in small claims court in an effort to get the money she says she’s owed.
The state Department of Industrial Relations, which handles wage claims, shows Meuter has filed a claim seeking 106 hours in unpaid earnings. Aptitude has another open claim in California from Allison Abels, who has not received her final pay, and also has seven closed claims. State officials could not immediately determine whether Aptitude had won or lost those prior claims.
The California Secretary of State shows two listings for Aptitude Staffing, one filed in 2005 in Walnut Creek and one filed in Pleasanton in 2008. Both list Darren Lawson as owner, although he calls himself vice president of recruiting. Pleasanton city records show that Aptitude Staffing filed a business permit in 2008 but it expired at the end of the year and was never renewed.
“I’ve served him (Lawson) the papers. We have a date on Aug. 25,” Meuter said. “I know he won’t show up, so I’ll get a judgment.”
Meuter said she worked for Aptitude Staffing last year. At first, she was paid. Then, she said, checks started showing up late and finally stopped coming altogether. Meuter said she was never paid for work she did from Nov. 15 until Dec. 31, 2009.
She said she’s owed about $4,500 — and that the company is keeping her from doing any more work for the home health care agency that hired her through Aptitude.
The workers in Oregon have the same story. They were hired by Aptitude to work at Safeway warehouses in Clackamas; again, checks started showing up late, and again, stopped altogether.
Brookes Gulleff says she worked for the Safeway grocery warehouse but was never paid.
“The job was to pay $13.75 an hour and was to have lasted about two and a half weeks, 88 hours total. I was filling in for a girl that was going on vacation,” Gulleff said, adding that she was told it was possible to get hired by Safeway directly.
When her first check never arrived, she contacted Aptitude Staffing, which repeatedly claimed it had placed checks in the mail and, twice, promised to send checks by overnight delivery.
When she raised the issue with her manager at Safeway, she was told not to worry.
“She said that I should continue to work my scheduled shift,” Gulleff said. “She said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Safeway’s a big company, we’ll make sure you get paid.'”
That story changed later, when her manager told her to stop work because Safeway couldn’t guarantee her pay. Gulleff said her manager told her she had talked to Safeway’s human resources and legal department, and said she didn’t think Gulleff would get paid, but that she wouldn’t elaborate.
Safeway spokeswoman Teena Massingill said in an email that Safeway has stopped doing business with Aptitude.
“This is an extremely unfortunate situation,” Massingill said. “We lived up to our contractual obligation to Aptitude and fully expect Aptitude to fulfill its obligation to its employees by providing full payment for all time worked.”
Meanwhile, Gulleff said she’s in a bind because she counted on Aptitude’s promises to pay.
“I’m about to be evicted from my apartment,” she said. “My electricity is about to be shut off. I’m extremely financially strapped. I don’t have a dollar to my name.”
Gulleff and two other workers have filed claims with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.
An Internet search shows 10 employees at Aptitude Staffing, but the firm is operated from a single room in a building at 6200 Stoneridge Mall Road that rents office and receptionist services. Aptitude still has employment ads at several online job sites, but the company’s website, which promises “advanced recruiting technology” and “industry-experienced recruiting teams,” has links that no longer work.
Gulleff said recruiting in Oregon was largely done by a temp worker at Safeway who would round up his friends to cover shifts. Gulleff said that man is also waiting to get paid.
Aptitude also has created a new Facebook site after its original site filled with complaints about workers not being paid — complaints made, for the most part, by Gulleff.
Repeated telephone calls to Lawson went unanswered, but Lawson did respond to email inquiries about the workers’ claims. He said that “(o)ur records indicate that all candidates hired through Aptitude Staffing Solutions have been paid in full,” but noted that he’s aware “of a handful of preceding employees who have attempted to produce fraudulent checks and/or timesheets on Aptitude’s payroll account.”
Labor officials in Oregon and California are investigating the claims, and Meuter’s case is set to be heard later this month.
Nothing ruins a good story quite like the facts.
One year ago the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce in a qualified endorsement of Measure G said “With this endorsement, we also call upon the PUSD Board of Trustees to work with City leaders and chamber of commerce leaders to engage both public and private sector resources, expertise and creativity to help address issues of long-term stability.” With the June 2010 expiration of a three-year teachers union contract, PUSD had the opportunity to structure employee expenses to provide long-term stability. Instead, PUSD and the teachers union re-signed the same three-year contract, complete with automatic salary increases and no changes in benefits. This blatant disregard for the economic situation PUSD finds itself in is a fiduciary abomination. Instead, PUSD and the teachers union are using layoffs, reductions in high school class periods, increased middle school and high school staffing ratios and temporary state-authorized unpaid furlough/vacation days (while still keeping ADA revenue) to cuts costs. To claim that these are all ‘salary cuts’ is misleading at best. At least Dr. Casey was honest when he said that they were ‘cobbling together the best it can.’ How true, using one-time gimmicks while keeping the underlying fundamental issues unsolved. Let’s be clear. The furlough day ‘salary cut’ is applied AFTER the annual salary increases. Approximately half the teachers will experience a salary increase this current year and next year. And the total salary expense line (not counting the layoffs) will increase given the accretive nature of the salary increase structure.
Which leads to the new ‘Drop and Donate’ campaign. While admirable in its intent, this fundraising campaign attempts to move responsibility for non-teacher funding to the community while keeping the teacher salary increases and benefits intact. As now seen with the elementary music program which relied on community and PSEE funding to exist in 09-10, the community and PSEE is now on the hook to provide the same level of funding for 10-11. And the same will be with the PPIE CORE programs. Guilt, shame and threats of child–hating will be used to goad the community into not letting those programs and services go away. And whatever PPIE manages to raise will only be used to further hook dependency on fundraising next year. If it weren’t for the union expense structure in place, and the refusal to implement a permanent across the board salary cut, the fundraisers and parcel taxes would not be needed.
At the same time, the California PTA and Pleasanton PTA want to reduce taxpayer protections with a state constitutional initiative this fall to lower the voter threshold for local education parcel taxes to 55%. Then in 2011, the plan is to bring an education parcel tax before the Pleasanton voters. This is the strategy to extract the maximum amount out of the community while protecting and increasing teacher salaries and benefits.
Superintendent Casey should not be whining about not being able to budget well. He and the PUSD Board had a full year to implement long-term fiscal stability. They missed the opportunity and the community should not have to pay for their incompetence.
The unions have chosen to use economic pressure against privately held Castlewood Country Club. It is time to hold them accountable and to apply economic pressure against the unions. Since PUSD and the unions believe it is OK to cut student learning by three days a year, then we as parents can choose to keep our kids out of school whenever we choose and cause a reduction in ADA to the district. The ‘Don’t Drop Off’ campaign has started. Along with the ‘Don’t Donate’ campaign, we will continue to send the message to PUSD and the unions to implement long-term fiscal solutions.
How unfortunate that this year went by without meaningful progress towards fiscal stability. The PUSD Board, administration and unions have conspired to screw the families and kids to inflict as much pain as possible in order to drive fundraising and parcel tax campaigns. It is time now to tighten the screws that we control.
Dark Corners,
That is a very good summary of facts. I wish it could get published in the PW hard copy for more to see.
This forum allows us to see there are others that get it and that is reassuring.
Dark,
Very good summary and probably the first I have seen which explains in order of what happened. Our school board, administrators, and teachers union have really messed this up. We should get someone with some business experience on the board who has a background with dealing with unions. We are far to cozy with ours.
Dark Corners,
Don’t make us guess, dish!
I have heard from several sources that the teachers repeatedly said that they wanted any concessions to “hurt the parents”. For example days off that would cause childcare problems.
“…angry tea party rants I heard last Friday.”
Correction — Make that last Thursday.
The more you post DCOT, the more clear your motive becomes. You hope to see the schools fail as you claim ” wish there was more I could do to spread the word. I encourage others to NOT donate as well.” Your character shines clearly when you campaign against optional school fund raisers.
Your rant no longer makes sense in the face of the hundreds of school districts in this State facing the exact same issues. Your attempt to blame our administration is simply not true. You may not agree with the decisions that have been made to balance the current budget, but that does not make these decisions wrong. You report only a portion of the cuts that have been made, and ones that further your point and mislead members of the community.
Your blatent disregard for the concessions the teachers in PUSD made in order to save the district over half of the current budget deficit ($4.5 million) is absurd. You dont agree with the standardized national method of how teachers are paid, and claim it is the fault of district administration for not changing it this year? Your comments show the lack of knowledge you really have on the topic, yet again like to mislead the members of the community.
Keep burying your head in the sand to avoid what really is the issue with funding education in California. Your opinion is not fact, and not a true representation of what is really going on in our schools. This is a top performing district- in the top 10% in the state, nationally recognized schools, award winning sports, music, and student government organizations. This is not a failing school district, thanks to the professionals working daily to overcome the millions in cuts to programs, staff, administration, and materials.
Your continuous efforts to mislead the members of this community dont even make sense anymore.
Anonymous; I don’t know that the statements attributed to the teachers and union are true. That’s why I asked if you knew otherwise. Apparently you don’t; just say so.
It surprises me (no, actually it doesn’t) that you seem to recognize that various bankrupt government programs are causing ongoing financial problems for us. As you’ve stated, we have paid into these systems for years and we aren’t likely to get anything out of them. That’s a crime as far as I’m concerned. So why aren’t you standing up and demanding something be done? It seems that you are in favor of allowing government entities (PUSD for example) to just continue on their paths of financial mismanagement. You seem to undertand this problem. Why don’t you add your voice to the call for fiscal responsibility?
” I’m tired of bailing out the folks responsible for getting us to this point- no more!”
A recession got us to this point.
Wrong Patriot, irresponsible raises, reckless spending and poor planning caused the problem. The recession made it so they could no longer cover it up.
Dark Corners’ opening comment really must be printed in PW…seems to be the wisest adult in town.
HOW could a new Super ‘fix’ anything with the renewed ‘auto-increase’ union contracts. They’re like alcoholics that can’t or won’t cure themselves….I guess we’ll have to go ahead and ‘hit bottom’….no other solution…cannot just continue feeding the excesses.
Unions and the ‘lousy legislature’ refused to fix the “auto-pilots’ in the state, which continued our plunge well BEFORE any economic crisis. Auto-pilots will destroy CA, our city, and our schools. It’s inevitable…so WE cannot continue ‘feeding’ the auto-pilots..that was a SERIOUS mistake!!! Sorry, we’re broke! And, what’s with dummie attempts at dragging petty politics into this discussion…this is ECONOMIC REALITY ! Wishes, wants, needs, are irrelevant !!! (taking an extra 3 days vacation, won’t solve THESE problem) ! Get a grip on what is happening OUT HERE in the real (non-union) world.
Patriot, phony diversion. The CA plunge,(caused by greedy public unions and stupid, lousy,bought off legislature) was well under way long before the current economic plunge. Their are some who attempt to con the gullible that the current situation was ALL caused by the housing foreclosure/finance collapse….which is NOT the case ! CA UNsustainable, union auto-pilot contracts and retirements were already collapsing CA. SOME union ‘front’ spokesmen try to blame the national situation. Long-time, INFORMED Califorians KNOW the state was well in the process of collapse. You KNOW that. But thanks for playing dumb, and having me explain we some who might have bought into blaming it ALL on the current situation. The UNsustainable CA union destruction was well under way. It is tragic, and upsetting, that we have officials who STILL CRUMBLE to the unions and SELL OUT OUR KIDS and US. That is WRONG, and cannot be tolerated or rewarded.
Patriot,
Like a Ponzi scheme they needed to keep the money flowing.
Yes, it became acceptable for most government agencies to spend irresponsibly and not plan for lean times.
Knowingly entering a Ponzi scheme, even at the last round of the scheme, can be rational economically if there is a reasonable expectation that government or other deep pockets will bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.
This is an outrage! I cannot believe nobody is stepping up for these people! How do company’s like Aptitude get away with stealing? this makes no sense and why isn’t the law holding them accountable?
This company sounds so shady I would never work for this kind of a temp agency!! I hope they get shut down and all the people get paid what is due to them plus pain and suffering I mean seriously I work full time and if I all of sudden didn’t get my paycheck I would be in trouble! Sounds like these people were actually unemployed and taking any decent job they could find and now have nothing to show for it other than more time lost.
I feel sorry for all these workers who have been cheated and will have to wait months to get their pay (and may not get paid at all). Like Ms. Meuter, the aggrieved workers can file in small claims court, but getting a judgment for money is a far cry from actually getting paid.
It’s a shame that people like Brookes Gulleff work hard to support themselves and then face eviction. If the facts are indeed as these workers present, I think it would be fair to say that the owner, Mr. Lawson, should have to pay restitution more than just the unpaid wages: he should have to pay a stiff fine and punitive damages.
That said, long ago and far away, when I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I signed up with a temporary placement agency that sent me here and there. I worked as an assistant to a Hallmark Card executive (and boy, did I want his job, $300k a year and I barely saw him do any work), in a warehouse, in an accounting firm, a mental health clinic (where my very first call that I answered was from a woman who was barricaded inside her bathroom because her husband had gone off his meds and was threatening to kill her…the rest of the two weeks was easy after that first day!), an insurance firm, and a bookstore. I was offered permanent jobs at two of the places where I worked (Hallmark and the insurance firm). Temporary agencies are a good way to explore a variety of different work environments, make some contacts, and keep yourself working when unemployment rates are high, and most of them are very reputable and honest.
Before hiring on with a temp agency, I’d say people need to investigate them a bit, see if they are registered with the Better Business Bureau and check the consumer affairs office to see if any complaints have been filed against them–and also Google them and check their Facebook account!
I just wanted to note that Darren Lawson has never been able to show me any sort of proof that he had mailed me any of my paychecks. I have a locked mailbox and am the only one with a key. I have also spoken with my mail carrier and the post office and they show no record at all. To date, Darren Lawson of Aptitude Staffing Solutions has not paid me a dime for the work I did and he was paid for. He is still refusing my phone calls, texts, and emails. If he was legit, wouldn’t he call back and work out his problems? Also, why is he performing business with an expired business license? Also, to Daniel Bradford, thanks for the comment. I did do a Google search on A.S.S. before I went to work and I was unable to find much, but I thought since my work was at Safeway, there shouldn’t be a problem. I was obviously wrong about that, and that is why I am posting what happened to me where ever I can so I can help prevent this from happening to anyone else.
Safeway should step up and pay these people NOW!
Unfortunately, this is no surprise. At store level it can take weeks, even months to receive wages shorted on paychecks. Management always has some lame excuse and/or passes the buck as far as who’s responsible, blaming someone in the payroll loop other than themselves, or just flat out lie saying the fixed it when they most certainly did no such thing! This is far more serious, as having a shift or two shorted is nothing compared to the blatant theft of services Safeway; (true, it’s the Agency’s fault first and foremost, but Safeway has an obligation and responsibility both morally and ethically to pay these people) has committed against these employees.
More and more I’m ashamed to even work for this company. Bragging of their charity fund-raising, but stealing from their very own employees. Just one of many disgusting actions of Safeway.
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