Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: Employee rights

The law requires that the employee's final paycheck be given to him or her on the regular payday for that pay period. However, the law appears to be silent about how long after the pay period the employer can wait to pay, on an ongoing basis, which appears to be what your question is.

Many employers use a payroll service of some kind, and if pay is dependent on hours worked (and so the payroll service could not prepare the paychecks until after the pay period is ended and these hours are reported) then an employer really would not be deemed to be withholding pay if they took even as long as two weeks to complete the payroll (especially for a company with a larger payroll). That's an inconvenience when the employee first begins work, but afterward, the employee should be regularly receiving a paycheck. If the employer is taking longer than two weeks, or if the delay between the end of the pay period and the issuing of the check is getting longer, then the employer may be in essence withholding the employees' pay, which is not legal.

Re: Employee rights

Ms. Beecher is correct.