How would you confront a partner who isn't giving you an equal share in the business? (read more)

she should take to her friend/boss about this! it is not fair for her to be doing all of the work and getting paid such a low amount of money when she’s the one doing most of it. and if she(her boss/friend) doesn’t agree on giving her a higher pay, your mom should look for other jobs. because I mean if someone is going to act like that after saying that they both were a team and were going to to do together, then she isnt really a good friend at all..

Does her friend have an established business, is the cleaning commercial or homes, is her business liscensed and insured, etc? And did your mother have any type of contractual or written agreements that she signed with her friend/boss? I would first talk to her boss and see if a workable arrangement can be had. But if she is cleaning homes and the people like her work…she can let them know she is going off on her own and those people could then choose to keep her and pay her directly. But if your mom signed anything that is a non compete she won’t be able to do that. Waiting till she finds another job and then leaving would be the better way to go.

There’s nothing that would prevent your mom from starting her own housecleaning business, if everything was done on a verbal friend basis and not in the real sense of employee/employer business hiring.

She never signed anything, she just needed the help because others weren’t seeing her through about the pay and my mom didn’t have a job at the time. So agreeing to help an old friend out was fine until just after a while, cleaning local homes, that call the boss, creating a date and time to clean and pay after they clean, but it’s always made out to her and not my mom now, and she takes the money and yet still keeps a whole good amount when my mom is doing more work and busting her arse to do these homes and offices and my mom doesn’t like how this is going. and for 6 months? She doesn’t want to do this, and I helped her out but still her boss thinks she should get paid a good amount too cuz it’s her business, but she handed it over to my mom to take care of until she’s recovered.

It isn’t fair at all..and my mom thinks she’s taking advantage of her and I believe she’s right, because I helped her out yesterday doing this 3 story house and these places are really clean..and we just do the easy stuff but still…she lied to my mom saying how much she gets paid…when realyl she gets paid more than what she told her. I absolutely thought she kept her word from day one and paid my mom the amount she told her..Then she told my mom just recently that she’ll give her 2 months off next year (Jan-Feb) after that my mom is looking for another job..which I told her she should do now, so she wouldn’t have to stress over what’s going on. (sorry for my long block of words)

Sounds like her friend can’t keep employees so she’s using her friends. Business is business and friendship has nothing to do with it. If your mother is handling all of her business while this woman recouperates then she should be paid accordingly. That’s being fair, which most “friends” would be obviously this woman is all about business and her own profit making.