The Trouble With Making Employees Pay for Uniforms [e149]
The guys kick off the week by explaining the issues with employers requiring their employees to pay fortheir own uniforms. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to these stories for your benefit and your benefit only – for no one else. Welcome to the program and my name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: I just wanted to make sure that we’re paying very specific attention to you, the listener, right now. I’m talking about you – the one that’s listening right now with their headphones – yeah, you, this is for you. MATT: So, this is what? Monday — well, Monday, sometime Monday, assuming you listen to it on the day it comes out. It’s nice to have someone focus on you on a Monday. So, I think our listeners are very appreciative of this nice gesture that we’re doing for them and I think it’s going to be a good week. If you just listen to this, the Farmers Insurance Open has ended, assuming there hasn’t been another fog delay like there was on Thursday and it got pushed to Monday. NASIR: Didn’t that happen last year too? Or two years ago? MATT: I know this because I went on the Saturday two years ago. NASIR: Yeah, we both went. MATT: Oh, yeah, we did. There was a rain delay. Like, a couple of people got on the course and that was it. They had to push the last day till Monday so it threw everybody off. NASIR: I don’t know if you went with us that time. Remember Chris Merrill? MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Was with us from KOGO? Good times in San Diego. MATT: Well, I think what happened was you and I went with separate groups and we tried to meet up and then I think you just ended up leaving because of the rain. NASIR: Yeah, I think I stole Tiger Woods’ ball and ran away or something. I can’t remember. MATT: Yeah. Well, he’s out. He withdrew after twelve holes or something yesterday because he’s hurt. NASIR: That’s pretty much my golfing game in a sentence. MATT: All right. Well, what do we have today? I think we have something pretty interesting for people. NASIR: That’s new. MATT: Especially if they are on their way to work and wearing a uniform because we’re going to talk about employees that have to pay for their uniforms. It’s an interesting thing. Have you ever – well, I guess (1) have you ever had a job where you’ve had to wear a uniform? If not, then you don’t answer the question but (2) like, I’ve had plenty of different uniforms of businesses, I’ve never had to actually pay for anything in the past. NASIR: The only real job that I could, in theory, would have had a uniform was I sold cellular phones for T-Mobile for a little during law school, but I don’t even think they cared what you wore. But, of course, you’d want to look somewhat presentable to the potential customers. MATT: Yeah, that’s a good point. NASIR: That’s pretty much it. No uniforms on my end. MATT: Is that when you had to dress up as a giant phone? NASIR: Yeah, that was my uniform. I had some balloons as well and hold a sign. MATT: Sign spinning. Well, in California, if the employer requires the employee to wear a uniform, the employer has to pay the cost of the uniform. I mean, in California, it’s pretty straight-forward and I guess I need to define uniform so I haven’t been very good at that. It’s apparel and accessories of distinctive design and color. One of the things I had to wear one time was almost like an apron, but it wasn’t an apron – I guess it was an apron – I don’t know. That would be an example. Or all the items of flare that I didn’t have to purchase when I worked at Chachkies. NASIR: Yeah, that’s a great example, nice office space reference. So, the Department of Labor have some guidelines on, basically, if you require the employee to wear a uniform then the employer is going to have to cover the cost. But where it becomes a little more difficult is exactly where Matt mentioned is what exactly is a uniform and when does that actu...