Regarding timing of wage payments, the TPL requires employers to pay non-exempt employees at least twice per month on regularly scheduled paydays, and exempt employees at least once per month (section 61.011). "Exempt" has to do with whether the employee meets the requirements for an overtime exemption as a salaried executive, administrative, or professional employee under the FLSA. Pay periods do not have to, nor do they usually, coincide exactly with the FLSA workweek used for keeping track of hours worked for overtime calculation purposes. The paydays must be posted at the employer's office and at any outlying offices where employees normally gather.
Paydays may be changed, but it would be best to give employees advance written notice thereof setting out the next three paydays - 1) the last old payday; 2) the first new payday; and 3) the next-following new payday. That way, employees will not be able to credibly claim confusion, and the requirement of paying at least twice each month will be met.
Although the law requires an employer to pay wages in a timely manner on regular paydays, the question sometimes arises of what penalties might apply if an employer misses a payday, or a paycheck is not honored due to insufficient funds in an employer’s account. The following considerations would apply to such situations:
There is no provision in the law assessing a specific penalty for late wage payments.
There is no Texas or federal law specifically requiring an employer to reimburse employees for bank charges caused by deposited paychecks bouncing, or by their accounts being overdrawn due to non-payment of wages. However, if such charges effectively reduce their pay below minimum wage, that would arguably violate the FLSA, and the employer could be requirement to reimburse enough of the fees to restore the pay to the level of minimum wage.
Practical limit: despite the lack of a specific late wage payment penalty, if late payments, or missed payments, become too numerous and result in enough wage claims to get the attention of TWC, the agency could impose a bonding requirement on the employer, meaning that the employer would have to post a bond in order to continue employing workers in Texas or doing business at all. The Attorney General could also seek an injunction in court to enforce the bonding order.
Habitual late wage payments, or failing to pay wages at all, is likely to make some employees want to quit. Turnover is expensive for everyone concerned, and if such employees file unemployment claims, TWC is likely to consider the wage payment problems to be good cause connected with the work to quit.