Wondering About Your Employment Rights? Here's 4 Things You Need To Know

Every employee is entitled to employment rights.  Employment rights encompass various issues regarding termination, work environment and safety, wages and overtime pay and other issues that are pertinent to any employee. To help you better understand what your rights are, check out the information below.

An employer isn't allowed to withhold your check if you are fired.

If you are fired from a position, your employer cannot withhold your check.  This is illegal.  If this happens to you, it might be time to contact an attorney who specializes in business law.  This is something that can be done out of spite or out of error with your human resources office. However, because you are technically still in their payroll system even after being fired, they need to release your final monies that you are owed.  There should be no question about this. However, it does happen to some people after being fired or terminated from a position.

Employers are required to provide you with a safe working environment.

All employers are required to provide a safe working environment for all employees.  It doesn't matter whether you work in a hospital for people, a grooming salon for dogs, a warehouse, a retail store or the government. The type of environment you're working in doesn't matter. What matters is that safety standards and policies are set forth and always abided by. 

In your policy manual, there should be sections related to safety in the workplace and what is expected of you in your particular working environment.  You don't need to be in a working environment just with hazardous chemicals to have safety procedures; these procedures for safety should be implemented in every policy manual of every single working environment no matter how hazardous of a facility it is.

It is the employer's responsibility to have safety policies and procedures in place. If they don't, you should report these issues to your superior.  Companies can get shut down if these kinds of things are not in place for all employees to read and understand.

Employers are required to pay you overtime and minimum wage at the bare minimum.

In every state there is a minimum wage law as well as overtime pay laws.  Depending on the type of pay you get, you may be eligible for overtime pay and even holiday pay.  If you are an hourly employee, typically you are considered an at-will employee. This means an employer could let you go for no reason at all. It's kind of like a contract position.  Usually, hourly employees are eligible for overtime pay.

If you're a salaried employee, which is a yearly figure, you may not be eligible for overtime pay. It just depends upon your role within the company and what their policies are.

Regardless of whether you are hourly or salaried at a company, you are allowed to get holiday pay. This typically includes most government holidays, including Christmas and New Year's, and possibly some other ones as well.

Employers are required to pay for a pension if they promise it to you.

If your employer promises a pension or it is written somewhere in your manual or hiring material, you are entitled to receive it. The amount will vary based on how long you have been working there or if you had to retire early or leave on disability.  This brings up many other issues. However, you can contact an employment attorney for further understanding. Just make sure you have the papers provided from your employer in hand so they can better determine what you are able to get from the employer.

When you begin working for a company, make sure you have all documents provided to you as well as an employee outline, anything about pensions and 401(k)s, pay stubs, and other policies or procedure manuals that would be helpful to provide an employment attorney to better assess your situation if you have an issue with overtime pay, minimum wage payments, pension information and other issues that you may need to resolve.

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