> ...employers telling me to pay myself off a credit card
That sounds terrible and I've certainly heard the last part of your comment echoed many times before (about the slave labour in tech positions in California) but I'm not understanding the first part about wage theft and paying yourself with a credit card.
I've been in a bad spot where my employer used her credit card to cover payroll and then did immediate layoffs (and I think she put her house against the debt too in case she didn't pay up). Are you talking about that, or a situation where your boss refuses to pay you for labour completed and so you dip into debt on your own with the promise of a (soon) coming payday?
Either way it sounds to me like if you've got a trade (you mention engineers) you should be able to find work online from around the world and not have to work for the employers in LA. Is your job something you can freelance or contract?
> ...employers telling me to pay myself off a credit card
That sounds terrible and I've certainly heard the last part of your comment echoed many times before (about the slave labour in tech positions in California) but I'm not understanding the first part about wage theft and paying yourself with a credit card.
I've been in a bad spot where my employer used her credit card to cover payroll and then did immediate layoffs (and I think she put her house against the debt too in case she didn't pay up). Are you talking about that, or a situation where your boss refuses to pay you for labour completed and so you dip into debt on your own with the promise of a (soon) coming payday?
Either way it sounds to me like if you've got a trade (you mention engineers) you should be able to find work online from around the world and not have to work for the employers in LA. Is your job something you can freelance or contract?