seeking advice about labor laws

I have found my DetroitYES family to give more thoughtful, complete, and reliable answers than Wikipedia, so here comes another question about labor laws.

My sister-in-law, who is mildly mentally retarded, worked for about a year for the Ann Arbor office of a large moving and rental company.

She received her pay through direct deposit to a US Bank debit card. By calling a toll-free number on the card, she was able to find out when she had last been paid, the balance on the card, and other information.

The problem, as she described to me today, is that she has no idea what deductions they took from her pay or even if she was paid for number of hours that she worked. She has no information about gross pay or itemized deductions.

Today she asked her former supervisor about an accounting for each pay period, and the supervisor answered that "they don't do that, it's all automatic."

Are there state or federal laws that require the employer to give employees an accounting of their pay?

To the best of my knowledge...having done some payroll over the years...is that employers are required to furnish such information to employees. If they don't, how can the employee adequately file their income taxes? Did she receive any W-2's or 1099's for her work?

If she is not employed by this company anymore, she should report them to the IRS and Michigan Dept of Treasury right away.

If she was an "employee" she is definitely entitled to know what deductions were taken out of her pay, and should have received a W-2. If she was an "independent contractor" and no taxes were taken out of her pay, she should have received a 1099 and would be responsible for her own taxes...but there are specific rules about who can and cannot be an independent contractor.

Even if she was paid through a temp agency, there should be records about the withholding. If not, I believe the company can get in a lot of trouble with the IRS and State tax departments.

You can contact these folks for more info...

LANSING - MAIN OFFICE
Hours 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

WAGE & HOUR DIVISION
MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR & ECONOMIC GROWTH
6546 Mercantile Way, Suite 5
P.O. BOX 30476
LANSING, MI 48909-7976
Tel: 517.335.0400
Fax: 517.335.0077
WHINFO@MICHIGAN.GOV

Hope this information helps!

If it is a larger company, you can also check with the US Department of Labor:

Detroit District Office
US Dept. of Labor
ESA Wage & Hour Division
211 W. Fort Street Room 1317
Detroit, MI 48226-3237
Phone: [[313) 226-7447
Español: [[313) 226-5649
1-866-4-USWAGE
[[1-866-487-9243)
http://www.dol.gov

Gaz and blue both gave you good resources. Personally though, I would just call the company that cuts the checks. By law they must provide full disclosure.

Thank you so much! I will call my sister-in-law this morning and let her know. She is meek and is easily taken advantage of.

We should all be somewhat cognizant of our rights in the work place..kudos to you for stepping up to help a partially disabled person.:)

There are some things about this forum that get under my skin, but Blue & Gaz have just demonstrated the aspect of DY that is, in my eyes, hands-down the most redeeming trait of the forum.
Nice going.

Part of me though thinks that the person doing payroll was being lazy and did not want to provide the information as opposed to something shady. I know the response I'd get from my company is "All that information is on the company intranet under the account you set up, yes we can help you if you need it." And Yes, they could provide the records if they had to, but that takes time to do and they'd prefer I'd figure it out. However your sister-in-law is an exception, the company should be more mindful in providing that information.

Even companies who do direct deposit of payroll checks usually issue a statement to the employee when the checks are issued. I have never...in 40+ years of working, doing bookkeeping [[including payroll) and knowing other people who work, heard of a company that did not provide withholding information at the time the checks were issued.