Washington DC

In 2015, the D.C. Council adopted the Wage Theft Prevention Amendment Act  (the "Act").   The Act amended several of D.C.'s wage and hour laws, and stiffened the penalties for employers that fail to comply with the legal requirements.

One of the major provisions of the Act requires any employer to provide new employees with a Notice of Hire form at the time of hiring.   The Notice of Hire must include the following information:

• The employer's name (and any "doing business as" names); 
• The phone number and physical and mailing address of the employer's main office; 
• The employee's rate of pay and the basis of the rate (including allowances and exemptions); 
• The employee's overtime rate of pay or, if applicable, the employee's exemptions from overtime pay;
• In the case of government contractors, any applicable living wage and prevailing wage information; and 
• The employee's regular payday.

Employers must provide the notice in English.  If the employee's primary language is Spanish, and not English, the employer may need to provide it in Spanish as well.  The notice must be signed and dated by the employee and employer.  One copy of the notice is then given to the employee and another retained by the employer. 

The employer may draft its own form of notice, provided it contains all the required information in the notice.  Alternatively, the Mayor's office has provided a sample template in both English and Spanish.

In addition to providing the Notice of Hire to new employees, the Act provides that employers give this notice to employees who were already in their employ on May 27, 2015.

Going forward, an employer must provide an existing employee with an updated Notice of Hire whenever any of the information in the employee's original notice changes.   This includes changes in the employee's rate of pay, the employer's business address, the employee's status as exempt from overtime pay or non-exempt, and the employee's pay date. 

Therefore, if any of your employees receive a pay raise in 2018, including a cost of living adjustment, you must provide the employee with the updated Notice of Hire.  The Act does not provide a specified period in which the notice has to be provided, so an employer should try to provide updated notices as soon as practicable. 

If you have any questions about this alert, please contact Jason Qu at jqu@dcbar.org.