Retribution by employer going after direct deposit pay check

[schamp]

What is the name of your state?undefinedWhat is the name of your state? Massachusetts, is where I work in a nonprofit hospital. I had an emergency which I had to take the day off before my vacation and I could not get anyone to replace me. I had put a slip in to get paid for the day from my earn time which is used for vacation ,sick or holidays. The payroll is done on the monday, where the payroll person submits all the payroll and the manager of the lab ok's the final check of all hours. I have my check with a direct deposit. While away in another state, on the day before pay day,the direct deposit goes into the checking account.,I received a call on my home answering machine by my manager that the direct deposit did not get paid ,and a paper check would be issued on Thursday. I had scheduled bills to be paid and checks where written and with not having the direct deposit go through three checks have bounced. My manger wanted to deduct the day that I didn't show up for work. She very easily could have had the payroll person on Monday take the day off of the sheet and submit it that way or wait till the following week and take a day off of the 40 hours of vacation pay that I would receive. But I feel she went after me with a vicious nature and didn't care about messing up my checking account.
The payroll dept told me that they had the ok from my manger and the Human Resources dept head.to do this. Is this legal to go after one's pay check is such a vicious way and play around with a person's finaces when they are not even around to fix the matter? There where other ways to do this. Do they have the right to do a stunt like this? Can they be liable for the service charges that have been accured for the bounced checks? I feel she wanted to punish me for not being there on the Friday, and I had to take care of this real emergency on that day before I left to go out of the state for a week. would like to hear what you think about this mater??? thanks

 

[cbg]

First of all, Massachusetts law requires that you be paid within 6 days of the close of the pay period. While I have no way of knowing whether or not Thursday is within six days or not, I offer the information to you for what it's worth.

Secondly, it IS legal for the employer to stop your direct deposit, as long as you get paid the correct amount within the law-mandated time.

Third, when I was doing payroll, there was at least one time when for reasons beyond our control, direct deposit was held up for EVERYONE. Have you investigated whether or not this is the case in your instance?

Fourth, it is highly unlikely that they can be held responsible for service charges. It is YOUR responsibility to see that the funds are in your account BEFORE you write checks or authorize withdrawals. (Yes, I know that there are monthly withdrawals that need only one authorization and then continue until you take action to stop them - I pay several bills that way. It doesn't change the fact that YOU are responsible if the money isn't there.)

Fifth, even if you were able to prove beyond the shadow of any possible doubt that your manager acted maliciously and with the sole purpose of causing trouble for you because you took the day off for an emergency (1) that is not illegal retaliation and (2) since you ultimately did get paid, the most that would happen is that the DOL would slap the employer on the wrist and tell them not to do it again. You would not receive any windfall; nor would the employer be fined.

 

[schamp]

To fill in the blanks

Massachusetts, No I wasn't paid for that day because, I didn't work,which I was told and I didn't have a replacement. Also I was the only person that had a direct deposit problems in the whole hospital. While thirdly, when you assume every week your check is going into the account, you normally don't asssume something like this will happen to you, so with that I had scheduled a bill to be paid and my son had to go to court and use a check for the court fee on the day the pay should have gone into the account and didn't. The other issue was that when I went to the overall manager and told her about the paycheck , which we have a program in the hosptial called the integrity program to take care of retaliation or other similar problems , the Ingregity officer sided with the lab manager and not with me. Well you know who pays her pay check ? right. well I feel they are all in it together, they would love to have a person like me leave who has been there 30 years and who makes top dollar and replace me with someone who makes half what I make. Just wanted a legal opinion on if it was legal to tamper with a person's finances such as this/ thanks.