Posted July 31st, 2019 in Top Stories, Legal Insights

Minnesota DOLI Once Again Updates Wage Theft Q&A

Employers are now required to comply with the civil provisions of Minnesota’s Wage Theft Statute, which went into effect on July 1. The Minnesota Department of Labor & Industry (DOLI) updated its Wage Theft Q&A again this week. We’ve summarized the highlights of this update below.

Earnings Statements

• The DOLI no longer requires employers to provide the reason for the employee’s rate of pay on the employee’s earnings statement. The DOLI previously required employers to state whether a rate of pay was—for instance, established by a collective bargaining agreement, set by the employer, or required by law—despite the Wage Theft Statute’s silence on this issue. In light of this change to the DOLI’s interpretation of the law, we recommend removing this information from employees’ earnings statements.

Wage Notice

• The DOLI considers non-discretionary bonuses to be a rate of pay and, therefore, requires them to be included on the employee’s initial wage notice. To comply with this requirement without having to issue change notifications every time the bonus amount or plan changes, we recommend providing a general statement about these bonuses, along with a link to the bonus plan if desired. However, note that any linked information will need to be translated if the employee requests the wage notice in a different language. A general statement describing an employee’s entitlement to non-discretionary bonuses could read: “You are eligible to receive a non-discretionary bonus at the end of each [month/quarter/year], which is calculated as [briefly and generally describe bonus calculation method]. Please visit [link] for full bonus plan information.”
• Discretionary bonuses do not need to be included on an employee’s initial wage notice.

For more reading on Minnesota’s Wage Theft Statute, check out our other articles:

1. June 21, 2019: Overview of Wage Theft Statute
2. June 21, 2019: In-depth practical summary of Wage Theft Statute
3. June 25, 2019: Updates to Wage Theft Statute Q&A and Employee Wage Notice example