Can Your Employer Deduct Your Pay for a Work Uniform?

Suppose your employer requires you to wear a work uniform. It’s common in manufacturing, mostly for safety reasons.

Recently, Indiana passed a law permitting an employer to deduct employee wages for renting uniforms. 
Furthermore, the new statute applies retroactively! Indiana employers can go back in time, and deduct from a person's wages.
In a major ruling this week, Judge Amy Coney Barrett (recent finalist for the U.S. Supreme Court) ruled that the law was valid, stating: “courts generally must honor the legislature’s choice to make a law retroactive.”

For context, Metal Technologies employs 500 workers in Indiana. It deducted wages from employees for uniform rentals. At trial, the workers won treble (triple) damages for this wage deduction. Judge Barrett vacated the ruling—the workers lost the judgment at trial.

What does this signify?

First, Indiana has various anti-union laws, including “right-to-work.” That means unions cannot require members to pay dues—and that means unions in Indiana are weak.

Second, with weak unions muscled out of politics in Indiana, the state assembly and governor enacted a law that shifts a cost of manufacturing to the employee.

[Shout-out to Indiana lawmakers: Since you are “employer friendly,” will you consider expanding the wage deduction law to allow employers to charge employees rent for parking space? Unions have too little clout to stop you.]

Third—related to the second point— this ruling follows a growing trend that allows employers to subsidize their business by deducting wages.

Some examples? 
In strip clubs, dancers must pay rental fees for stage time, another rental fee for a dressing room, and tip money for the bouncer.

That idea has spread to restaurants. Employers have pushed for tip-pooling laws. When you tip 20 percent, for example, that money might not be going to your server. It might be going to management. They will decide how much of the tip to share with waitstaff.

Uber relies on drivers who have cell phones. 
Who pays the cost for the cell service? The driver pays 100%. Uber gets a totally free ride on the connectivity of its massive pool of drivers. Many Uber drivers also rent premium cars and SUVs to comply with Uber’s premium-service  requirements. Again, Uber pays nothing.

Many FedEx and other courier drivers buy their trucks (usually with a loan). The corporation pays no direct cost of the fleet. The cost is borne by the driver/owner-operator.

If you have an office job, heads-up: this practice is spreading to your type of work. One case in my database of wage deduction lawsuits involved an insurance company that requires sales people to rent office cubicle space.

Unions have traditionally fought back against these practices. Their influence is shrinking about as fast as the polar ice cap and mountain glaciers.

The future is likely to bring more employer cost-shifting schemes to our jobs.