Today in the House Commerce committee Chairman Anthony Brown and his fellow Speaker O’Neal lead conservatives are taking a break from directly attacking worker’s rights and refocusing to take a day to attack their paychecks too. HB 2627 also known as paycheck deception provides absolutely no protections for the employee.
Despite the fact that the Fair Labor Standards Act expressly expressly forbids an employer from reducing a employee’s wages below minimum wage or reducing overtime compensation for uniforms or any other tools or equipment required by an employer. Chairman Brown and is anti-worker gang are looking to see to it that some of the hardworking families in our state that are living paycheck to paycheck have to work even harder just to make it.
HB 2627 as written allows an employer to make addition deductions from an employees wages for overpayment without any notice and without any limits. It doesn’t stop there.
HB 2627 doesn’t put in place any time limit on when the employer is able to do this. That means weeks, months and even years later the employer could decide to take money out of their worker’s paycheck without a single mention of it to them.
Furthermore there is no provision for making the deductions over a period of time in the event that the total amount of the deduction is a substantial portion of the employees wages.
You pair the outcome of this bill with the other items in the Gov. Brownback lead republican agenda, such as Brownback’s 5,000% tax increase on low income families, and you can ensure that the working class in Kansas disappears due to not being able to afford to even make ends meet.
HB 2627 complete tips the scales against workers and provides no balance in the employer-employee relationship, the bill provides no requirement that the employer communicate with the employee about the situation in advance.
Minimum wage is minimum wage and there should never be laws made that put employers in a position to violate it.