Compliance Watch:

What are my rights as an hourly employee in Wisconsin?

• Voting leave: Under state law, an employer is required to provide 3 hours of time off for an employee to vote if the employee requests for voting leave before the day of election. An employer can decide whether the leave will be paid or unpaid and determine when the employee shall take such leave.
• Witness leave: According to Wisconsin law, an employee who is a crime victim or who is associated with a crime victim, which requires their involvement in legal proceedings, must be given paid time off by their employer to attend to such related matters.
• Military leave: Wisconsin laws require that permanent employees called to serve in the military for 90 days or more be granted up to 5 years of job-protected military leave. In addition, the employee must be reinstated to their original employment position after being discharged from the military if they still meet the qualifications.
• Jury duty leaves: An employer must provide an employee with time off leave to serve their jury duty without penalizing or terminating their employment.
• Emergency responder leave: Wisconsin employers must provide their employees, who are emergency responders, with leave to respond to an emergency. The employer may decide whether such leave is paid or unpaid.
• Family and medical leave: Under the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Act, an employee is provided with leave that may be paid or unpaid for reasons related to their own serious health condition, the serious health condition of their immediate family member, or for the birth or adoption of a child. However, an employee is only eligible for this leave if: 
  • The employer has maintained a minimum of 50 permanent employees for at least 6 of the last 12 months.
  • The employee has worked for the employer for at least 52 consecutive weeks before taking their leave.
  • The employee has worked for the employer for a minimum of 1000 hours in the preceding 52-week duration before taking their leave.

In Wisconsin, a deduction in an employee’s wage by the employer for loss, theft, damage, or faulty workmanship is only permitted if:

• The employee has given written authorization prior to the deductions being made.
• The employee’s representative has established that the employee was at fault for their own negligence, carelessness, or willful and intentional conduct.
• The employee has been found guilty or held liable in a court of law because of their own negligence, carelessness, or willful and intentional conduct.

Furthermore, an employer that makes deductions not authorized in the manner stipulated above is liable to pay twice the deduction amount.

• Minimum wage: In Wisconsin, hourly employees are legally entitled to earn the state’s minimum hourly wage of $7.25, in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
• Overtime: Both state and federal laws entitle hourly employees in Wisconsin with the legal right to receive overtime compensation for hours worked beyond the 40-hour work week at a fixed hourly pay rate of one and a half times their regular hourly pay.
• Worker’s compensation insurance: Under the Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Act, employees in Wisconsin are legally entitled to receive worker’s compensation benefits if they sustain any work-related injuries during the course of their employment. However, this Act applies to employers with three or more employees and specifically requires employees to promptly report their injuries within 30 days of their occurrence or within 30 days after becoming aware of their disability in relation to their employment.
• Unemployment insurance benefits: The unemployment insurance benefits provide eligible employees who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own with a temporary supply of weekly income benefits. This insurance benefit aims to partially offset lost wages while the unemployed employee seeks to find other employment opportunities or awaits recall by their employer. In this regard, an employee’s paycheck remains unaffected, as their respective employer pays for the coverage of these benefits by mandatory contributions to the Unemployment Reserve Fund.
• Temporary partial disability benefits: According to Wisconsin’s statutory laws, an employee who has sustained injuries that have temporarily disabled their ability to work, causing a loss in wage (by reducing their number of work hours or hourly wages), is entitled to receive temporary partial disability benefits. These benefits aim to offset lost wages, which they would have otherwise earned if they were not disabled, by compensating them based on the percentage of their regular earnings that they have lost because of their injury.

• Labor union rights protection: Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), employees in Wisconsin are protected from having their employment status adversely affected in retaliation by their employers for choosing whether to join labor unions or participate in their activities.
• Workplace safety protection: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) protects employees in terms of safety within the workplace. This federal agency oversees the health and safety conditions of workplaces, enforces health and safety standards, and ensures employees are provided with safety training that concerns their employment. Additionally, this agency permits employees to file a complaint with them if there have been concerns about the safety of their working conditions.
• Child labor protection: Wisconsin has enforced its own laws which regulate the employment of minors. These laws aim to protect minors in the scope of employment by limiting the type of jobs they can work in and their working hours in accordance with their specific age. Furthermore, state statutory laws require a minor below the age of sixteen to obtain a work permit before commencing their employment.
• Protection from workplace discrimination: The Wisconsin Fair Employment Act protects Wisconsin employees from having discriminatory personnel actions taken against them by their employers for reasons based on their protected characteristics, which comprise factors such as their: 
  • Age
  • Arrest and/or Conviction Record
  • Ancestry, Color, National Origin or Race
  • Creed
  • Disability
  • Genetic Testing
  • Honesty Testing
  • Marital Status
  • Military Service
  • Pregnancy or Childbirth
  • Sex
  • Sexual Orientation
  • Use or nonuse of lawful products off the employer’s premises during non-working hours

Like other U.S. states, the state of Wisconsin has chosen to adopt the employment-at-will doctrine to generally define its employment relationship between an employer and an employee by default. Put simply, both the employer and employee are free to terminate the employment relationship at any given time and without having to provide any justifications for doing so, provided that they do not have a contract stating otherwise or other legal exceptions governing the relationship. However, several exceptions apply to the general at-will employment principle which limits an employer’s ability to terminate the worker’s employment in specific circumstances. These exceptions include:

• Breach of contract: The existence of an employment contract may dictate the nature of the employment relationship by categorizing that a worker is not an ‘at-will’ employee or by specifying the specific reasons that justify the termination of a worker’s employment. In such cases, employers must strictly adhere to these contractual stipulations that govern the employment relationship between their employees. 
• Retaliation: Federal and state laws in Wisconsin prohibit employers from retaliating against their employees who have asserted their legal rights, filed discrimination complaints, or fulfilled their public interest duties required by law (such as serving their jury duties or taking leave to serve the military). Such retaliatory acts may include termination of employment, demoting employees, or excluding them from promotional opportunities.
• Public policy: In Wisconsin, employees cannot be terminated if the grounds for termination contravene public policy rules such as terminating an employee for refusing to participate in illegal activities or choosing to collect their worker’s compensation benefits that they are rightly entitled to by law. 
• Workplace discrimination: In this aspect, the Wisconsin Fair Employment Law prohibits employers from discriminating against their employees by wrongfully terminating them based on their protected characteristics, which comprise their: 
  • Age
  • Arrest and/or Conviction Record
  • Ancestry, Color, National Origin or Race
  • Creed
  • Disability
  • Genetic Testing
  • Honesty Testing
  • Marital Status
  • Military Service
  • Pregnancy or Childbirth
  • Sex
  • Sexual Orientation
  • Use or nonuse of lawful products off the employer’s premises during non-working hours

Furthermore, the statutory provisions under state law mandate that an employer must issue a final paycheck to the employee no later than the next regularly scheduled pay date once the employee has voluntarily resigned from their employment or has been terminated.

Since the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) remains silent as to the requirement of offering severance pay, Wisconsin employers are therefore not obligated by law to offer severance pay to employees who have been terminated from their employment. However, if the terms of the employment contract require severance pay to be given, the employer must strictly comply with those respective contractual terms.

Severance pay is typically calculated based on the employee’s length of service in their employment and is usually paid on a lump sum basis or distributed in installments.