I am a hairdresser in Florida and I work on a commission basis. I get a 50% commission on whatever services I do or whatever products I sell for a two-week time frame. I had an altercation with a male employee in the salon because I felt he was harassing me. The male employee started yelling at me at the top of his lungs when I confronted him. His behavior caused some clients to walk out of the salon. I have gone to the owner several times about the male employees behavior and she does nothing about it. I just received my paycheck and realized the owner had deducted money out of it. She deducted 150 dollars from my totals for a two-week time frame and put it down as monies owed. She did this prior to paying my commission on sales and services for the two weeks so the deduction did not show up on my pay stub. The only reason I know about it is because I print out my total sales for the two weeks too determine if my paycheck is correct. She never told me she was deducting the money or why. When I asked her why she deducted the money she said it was because of the altercation I caused in the salon and the business her salon lost when clients walked out. There are no written disciplinary regulations in our salon and I never signed anything authorizing her to take money from my paycheck. Is what she did legal? What Florida statutes cover what an employer can and cannot deduct from your paycheck. I am under the assumption that an employer cannot deduct money from your check without a court order or written permission, but I cannot find where it says that. Can someone point me in the right direction?? Thanks for your assistance. :confused:

Florida has virtually no laws dealing with employment, other than with youth employment. So, the only venue of law covering Florida employment is federal law.

Federal law permits the deduction of pay as long as the person receives a rate of minimum wage or higher. However, it also says that the employee must be paid for the hours worked. I know that this is confusing but this is the way this should be interpreted. An employer cannot just "willy-nilly" take money from the employee (such as what your employer did). If the employer said that it will deduct the cost of uniforms from wages, it is legal, as long as the net wage is still above minimum. It could even deduct from wages for situations such as yours, had she said that employees will be charged for cancellations caused by actions of the employees.

Withholding pay as a punishment is not legal. You may wish to contact the US DOL and discuss it with them. http://www.dol.gov/esa/contacts/olms/lmskeyp.htm#Gulf_Coast_Region

Yesterday I was called into work 3 hours early because a girl didn't show up, right in the middle of lunch rush. My employer told me not to bother counting the bag and droor yet and to do it later. I'm so used to doing it right when i get there i completely forgot and wasn't reminded. Later that night when I closed there was 30 dollars missing from the bag. My employer accused me of stealing and said he would deduct it from my paycheck. I quit and told him he needed to check the security cameras. Today he told me he checked them and didn't see me steal or see how I could've done it but it was still coming out of my paycheck because I was the only person who could have taken it. I made minimum wage and I'm 16, can he do that?

Are you in Florida? If so, your employer can deduct the money from your pay, as long as you are still at minimum wage or higher after the deduction.

Last Friday I went to my previous job to pick up my paycheck only to find that $285.79 had been deducted for "Unauthorized company charges". Basically the charges were for as follows: $104.51 for calls on company cell phone. There were no charges on the bill for any calls made or recieved. $56.28 for movies charged to company hotel. I was in Mississippi for 5 days with three other guys who had to order the movies. I did not. And $125.00 for a traffic fine that I recieved while I was there. My situations is a bit awkward. I was hired to do sales in the office. My boss asked if I would do the company a favor and help on an installation in Mississippi. I did not want to go, but, I did as a favor to the company. The company phone was given to me to use and I was given no restrictions on the phone. Most of the calls I'm being charged for are for company use. Based on the information I provided to you. Can you tell me if I'm entitled to my money and what I need to do to get it back. Thank you for your time.

This is not going to be easy. You can contact the Florida Dept. of Workforce Innovation to see if they will assist you at all, but I wouldn't be optimistic. Federal Wage and Hour law does not address deductions from pay such as you described and Florida has very few regulations regarding such employment and pay issues, and they very well may tell you that you have to bring a civil suit. The amounts in question, however, would means that you could bring such a suit in small claims court.