What should you do when your professor does not pay you for completed research work?

Question

I had an oral agreement with a supervisor that I was to complete research work for him. We established how many hours I was to work, and my hourly rate, when the work was to be done, etc. I completed the work, sent it off to him, he gave me some feedback and asked me to correct some citations and so, I incorporated the feedback, made fixes to my citations and then never heard back from him.

I recently emailed him about not being paid; he told me that he was not able to use the work and instead offered to find me alternative funding opportunities in the future. When I insisted that I did the work and deserved to get paid for my time, he threatened to report me for academic integrity issues. I'm only a Master's student, and this is my first research assistant position. Is this normal? Who should I speak to about this?

I am not part of a union, and my supervisor approached me to do this work. I do have email correspondence that confirms we have an agreement, but not confirming the specific terms (e.g. he wrote emails where he told me, submit your work and your time/hour log and I will pay you). He later revealed he had used the grant money to pay a different student to do different work.

The oral contract was made in front of others. It was in a lab setting, so others definitely overheard. Another clarification was that another student was to take over the work I began because I was going on an exchange to a different school. So there is more proof of a contract existing between my supervisor and me. My #1 concern is the threat of reporting me for academic integrity. My #2 concern is getting paid. I've contacted my faculty and was advised to report this to the dean of my faculty, which I'll be doing shortly.

Answer 1

Is this normal?

No. In most places, wage theft is a serious crime.

Who should I speak to about this?

The HR department. Possibly also the department chair. Provide a detailed written statement of what happened and when.

Answer 2

No, this is not normal. If an agreement about number of working hours and an hourly salary is made, the salary is normally supposed to be paid according to that agreement.

It is not clear to me if a contract was written up, or if everything was oral agreements. If there is no contract, and no written correspondence to confirm the agreement, you will unfortunately have a hard time lifting this case. But in any case, the correct person to contact (which is your question), is your union, or a local union representative at your institution - that is, if unions are common in your country, which you don't mention.

If you are not a member of a union, you should become so if that is a possibility.

You should also start looking for another supervisor, as this person clearly don't have your best interest in mind.

Answer 3

You should report this to a some authority.

The chances are good (but we do not know this) that the person has done this before and will do it again. Ethically if you have evidence enough to make a formal complaint you should to prevent them exploiting people. Ethically and practically are, however, two different things - you will have to make the decision yourself.

he wrote emails where he told me, submit your work and your time/hour log and I will pay you

That is sufficient grounds to take a complaint case. It is borderline whether it is enough to successfully take a legal case for failing to pay against them. It is not quite a contract (IANAL) I think, as the terms would be explicit (e.g. how much per hour or in total) for a contract. If you have corresponding emails now saying he will not pay that would be much stronger.

Strictly speaking you need legal advice specific to you country from your own lawyer.

Do not expect to ever get paid. You can possibly put an end to this person's behavior (by maybe getting them fired), but getting paid is not so easy.

I recently emailed him about not being paid;

Email is your friend here. Hopefully the replies were in email.

Make records of any emails, e.g. print them, copy them to disk. Get copies of texts by phone or whatsapp fs whatever if possible and try and get recordings of any phone messages left for you.

Courts and formal review processes will need evidence like this.

he told me that he was not able to use the work

This is rarely a legitimate complaint in a labor case (which is what you would probably have here - again IANAL). If your work was OK up until you asked for payment a court would typically take that as a demonstration your work was OK and without fundamental flaw. There would have to be a history of consistent complaint from the other person to justify not paying. They should also have stopped using you to assist them to be able to defend their position. Stopping after you ask for payment they refuse to make is too late.

and instead offered to find me alternative funding opportunities in the future.

That is known as "bait and switch", it's not considered reasonable. You expected to be paid, but unfortunately did not have an explicit agreement on the form of that payment, so it might be a slight weak point.

When I insisted that I did the work and deserved to get paid for my time, he threatened to report me for academic integrity issues.

If he was foolish enough to do that in email, you have an extremely serious case against him for abuse of power. He was acting an an employee of an institute and your supervisor so that is a case you can directly take against them. Typically you would make a formal complaint first via the institute's normal procedure. I would expect that to be enough to put this individual in danger of loosing their job - I'd personally fire someone for doing this (when good evidence existed), but your institute and country's normal practices are unknown to me.

Make sure you have good legal advice for this process. Join a union and request their help and advice - they typically have a legal representative they can at least put you in touch with, sometimes for reduced fees or free as an initial step. If that is not an opinion get your own lawyer.

Answer 4

tl;dr: Try your local small claims court or arbitration service to claim your salary, and make a formal complaint to your university regarding the professor's threat.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I'm an academic too. Try to look up guidelines specific to your jurisdiction. Don't worry about what may be common in academia. Pay disputes are very common in every field of life, and your situation isn't that different to if a car wash or a restaurant tried not to pay you for work already completed.

The full answer

There are two issues here - firstly getting the money you are owed, and secondly dealing with your professor's threat of retaliation.

Although the exact processed will vary from country to country, I would suggest this as a somewhat universal blueprint to get the money you are owed.

1. Compile all evidence in writing. Make an annotated PDF of all the emails where your agreement is mentioned. Email people who were present at the meeting when you agreed the hourly rate, asking "Hey, just sorting out some project stuff. You were there when I set an hourly rate if X Euros with professor Y. Just wanted to check you remember that this was the amount we agreed on." From their replies, you now have evidence of the oral agreement in writing too.
2. Email a formal final request for payment to your professor. Keep it brief (don't go into your whole dispute), and include payment details and a date by when you expect payment.
3. If the professor still refuses to pay, file a claim with your local small claims court or arbitration service. Small pay disputes are very common, and these kinds of services are designed to be cheap and efficient to use. For example, in the UK the fee to submit a claim is ~20GBP. Evidence (i.e. your annotated set of emails) is submitted online to an arbiter who will try to reach an agreement between the parties. No need for lawyers, and most cases can be resolved online or by phone, with no need to go into a court. In general you won't have the opportunity to call witnesses in this kind of arbitration, so make sure you have all your evidence (including the emails from witnesses) in a PDF or on paper.

The threat of academic retaliation by your professor is another issue, and a very serious one. Was this threat made in writing? If so, I would immediately make a formal complaint to the university. This will pre-empt any possible retaliation on the professor's part. If the threat was not made in writing, you may not want to make a complaint at this stage - however by formally pursuing the money you are owed, you will have demonstrated that he has a conflict of interest if he ever does decide to make a complaint against you.