Does my employer have to furnish me with details of the sales that I’m paid commissions on?
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Does my employer have to furnish me with details of the sales that I’m paid commissions on?
I work as a sales merchandiser for a third party vendor to a major supermarket chain. I am paid commissions on any sales of our items on a weekly basis. All I’m given is a total of what sold in each of my stores. Commissions make up about 60 of my pay. When I asked a year ago for details of what I’m selling, they made a big deal about it. The regional manager along with my manager and head of HR came to see me. They brought me a copy of what the supermarket supplies them. They also showed me a copy of their contract with the supermarket stating that they are not allowed to give the sales figures out to anyone. Although I believe they are misinterpreting the agreement. They did allow me see a weekly list for a whole 10 minutes, not enough time to analyze it to make sure I’m getting credit for what I should be. How do I know they aren’t picking numbers out of a hat? In the past we have been paid adjustments for items that didn’t show up in store sales correctly. How would I know, I don’t know what’s sold? Does my employer need to provide me with details of itemizes sales if I ask or can he just give me the bottom line figures?
Asked on September 10, 2017 under Employment Labor Law, New York
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
They do not need to provide you this information unless:
1) You have a written employment or commission agreement with them which requires it. If you do and they violate that agreement, you could sue them for breach of contract to enforce your right to the information.
2) You believe they are short changing you and file a lawsuit against them, again for breach of contract (for violating the terms of the agreement in not paying you what they should); in the course of the lawsuit, you could use the legal mechanisms of "discovery" (i.e. document production requests; written questions or "interrogatories") to get this information and documentation. Of course, you'd unfortunately have to sue *before* you knew for sure that the suit was warranted, since it is only in a lawsuit that you have access to discovery and can compel the production of this argument.
As you can see, there is no way to force them to provide this without litigation of one type or another.
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