Vermont Employee Rights

A brief guide to Vermont employee rights

The law involves many regulations which every employer is required to follow. You must be familiar with the law to understand every Vermont employee right you are entitled to. It is important to understand when an employer may be taking advantage of you by ignoring the laws concerning VT employee rights.

Vermont employee rights entitle every worker to make minimum wage, which is currently set at $8.46 an hour. An employer is entitled to take out deductions for state and federal taxes, as well as health insurance with the employee's consent. You have the Vermont employee right to have any other deductions discussed in advance and agreed to in written form. Employers are violating your VT employee rights if theymake deductions which would lead to you making less than minimum wage.

Vermont employee rights concerning overtime compensation state that you must be paid time and a half for every hour of week performed in excess of 40 hours a week. VT employee rights set no limits on the amount of overtime labor an employer can ask you to perform. They may try to get around your Vermont employee right to full compensation by claiming you are a "salaried" worker by paying you a lump sum for what you would make for a full week's work. Any claims this job title renders you ineligible for overtime are violations of VT employee rights. Only administrative or intellectual employees can be salaried workers, and this is unlikely to be the case if you make minimum wage.

Working mothers have Vermont employee rights allowing them to receive time to breastfeed their child for up to a year after they have given birth. VT employee rights state that a clean, private area other than a bathroom must be made available for this purpose. A related Vermont employee right forbids employers from deducting from your compensation for any time spent on breastfeeding.

All employers are required to maintain some form of workers compensation insurance to compensate for job-related injuries. Regardless of your level of responsibility for an accident, your guaranteed Vermont employee rights include your choice of medical professional and treatment. An insurance company or employer can require you to receive a second opinion from a medical professional of their choosing. You must report any incident in writing within 30 days to ensure every Vermont employee right related to compensation is respected.

If you are underpaid or otherwise have your VT employee rights ignored by an employer, contact the Wage & Hour department of the state's Department of Labor. This government agency investigates all claims of violations of Vermont employee rights. After reviewing your case, they may be able to obtain compensation you have been improperly denied.

Sometimes you may decide to retain a lawyer for the purposes of a violation of a Vermont employee right. In addition to financial improprieties, you may decide to go to court because you have experienced sexual harassment or unsafe working conditions. If you have a strong case your Vermont employee rights have been violated, a lawyer may decide to represent you for free in return for a percentage of whatever you are awarded.