Workforce Bulletin

California plaintiffs’ lawyers typically bring every type of wage-hour claim they can.  Increasingly, however, they have focused on one type of claim – wage statement violations.

As we have previously written about, bringing class and representative actions under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) alleging that employers did not fully comply with California’s onerous wage statement laws has become a lucrative practice for the plaintiffs’ bar.  Given the flurry of litigation, it is beneficial for employers that do business in California to review their wage statements to best ensure compliance.

On December 7, 2018, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law an amendment to New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) Section 193 (“NY Wage Deduction Law”) extending the NY Wage Deduction Law, which had expired on November 6, 2018, until November 6, 2020.

Introduced in 2012, the NY Wage Deduction Law amended the NYLL to permit employers to make certain deductions from the wages of their employees, including deductions for accidental overpayments, salary advances (including advances of vacation time), and insurance premiums. The NY Wage Deduction Law also introduced rules ...

In Ward v. Costco Wholesale Corp., No. 11-56757 (9th Cir. Jan. 9, 2014), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that, under certain limited circumstances, deducting a debt from an employee's final paycheck does not run afoul of federal law or the California Labor Code. However, employers should remain very cautious about making such deductions.

By William J. Milani, Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Anna A. Cohen, and Jennifer A. Goldman

The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has adopted wage deduction regulations (“Final Regulations”) pertaining to the expanded categories of permissible wage deductions in the New York Labor Law, effective October 9, 2013. 

As we previously reported (see the Act Now Advisory entitled “New York State Releases Proposed Wage Deduction Regulations”), among other things, the Final Regulations (i) set forth information concerning the subset ...

by Jeffrey M. Landes, William J. Milani, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Dean L. Silverberg, Anna A. Cohen, and Jennifer A. Goldman

New York State has finally codified its position on permissible deductions from employees’ wages. On November 6, 2012, an amendment to New York’s Labor Law (“Labor Law”) will take effect. The amendment expands the list of employee wage deductions that New York employers may lawfully make, so long as the employee authorizes such deductions.

On September 7, 2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the legislation that he introduced, which amends Labor ...