I don't know the legalities and other related things aside, but I would make a rebellion, although you look in the worst position (you are being paid the same as a fresh recruit, come on!)... Walking straight to the boss and telling him either to raise pays or everybody leaves could be quite effective. And of course, 8 people talking shit about a startup can build quite a lot of momentum to keep him from getting any more job candidates/clients.
On the rebellion side I would not feel ethical doing so. I don't want this guy's business to crash and burn. It does honestly provide a solution to a need in the industry and the product is of high quality. As much as I sometimes wish I was, I'm not that much of a dick to cause trouble. (Plus there may be some movement there of a lawsuit or something that would make me overly nervous.) I do have a feeling however that me leaving this company will have a snowball effect on the others there.
1. Ask him to be "upgraded" to a real employee (he'll say no, as we suspect)
2. Tell him you understand his decision, and since he wants you to be freelance, you will work for him as a true freelancer, e.g. for a certain number of hours, at a certain hourly wage, at your own home, at the hours you choose.
3. He may "fire" you. However, if you are as indispensable as it sounds like you are, he will come crawling back to you. In any case, he won't fire you until he sucks know-how out of your brain, which he would do over the course of a month of freelance work. So you have some time to do the transition.
P.S. Leading a rebellion is only needed when you have no leverage. In fact, you have tons of leverage, you just don't understand or are unwilling to use it.
I sent you an email about this. I work as an outsourcing partner to US-based web design firms. These firms pay me a fraction of what they charge their clients, so I am looking to work with clients directly.
If you are interested we could partner up. I can provide web design and development services and have a very strong portfolio (alexwyser.com) to help us out.
This will allow you to take on more clients, provide a wider range of services (I do front-end and back-end stuff as well) and make more money. And probably help you freelance full-time.
Let me know if you are interested. And good luck.
If my boss didn't pay for my health bill and asked me to work while at the hospital I would definitely not let it go like that, you are a human being, moreover, you are helping him to get money. And you are almost getting no money back.
As about lawsuits, it greatly depends on how you focus it. You are being exploited, you know it (and he knows it). You could probably sue him right now. And telling your colleagues about how work was like there is not unethical, nor illegal, it is helpful for them.
Couldn't you just balance on paying for more bandwidth (don't know the prices where you live) with just more freelancing? When you say "bills" you mean just that, or include expenses like food and the like?
With bills it comes down the items I listed before (housing, car, student loans, credit cards, utilities) Food/misc wasn't included.
The issue with this area is it's fairly stuck in the old' days. People expect to pay $200-$500 for a website, regardless of what it does. It could be one page, or it could have all the functionality they would ever dream of but only expect to pay a one-time fee.
The ethical approach is to state clearly what you need to continue and if they can't meet that, you move on with proper notice. However, you are being underpaid and both the treatment-as-contractor and constant-low-pay-in-the-face-of-overtime are of dubious legality.
If by your acquiescence to unfair/illegal conditions you are then effectively encouraging their perpetuation, and their extension to other junior employees, and further falling behind in providing for your family, than 'not causing trouble' is the unethical path.
If the business would crash and burn without you, you are a key employee who deserves better pay and equity. But from the sloppy way things seem to have been handled so far, you might not even be able to trust a stock grant from your employer. (Even if he is in some ways charismatic or effective, you may have run across a bad actor who will press every advantage against a person who won't be personally/legally assertive in response.)
Don't feel bad about 'rebellion', loyalty should be both ways and respect must be earned.
Stand up for yourself!
It sounds to me like this business is currently failing, but your boss is "faking it" by exploiting you; he might just as well be paying you normally but keeping the doors open by draining his grandmother's bank account.
It might not be a problem with the product -- after all, the client list is growing swiftly.
Simply put, he needs to either find the money to pay for what he's demanding from you, or he needs to close up shop. He might need a loan or investment to cover the gap until you are cashflow positive, but in this case he is stealing from you instead.
It's not even an "investment" on your part, because he seems to have utterly no intent to pay you back. That's just stealing.
For comparison, in an honest situation, he would be either: * paying you a normal salary as an employee * paying you a higher rate as a 1099 contractor (to account for your reduced security and benefits) * or paying you less but accepting the difference as your personal investment in the company -- so like any investment, if the risk pays off, you would be paid back MORE than your investment in the future. This would be formalized by giving you shares, etc. (and you should be able to calculate how/when you would be repaid).
> I don't want this guy's business to crash and burn.
That's fine, you don't have to want it to crash and burn. HE clearly wants it to crash and burn.
While it's your entirely your responsibility for having chosen to stay in such a terrible situation, he's the one who created it in the first place.
He's the one who's betting his business on mistreating people. He's the one who's betting his business on mistreating, most importantly, a single person who holds his business together.
He could have paid you more. He could have fulfilled his promises. He could have hired other people to make you more dispensible, to hedge his bets, to protect his future.
But he didn't. Because he's not a businessman, he's a user. Users don't think "gee maybe I should use THIS guy a little less, to protect myself," they think "WEEEHEE I CAN SQUEEZE A LITTLE MORE OUT OF THIS DUDE FOR NOTHING!"
That's simply unwise.
It's not your place to worry about whether he goes out of business. It's his plan. It's his mistake.
And, after you leave and you've secured your future income, call the IRS on his butt. He is breaking the law and should be punished and switch his business model to something legal.
Don't do it out of vengeance, do it out of concern for future schmucks.
