i started working for company ABC. but all of sudden company fianancial situtation went down and stop paying for last 2 month. is there any violation on opt. i am currently employee of that company. i still work for them for free.
It is ok, just wait it out. Help the company come out of red through your abilities and you will benefit. This is not violation of OPT
Dr. Sandeep Shankar
Academic Advisor (India) to The Executive Director
Colorado Heights University
Denver, CO 80223, USA
www.chu.edu
You cannot do volunteer jobs i.e. without pay on your OPT extension whereas in 12 month OPT period volunteer jobs are allowed. Talk to your school DSO immediately regarding it. Also start looking for new jobs immediately as you need to produce pay stubs when you apply for H1 next year.
My understanding is that one can do volunteer job on OPT only if it is a real volunteer job for e.g. at Red Cross etc. One cannot volunteer at MSFT or GOOG for 12 months without getting paid. That will break labor laws at several level. In other words, one can volunteer on OPT only if it is related to the course and there are other people (non-OPT) volunteering there for free.
From what the original poster has mentioned, his work doesn’t qualify under volunteering.
The questioner has referred to ‘sudden’ stop in salary. This is not uncommon (considered involuntary occurrence by BCIS) where a personnel services company is the sponsor, stuff happens, margins get clipped, upline clients shut down shops etc. Similar cases are plenty in Atlanta, North Carolina, New Jersey and Utah. Here the individual is not choosing to volunteer but has been forced into the circumstance due to financial challenges with parent company. I agree with Saurabh and Ramana on not waiting too long (definitely not 12 months or even 6 months) but also ask questioner to consider having a talk with the company on this specific situation. Violation of Labor Law occurs when a malafide intent to exploit has been demonstrated, not sure if that is the case here, or is it?