Co-authored by Ann N. Kim and Hannah C. Amoah.

The New York Wage Theft Prevention Act (WTPA), effective on April 9, imposes more stringent pay notice and record keeping requirements on all employers.

To comply with the WTPA, an employer must:

1. Provide notice to each employee at the employee’s time of hire, and annually on or before February 1 of each year. The notice must include: 

• the employee’s rate of pay;
• the basis of the employee’s wages (whether paid by the hour, shift, day, week, commission, etc.);
• whether the employer will be claiming any allowances, such as meal or lodging allowances, against minimum wage and the amount of the allowance claimed;
• the employee’s regular payday;
• the employer’s name and any name under which the employer conducts business;
• the physical address of the employer’s main office or its principal place of business (if different from its mailing address); and
• the employer’s telephone number.

2. Obtain and keep the employee’s signed acknowledgement for at least six years

Each notice must be given in English and the employee’s primary language if the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) has provided a notice template in the employee’s primary language. To date, the department has issued templates in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean. An employer can develop its own notice as long as it complies with the WTPA. All annual notices must be provided between January 1 and February 1 beginning in 2012. New York employers are encouraged to act quickly to ensure their practices comply with the WTPA. The NYSDOL’s Guidelines can be found here..