Can a employer deduct from your hourly wage every time you are late for work?

My Hourly wage used to be Twenty dollars a hour, now it's Twelve dollars and forty cents. I work a split shift six days a week, so I basically go to work twelve times a week. Now my employer has always joked around with everyone saying things like if you make that mistake again I'm gonna take a dollar off your pay, but he never ever did so. When he told me he was gonna take ten cents of my hourly pay I thought it was another one of his jokes, until he handed me a contract to sign to give them permission to do so, which I did not sign and never heard back from him about the matter. the contract was signed by his Daughter who is also a owner I think, she does payroll and is human resources. I kinda forgot about the matter cause they never said anything to me about not signing the contract, but then I happened to look at my pay stub and noticed my pay was around $18 a hour. I've never heard of anything lie this before, do they have the right to do this? It's getting to point where I cant afford to go to work now.

1 answer  |  asked Jun 27, 2013 01:21 AM [EST]  |  applies to California

Answers (1)

Karl Gerber
I would have to see the contract to give you a full answer. However, contracts conditioning past wages on events that happen after the hourly wage is earned do not seem proper. The second however here is that if you are warned your wage is going to go down and then it does while working in the future that is not illegal if you are not working on a prevailing wage job, or otherwise have a contract to work for a certain wage. If your wage goes down for earlier parts of the pay period that you already worked that is improper. Employers who recruit employees from other jobs and then play these games with them as soon as they are hired are also likely to face liability if there was an intention to do this all along.

Split shifts raise many questions. You should contact a wage and hour lawyer who thoroughly understands split shifts. They are highly technical issues.

posted by Karl Gerber  |  Jun 28, 2013 9:34 PM [EST]

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