Paycut Vermont

[mandanjay]

I make $10.00 per hour. my boss told me that i was going to be taking a paycut of $2.00. Four weeks passed and i hadn't seen the paycut effect my check. I recieved a job offer and put my 2 week notice in. 3 days after i left the job my former employer called me and said that he had made a mistake and never applied my paycut and is going to take $2 from every hour worked in the past 6 weeks out of my final paycheck.

IS THIS LEGAL??

What Should I Do??

[ElleMD]

If he hasn't paid you yet, then he is just doing what he said he was going to do and reducing your wages.

[DAW]

This is going to be a very soft answer, so please do not read more into then I am saying. Federal rules on recoveries are not well written. If I am following what you have said, you have been overpaid by $320 (160 hours x $2/hr). Your final two weeks you would normally have been paid 80 hours times $8/hr = $640. Your employer is talking about reducing that by $320, or functionally paying you $4/hr, which is less then federal minimum wage. I am going to include a federal website which will be very badly written, but which if you hold it up to the light and squint just right, will seem to say that the employer cannot reduce your pay below minimum wages. There are other "rules" that maybe say something else. Not just this page, but the underlying 29 CFR 531.xxx regulations are very poorly written and it is easy to argue about just what the rules really mean. If you want a hard answer on federal rules, I cannot give you one.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs16.htm

However, state law can be and often is clearer written and more favorable to the employee then this particular federal rule is. I have no idea what VT rules are on this (if any), but someone else might. If VT has rules, then you really need to know what those rules are.

One last point. The wage cut was perfetly legal. Taking you to court to get the money back is probably perfectly legal. Deducting the overpayment on your final check and taking the final check below minimum wage might not be legal.