Oklahoma Direct Deposit

January 20th, 2010 Posted by Amelia

A recent opinion letter issued by the Oklahoma Attorney General allows employers to require payment by but not by payroll debit card.

 

This opinion letter overturns a former ruling, that Oklahoma employers could not require payment by direct deposit.

 

An employer may require that an employee accept payment of wages by direct deposit, under this new ruling. However, the employer cannot require that the employee use a certain bank for wage payment. The employee must be free to use a bank of his or her choice for payroll deposits.

 

If an Oklahoma employer had a policy allowing employees to receive (more…)

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Oklahoma Minimum Wage Increase

July 31st, 2008 Posted by Jolie

 On July 24, 2008, when the increased to $6.55 per , the wage increased, too. The state law for the Oklahoma minimum wage doesn’t even contain a dollar amount, but merely requires the state to match the federal minimum wage.

The in the federal minimum wage was the second in a series of three 70-cent increased mandated by the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The next in the federal minimum wage will occur on July 24, 2009, so the Oklahoma state minimum wage will on that date, as well.

The state minimum wage, according to the , (more…)

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Oklahoma Minimum Wage Increase

July 15th, 2008 Posted by Amelia

On July 24, 2008 when the federal to $6.55 per , the Oklahoma will, as well. This is the second in a series of 3 70-cent increases in the federal introduced by the Fair Act of 2007. The federal will increase from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour.

 

By state statute, the Oklahoma minimum wage increases when the federal minimum wage does. In fact, according to the , the Oklahoma state minimum wage statute doesn’t even contain a dollar amount. It simply adopts the federal minimum wage rate by reference.

 

The state minimum wage excludes (more…)

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Oklahoma Overtime Violations

June 1st, 2007 Posted by Amelia

Is your company computing properly? Retail giant Wal-Mart is paying out $33 million in back wages after being accused of underpaying more than 86,000 workers in pay.

Wal-Mart’s agreement to pay the amount puts it in compliance with and Overtime laws, according to the U.S. . The Labor Department said the retailer used the wrong pay figures to calculate overtime in Oklahoma and throughout the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Labor says the retail giant calculated the employees’ overtime on their base pay alone, and not on their pay plus incentives and premium payments, which is called the “average hourly compensation.” Wal-Mart essentially violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The FLSA requires, first, that employees be paid 1.5 times their normal pay (called “time-and-a-half”) for any time worked over 40 hours. Second, overtime must be calculated against their “average hourly compensation,” not their base pay. In other words, if employees get $6 an base pay but incentives and premiums amount to an average pay of $7 an , then the overtime must be calculated according to the $7 an figure.

The country’s largest retailer agreed to pay all back ages for the violations between February 1, 2002 and January 19, 2007, and it has agreed to pay interest on the amount. According to the Labor Department, that should act as a deterrent.

“This settlement provides $33 million in back wages, plus interest, to Wal-Mart workers,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards Victoria A. Lipnic. She added that the company “has taken corrective action to prevent this from happening again.”

A consent judgment in U.S. District Court supported the agreement that the Labor Department obtained from Wal-Mart. After the Labor Department filed a complaint, the court promptly declared that Wal-Mart must pay all of the back wages for the violations – the $33 million, in other words – and pay interest on that amount, as a deterrent to similar future violations.

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Oklahoma Minimum Wage Changes: Tip Credit

April 29th, 2007 Posted by Mark

Under the law, there is also a special exception for tipped employees. We have seen this before in many other states in this great land, with some states allowing employers to pay their tipped employees a set amount—a tipped employee minimum . Some other states require that employers pay a percentage of their regular minimum to these tipped employees, with the assurances that the rest of the minimum is made up with tips.

The Oklahoma is one of these percentage tipped employee states. In Oklahoma, employers must pay their tipped employees at least 50 percent of the regular Oklahoma . But in a special quirk in the Oklahoma law is that this 50 percent also includes room and board. For instance, if an employer provides his employees a place to stay and food to eat, they can deduct this from their employees’ payment—but no more than 50 percent of that $5.15 per .

When it comes to the cost of uniforms that employers give to their employees, employers can also deduct that from their minimum wage payments as well. There does not seem to be a percentage here with that—just the straight reduction of the one time cost of the uniform.

Anyways, all of these exceptions aside, what does this all mean for employers in Oklahoma—the fact that the minimum wage has not changed and is still linked to the minimum wage? It means that employers in the could be seeing an the amount that they must pay their employees sooner or later. Probably sooner, considering that the House and the Senate leaders in Washington DC have come up with a compromise over that minimum wage tax break package issue.

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