California Labor Guidance
Free plain-English summaries of opinion letters, administrative policies, and interpretive notices from California's labor agency, with the current status and the official source on every page.
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Quarterly bonus payout timing and forfeiture on termination
A winery asked whether its quarterly sales-and-membership bonus program could pay out once a quarter instead of every pay period, and whether an employee who leaves before the quarter ends could be de…
Post-termination forfeiture of sales commissions
An employer asked whether it could withhold quarterly sales commissions from employees who weren't currently employed at payout time. The DLSE responded that commissions on sales are wages earned upon…
Waiting-time penalties and vacation payouts must include bonuses and commissions
An employer asked whether waiting-time penalties for late final pay, and payouts of unused vacation, should be based on base salary alone or total compensation including guaranteed bonuses. The DLSE c…
Commission payments: timing under Labor Code section 204
An employer of mortgage-loan sales staff, paid through biweekly draws plus monthly commissions whose rate depends on total monthly loan volume, asked whether this timing satisfies Labor Code section 2…
Employer: definition of employer
Two attorneys litigating a wage claim jointly asked the Labor Commissioner's hearing officer to clarify the legal basis for a prior award holding both a corporation and its individual officer jointly …
Commission calculations
A commissioned coffee salesperson asked about his employer's plan that debited 50% of any invoice unpaid after 90 days from his commission account, and that limited commissions at termination to those…
What constitutes a written contract for a definite period, for waiting-time penalty purposes
A law firm asked DLSE whether an employer faces waiting-time penalties under Labor Code section 203 when an employee with a written one-year contract quits and isn't paid final wages within 72 hours. …
Payment of commissions upon termination of employment
A law firm asked DLSE when commissions must be paid to a terminated retail employee, and when waiting-time penalties begin and end, where the employer normally calculates and pays monthly commissions …
"Use it or lose it" vacation policy and vacation pay at termination
An employer asked whether its vacation policy — under which vacation didn't begin accruing until semi-annual target dates, couldn't be carried over past the calendar year, and was paid out only on the…
Waiting time penalties: collective bargaining agreements cannot opt out of final-pay deadlines
The Screen Actors Guild asked whether its members had a wage claim when a commercial producer paid performers weeks late, given that the union's collective bargaining agreement already set its own lat…
Waiting-time penalty willfulness and attorneys' fees on appeal from a Labor Commissioner award
In consolidated wage claims, the trial court awarded unpaid wages but denied waiting-time penalties and attorneys' fees after the employer appealed a Labor Commissioner award, arguing nonpayment was n…
Temporary-placement-agency workers: final pay timing and wage deductions for employee fault
An attorney for a temporary placement agency asked DLSE to confirm that Labor Code sections 201 and 202's final-pay deadlines applied only when a worker was permanently taken off the agency's payroll …
Wages due at temporary layoff: a return date must fall within the pay period
An industry trade association asked DLSE whether contractual recall rights (whether from a collective bargaining agreement or an employee handbook) mean a "temporary layoff" is not a termination requi…
A short plant shutdown of 10 days or less with a set return date is not a termination requiring final-wage payment
An attorney asked DLSE how planned short-duration facility shutdowns (about a week each) would affect an employer's final-wage obligations under the Labor Code. DLSE explained its long-standing policy…
DLSE will keep enforcing the Wage Orders' gross-negligence wage deduction, but warns it may be void as against public policy
An employer's HR representative asked DLSE to define "simple" versus "gross" negligence for purposes of deducting the cost of lost or damaged equipment from an employee's final paycheck, and whether s…
Contractual commission-earning conditions can delay payday timing, but earned commissions are still due at termination
An advertising company's counsel asked DLSE whether its outside sales representatives' commission structure — commissions calculated monthly and treated as unearned until full customer payment is rece…
IWC Wage Order §9's deduction for an unreturned uniform or safety item is likely unenforceable against final wages, despite its plain text
An employer's counsel asked whether it was legal to deduct the cost of an unreturned company-issued safety belt from an employee's wages, since Section 9 of the Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orde…
Whether a voluntarily-departing employee forfeits a bonus tied to a post-fiscal-year vesting date depends on the facts, not a bright-line rule
Counsel asked whether an employee who voluntarily terminates employment after the close of the fiscal year, but before a plan's later vesting date six months out, forfeits an incentive bonus, and whet…
Direct-deposit wages must still be available to the employee within the Labor Code's payday deadlines, and termination always cancels the authorization
An employer using a direct-deposit payroll system asked whether an intervening bank holiday that delays funds reaching an employee's account past Labor Code §204's seven-day payday deadline is excused…
'Floating' birthday/anniversary holidays that can be taken any time are really vacation days, so unused ones must be paid out under Suastez
An employer's counsel asked DLSE to confirm that employees who worked the days before and after their birthday/anniversary "floating holiday" but never took the day off forfeit the benefit, rather tha…
'Bonus days' awarded for perfect attendance that can be used for any purpose are vacation, so unused days vest under Suastez
An employer's counsel asked DLSE to correct a district office's finding that an employee's unused "bonus days" (four hours awarded for every six weeks of perfect attendance, usable for any purpose up …
An employer cannot recover overpaid vacation wages from an employee's final paycheck; that self-help deduction violates the state's wage-exemption public policy
Out-of-state counsel asked DLSE to confirm several statements in a proposed vacation policy, including that an employer could recover overpaid vacation wages from an employee's final paycheck. DLSE co…
A pre-vesting 'sign-on bonus' advance is a debt, not earned wages, so an employer cannot deduct its unearned portion from an employee's final paycheck even with written authorization
Counsel described a $5,000 sign-on bonus paid at the start of employment and earned incrementally over five months, with the employee's written authorization to deduct any unearned portion from the fi…
An undifferentiated 'PTO' bank that mixes vacation, sick leave, and personal days is treated entirely as vacation pay, which cannot be forfeited
A staffing company asked DLSE to review a "Paid Time Off" (PTO) policy that lumped vacation, holidays, sick leave, and personal days into one accrual bank, capped at 26 days, with only 10 days carried…
Auto-repair "commissions" paid per repair are piece-rate wages, not sales commissions, and can't be withheld past the final-pay deadline
A law firm asked whether its client could keep delaying payment of "commissions" to terminated employees until customer offsets and recall reimbursements were resolved. Citing the recent Keyes Motors …
Floating holidays and general absence time count as vacation; deducting advanced vacation at termination
A law firm asked DLSE several questions under Interpretive Bulletin 86-3. DLSE stated that floating holidays and general absences count as vacation time under Suastez. Vacation time advanced before it…
A quitting employee generally must return to the workplace to collect final wages under Section 208
A retailer asked DLSE to issue an Interpretive Bulletin clarifying Labor Code Section 208's requirement that wages of a discharged employee be paid at the place of discharge, and that a quitting emplo…
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These are official interpretive documents from California's labor agency: opinion letters answering questions from employers and workers, administrative policies, and interpretive notices. They show how the agency applies wage-and-hour and workplace law to real situations, but they are guidance, not statutes or court decisions, and the agency can supersede or withdraw them. Every page above shows the document's current status, when that status was last verified, and a link to the official source.