September 2003
WIN AT WORK MONTHLY
A Community Service of DON D. SESSIONS, A PROFESSIONAL LAW CORP., Employee Rights Attorneys
Win at Work	Employee Rights Update
KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHTS Throughout most of history, the employer was king. The boss established the work hours, the pay and the conditions. In the late 1800s, Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle that detailed the abuses of the slaughterhouses in Chicago. This awoke the public to such an extent that many laws were soon passed protecting employees. Additionally, in the last 30 years, new laws have given even greater protection to whistleblowers and victims of discrimination in the workplace. Needless to say, in today’s world, employees have more rights and protections than at any other time in history. The challenge is not so much employees’ rights, but their knowledge and use of such rights to their own advantage. Bookstores offer a wide variety of employee rights books. Attorneys and government agencies can also provide assistance. Though the workplace will never be a democracy, application of employee rights should keep it from being a dictatorship.	PAY DEDUCTIONS Employers can’t deduct cash shortages, breakage, loss of equipment or other losses due to simple negligence from an employee’s paycheck. This was the decision in the Court of Appeal case of Edwards v. Earl Scheib Inc. of California. An employer can’t recover his business losses by passing the losses on to the employee. Some losses are to be expected in any business. The employee does not underwrite his or her employer’s business by providing a means to recoup such losses. Even if an employee gives written consent to a deduction it will have no effect if the deduction was illegal in the first place. However, an employer might be able to recover losses due to employee dishonesty, an intentional act or gross negligence. An employee can also give consent in writing to a deduction from his or her final paycheck for unreturned equipment if that consent is obtained in advance. Employers must be careful not to violate the state Labor Code. Peter W. Taylor, Attorney
Update on our attorneys: Peter Taylor won an appeal in an overtime case. Over 500 of our publicized articles on employee rights have been compiled into five separate books and are available in our lobby.
Look for our answers to employees’ questions in the “Life and Work Q & A” column of the Orange County Register’s "Business Monday" magazine. E-mail us at dds@job-law.com to have your address added or removed from our monthly mailing list. For more employee rights information or for past issues of Win at Work Monthly, click here for our website, job-law.com; here to order our book, Employee Rights in California; or contact our office directly at 23456 Madero, Suite 170, Mission Viejo, CA 92691, (949) 380-0900, (800) 774-7494, mailto:info@job-law.com. The Win at Work portion of Win at Work Monthly is from our ongoing syndicated column which appears in the Los Angeles Times’ “Career Builder Magazine” and elsewhere. Win at Work Monthly is intended for general information and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion. Readers in need of legal advice should promptly retain the services of an attorney. ©2003 by Don D. Sessions.