Is it legal for an employer to withhold wages for a previously worked week?
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Is it legal for an employer to withhold wages for a previously worked week?
My husband works for a company that is moving their pay schedule from being a week behind to paying for current hours worked. There is a week in June that he hasn’t been paid for and the company says that he won’t get paid for that week until he leaves the companyno matter the reason he leaves. So my question is Is it legal for them to withhold pay for time already worked? We could understand a bit better if he just started with the company but he has been there coming up on 15 years.
Asked on July 14, 2016 under Employment Labor Law, Kansas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 8 years ago | Contributor
No, it is not legal: employees need to be paid for the work they did at least monthly in your state--which basically means that you can't make an employee wait more than 4 weeks or so to be paid. The convenience of the employer, the way their systems or processes work, etc. are not legal defenses to the obligation to pay employees at least monthly, so legally, your husband must be paid. Unfortunately, there is no good way to get the money other than either filing a complaint aginst the employer with the department of labor or by suing, so you need to balance your need for the money (and sense of fairness) vs. the impact on his relationship with his employer if he takes that sort of action.
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