My husband works for a very small company (three employees) as a part-time, highly paid, hourly employee. It is an ideal job because it allows him to have time to write, which is his passion.

A year ago, the accountant quit, and the boss took over that work. Since then, the boss has been a few months late on making the retirement plan contributions, but three per cent is taken out of my husband’s wages and is supposed to be matched by the company. Legally, both parts of the contributions should be deposited by the end of each month.

The boss said he will pay the retirement contributions when there is money. It makes no sense to me. There is money to pay my husband, but there’s none for the company to match his contributions. I think the boss intends to pay but doesn’t know where the company stands financially. The amount of work has gone down drastically, so after many months, the collective amount of money the company owes to my husband’s retirement plan is more than his paycheque.

He doesn’t want to quit or make waves because the hourly pay is better than the pay would be at any other job, but I’ve seen him get very angry and discouraged by the amount of work he is putting in to sort out the retirement contributions owed. He brings it up to his boss, but nothing has changed. What can he do?

IT sounds as if the “writing is on the wall” and your husband is asking the wrong questions. Instead of mentioning the late contributions to his boss, he should ask whether the company is going to cancel his retirement plan, in which case his own contributions should be stopped and returned.

Your husband likes the job – the pay and the freedom – so the last thing he would want to do is cause legal problems for his boss. It’s highly unusual for a three-person company to offer any employee benefits, so your husband’s goal should be to get the boss to talk about the company’s financial status. If he thinks the boss isn’t capable of handling the company’s finances, he should persuade him to hire an independent accountant to update the records, and then he should determine whether he should discontinue the retirement fund.

– Creators News Service