Claims
The legislation has enacted some serious statement regarding the waiting time penalty. If the employee claims any blame against his employer about delaying or withholding payment of their wage after the conclusion of their career, then the waiting time penalty might be applied on the blamed employer after proper verification of the incident.

Before taking any action against the employer it has to be properly verified that the employer and employee had a true working relationship between them. Then the authorities must check if the employer willfully missed paying the wage or if it was accidental. If the employer has a valid reason behind missing payment of wages to the employee, then the employer might be exempt from the penalty.

If it is found out that employer willfully failed to pay wages to his employees, then the waiting time penalty will be applicable to the employer.

Why the Penalty Exists
The waiting time penalty has been a useful policy for the employees who don’t receive their wage at right time. It’s an effective policy for employees to get their justified wages back just on time or get the penalty he deserves. There is a certain rule of fixing the penalty.

The daily wage rate of the employee is taken to account before setting up the entire penalty rate. And then the one day wage of that employee multiplied by the number of days of delay. And the maximum number of delay is 30 days. After 30 days of delay, no further number of days will be taken into account.

So, it means each day delay in paying the wage will result in the employee to pay double, then triple, then four times, five times and after 30 days the figure will be 30 times more than the actual daily wage rate. The more delay the employer makes, the more penalty fees the employee will be rewarded.

In last few years, a few remarkable events have taken place in California where the employees have claimed to receive their payment late from their employer. After further verification, the allegation against the employer has proven to be true and those employers were charged to pay the full penalty to those respective employees.

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What are waiting time penalties? Well, California law gives employers a short period to make payment of wages due to an employee after quitting or being fired. The employee is entitled to a waiting time penalty if there is a good employee-employer relationship.

However, the wages do not include expenses. The time limit depends on whether the employee was fired or decided to quit. If an employee quits, he or she must give a 72-hour notice to be entitled to the final paycheck.

If the employer fires the employee, he or she is entitled to the paycheck immediately. The employer gets waiting time penalties of up to a maximum of 30 days if they fail to comply.

This penalty is not part of the wage owed.

FAQ’s About Waiting Time Penalties

What happens when your employer fires you and pays all the wages due within 72 hours, but fails to reimburse business related expenses?

You’re not entitled to waiting time penalties. According to California labor law, business expenses are not considered as a wage. The penalty only applies when an employee quits after giving a 72-hour notice or when the employer fires an employee and fails to pay the due wages within 72 hours.

Likewise, if an employee worked for an extra hour without the consent of the employer, it cannot be used to calculate the penalty.

How are waiting time penalties computed?

If you are a regular employee, the penalty will be based on the day’s work. For example, if an employee works 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, and earns $10 an hour, he is entitled to a waiting time penalty of $50 a day. However, if your employer paid half your due wages then pays the rest two weeks later, you’re entitled to a penalty for the remaining balance.

I gave my employer a 72-hour notice and they called me to pick the check after 3 days. I picked the check 10 days later. Am I entitled to the waiting time penalties?

No. You could have purposely failed to pick your check since you were informed it was available. According to labor code section 203, the law requires that any employee who refuses to pick the payment when fully tendered to him is not entitled to any benefit for that particular time he or she avoided the payment.

What happens if I quit without giving notice, then return later after 72 hours for my due wages?

In this case, the waiting penalties may apply. If the employer notified you the wages will not be available when you return, you are entitled to waiting time penalties.

If an employee is not paid on time or receives part of the wages, he or she is entitled to waiting time penalties. However, if there is a dispute whether the employer owes the employee, he may not be entitled to pay the waiting time penalty.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Evgeny Atamenko

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It is wise to understand the meaning of waiting time penalty before taking any job offer. It is common to report to work expecting a specific salary only to get less because of being deprived the amount of work. Inadequate work can result from lack of proper notice or inadequate scheduling among other reasons. The excess actual hour’s one works are normally not included in the reporting time pay.

However, there are certain requirements when it comes to reporting pay. You have to understand these requirements in order to relate well with your employees. This article has outlined some of the requirements to enable you to get informed.

Expectations
Employees are expected to report to work on a daily basis as stated by the firm. However, there are cases where the employee has no work or ends up doing half or even less of the work he or she is expected to do on a normal day. The employee in question has to get half the amount he or she is supposed to earn for a usual work day.

For example, if one is expected to work for six-hour shift and he or she only works for two hours, the firm is expected to pay him or her three hours of the day in reference to a regular day at work. Two hours for working and two hours in terms of reporting time. As much as he has worked only for two hours the rest of the time is also counted as hours worked under this case.

Rules

The rules are not applied in the event of the following; when operations in the firm cannot start or go one because of threats from property or employer. It is also not applicable if civil authorities will recommend the job to start or begin at the said time.

In essence, reporting time pay can simply be defined as the partial compensation an employee gets for reporting to his or her work place while anticipating to work for certain duration only to be deprived of work because of various reasons.

The reasons should result from the part of the employer. The same case applies if you are expected to work for a certain duration during the second shift only to be given fewer hours as a result of factors out of your control. Whether the reason has been caused by the employer or property, one deserves to be paid the same.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/ Billion Photos

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