Portage County Legal News

Lawmaker wants all employers to provide detailed paystubs to workers

KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: April 18, 2019

It's not uncommon that the typical employee goes weeks, if not months, without examining his paystub or logging on to a payroll service provider's website to verify his deductions or gross pay.

Most employees, however, can do so with relative ease when the mood strikes.

That's not the case for all Ohio workers, though, and a bipartisan lawmaker duo seeks to correct this deficiency in state labor law.

Ohio is one of nine states in which an employer is not legally required to provide its employees with a statement detailing their pay information, according to Cincinnati Democrat Rep. Brigid Kelly, who has proposed legislation with fellow Rep. Nino Vitale, R-Urbana, that would make Ohio an access state, requiring employers to provide either a written, printed, or electronic pay stub.

In addition to employee and employer identifiers, such a statement shall include the following information:

• The total gross wages earned by the employee during the pay period;

• The total net wages paid to the employee for the pay period;

• A listing of the amount and purpose of each addition to or deduction from the wages paid to the employee during the pay period;

• The date the employee was paid and the pay period covered by that payment; and

• For hourly workers, all of the following information: (a) The total number of hours the employee worked in that pay period; (b) The hourly wage rate at which the employee was paid; (c) The employee's hours worked in excess of 40 hours in one work week.

Filed as House Bill 137, the measure would require an employer who does not provide the statement or access to the statement to provide the statement not later than 10 days after receiving an employee's request for the statement.

"A constituent initially brought this issue to our attention after her employer went through a change in ownership and she and her coworkers stopped receiving their regular pay statements," Kelly told Commerce and Labor Committee members in the Ohio House of Representatives. "They were also denied access to view them.

"Upon receiving their W-2s at the beginning of the year, they noticed that their total earnings of the previous year were significantly lower than they had been in the past and that their hourly wage was different than it was under the previous ownership."

Kelly said the employees ultimately were successful in recovering lost wages through legal action, but the employer still has duty to provide pay statements.

"While we are aware that the case in my district is a rare one, we would like to assure that all hard-working Ohioans are able to see their wages and deductions as needed without taking their cases to court - especially since their employer is already required to keep track of this information," she added.

Joint sponsor of the bill, Vitale, characterized HB 137 as a simple measure that won't change a lot as most employers already are compliant.

"I feel it is not only critical, but essential to provide an employee a regular written summary of this working agreement," he said during testimony in the support of the bill. "Can you remember how many hours you worked say one month ago, or one year ago? Trying to remember accurately what happened some time ago can be a challenge.

"Sadly, in a very small amount of cases, there are a few employers who have maybe willingly or unwillingly, incorrectly compensated an employee. And in other cases, workers have asked for and never received a paycheck."

Vitale said his own research of off-the-shelf payroll software found it could be purchased for as little as $79.

"I have also spent considerable time talking with various employers and even with representatives from accounting organizations in Ohio that handle paychecks for large and small businesses, to ensure that we are not putting an undue burden on business, while maintaining this balance which I feel is not only proper, but just for the worker," Vitale continued. "The comment I received most while discussing this bill with the business community was: 'you mean Ohio doesn't require us to give employees paychecks?'

"As you can imagine, all were in favor of this bill and felt it was the absolute right thing to do."

He said to defraud anyone of his rightful wages is a crime and should be eliminated.

Employees who do not receive a statement within 10 days of their request are encouraged to report the violation to the state commerce director, who must notify the employer in writing of the violation.

Finally, the bill requires an employer notified of such a violation to post the notice or a copy of the notice in a conspicuous place at the business for 10 days.

A second hearing of HB 137, which has garnered cosponsor support of 18 fellow House members, had not been scheduled at time of publication.

[Back]