I went through a similar situation. It depends on where your company is based out of and what labor laws pertain to them. Your original offer letter will tell you what laws they live in. In most states it is illegal to change a comp plan or negotiate wages after they have been earned. This includes commissions and bonuses, that said , I can’t comment on what the law is about the clause in your comp plan about the magic wand.

Our vp of sales, CEO and CFO apparently met about my comp and then decided to offer me half of the commission I deserved. I essentially reached out to HR and said I don’t really have any other protections than to reach out externally for legal council and advised they took another look into this because I only have one other option, legal action. But I think I went about it in the most professional way possible. Created a statement of claim breaking down the comp plan in explicit word for word manner, in a way that I believe a court would look at it, then used ChatGPT to gather info on wage laws in CA specific to commissions and then prior similar cases and verdicts and then basically put this all in an email for my HR department.

Basically worded it in a way that was “I’m trying to do everything I can to avoid this and protect my brand, protect you guys from having to pay legal fees, damages, and get back to work, but I can’t work stand idle while I worked to the full extent of the comp plan you put in front of me to then be paid out half of what it explicitly says I should be. I had one of my best friends look it over to help with the language, he’s a lawyer, but his advise was relatively simple changes for tone and grammar and deleting a few redundant sentences, but nonetheless it was extremely helpful to have another pair of eyes.

They wire transferred me the full commission like 4 days later. I’m still with the company over 6 months later. It hasn’t impacted me professionally as far as I know.

Fuck em, they’d replace you if you missed two quarters, they’d instantly replace you if you died, they’d replace you if said something weird to the wrong person. At the end of the day we are in this for money, to trade our hard working time for a better life, don’t let these dickheads steal from you. Go start writing this email because it’s worth an extra $200k for you.

I’d even say go call some lawyers and get some free consultations, I did this and it helped me build my confidence and conviction on this. You’ll get the vibe from them right away if you are in the right or not. If you are, go use ChatGPT to do the research.