Human Resource Blog

Uniforms to be given back

	Compensation
Employee Payroll Action Form W-4 Employee Withholding Allowance Cert. Employee Payroll Status/Change Form Direct Deposit Form Total Compensation Summary

I am the manager of a resturant in Oklahoma and I went to a training event for the company and one of the things that was convered in a session of laws and legalities was that employeers cannont hold an employees check for any reason but more specifically because uniforms were not returned. A friend of mine was working a different company and she was fired. Her final pay check is ready but they will not give it to her because they are telling her that she HAS to return 2 of her shirts that they gave her. Needless to say she cannot find those specific shirts. She purchased 2 different shirts of different colors but they will not accept those. What should be her course of action?

She should file a wage claim with the Wage and Hour Division of the OK Department of Labor. The employer cannot refuse to give the worker her final paycheck, because the uniforms have not been returned. That’s a violation of both state and federal minimum wage laws.

 

The FAQs for the Oklahoma Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Unit, are at http://www.ok.gov/~okdol/wh/WHFAQ20070830.pdf. They say, “Deductions can be legal, depending upon the circumstances. If you are concerned that your employer may be taking illegal deductions, you should contact the state Wage & Hour Unit for more information. Employers must sign a written agreement with employees in order to make legal deductions from employees’ wages unless deductions are made pursuant to express statutory authority, such as state and federal tax withholdings and FICA, or pursuant to a prior valid final judgment by an employer against an employee.” This would imply that OK employers can deduct for the cost of unreturned uniforms from a final paycheck, if they have a written agreement in place.

Under federal law, deductions are not legal if they result in the employee being paid less than the minimum wage, which would be true for most food servers.