An Ohio House committee is considering a bill to require employers provide their workers with written copies of their pay stubs. The bill is meant to help employees make sure they are being paid properly.
Pay stubs help workers track their earnings, Rep. Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus), a co-sponsor of the bill, told the House Commerce and Labor Committee. It's important for employees to be able to make sure they are being paid properly and are not victims of wage theft, he said.
“If we don’t have transparency in our system then these individuals don’t even know that this is happening to them until it’s way too late," Jarrells said.
The bipartisan bill, named the Pay Stub Protection Act, would require employers to provide either paper or electronic pay stubs to employees. The pay stubs would have to contain the following information:
- The employee's name
- The employee's address
- The employer's name
- The total gross wages earned by the employee during the pay period
- The total net wages paid to the employee for the pay period
- The listing of the amount and purpose of each addition to or deduction from the wages paid to the employee during the pay period
In addition, paychecks for employees who are paid on an hourly basis must include the employee's wage per hour, the number of hours worked and any overtime worked.
If the employer fails to comply with a request for a pay stub on a timely basis, the Ohio Director of Commerce could get involved to resolve the situation and could order the business to "conspicuously post" a violation on the premises of the employer for a ten-day period. The bill does not impose fines or jail time for employers who fail to comply.
Ohio is one of nine states that currently doesn’t require employers to give employees copies of pay stubs.
