Facing Salary Deductions for Leaves: Can We Take Legal Action Against Our Company?

Hi, I am employed in a company. It's good, but for the last 5 months, I have been facing some issues regarding my salary and incentives. Moreover, if we take any leave, the company marks us as absent and deducts money from our salary. Can we take any action against the company?

First, you need to contact or speak with your HR department regarding your queries and questions. You also need to obtain your salary slip, which will describe your leave and salary calculations.

Secondly, you need to understand the leave policy that is applicable in your company.

It is important to ensure that you are taking leaves with official approval from your boss/senior and submitting the approved leave application to your HR department. Failure to do so may be the reason for the deduction of leave from your salary.

I would recommend that you, along with all other members/employees, speak with your respective HR departments regarding your queries and questions. This should be your first course of action before seeking assistance elsewhere or from the community.

I am being critical here of your following comment:

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Again, I would suggest you, as well as all the members/employees, to speak with your respective HR department regarding your queries/questions. This should be your first action before seeking help elsewhere.
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The main purpose of the Citehr Blog is to assist people like Rajesh who are seeking help. What if his company does not have an HR Department? I appreciate your suggestion, but I do not agree with your advice to the "Help Seekers" on what they should do before approaching Citehr. Your advice seems to me a way to push them away.

Regards,
ukmitra

Addressing Labor Issues in Organizations

The labor union system was evolved precisely to tackle issues faced by people like Rajesh. Maybe Rajesh can tell how big his organization is, the nature of the business, how many people are affected, and whether it is a privately held company or a stock-exchange listed company. If it is a privately held company arbitrarily run by the owner, he can start collecting evidence such as appointment letters, salary credits in banks, etc., and then approach a lawyer for issuing a notice. Alternatively, they can approach the labor commissioner for redressal. The best option could be to meet a labor lawyer with enough evidence.

When people join an organization, it is always with the hope that they will get the promised salary, their career will grow, and they will be able to lead a comfortable life. More often than not, things go wrong, and we end up in an awful organization that may not have any focus on employee welfare.

Best wishes

I advise that you check the leave policy of the organization. If there is no policy on leave, the employment laws of your country will guide you. The law provides guidance on minimum leave entitlement.

Secondly, ensure that if you have taken any day off, it was officially approved and documented. Any day taken should be deducted from your annual leave entitlement and not from your salary unless the day was taken without permission. However, deducting anything from your salary without your permission is wrong. You should have been informed and either agree to the deduction to be made or the day to be recovered from your leave days for the year (annual leave). You have two options.

Another possible reason for deducting from your salary could be that you exhausted your leave days for the year, and the company policy may not support taking leave in advance.

Otherwise, if you have taken leave with permission and you have not exhausted your annual leave, you have a reason to get clarification. If not satisfied, you can either report to your union leader (if unionizable) or labor officer. Ensure that you have all the proof required and be ready to go head-on all the way, especially if you have a very stubborn employer who does not appreciate challenges from its employees. The most important thing is, you should know your rights.

I hope this will help.

All the best.

Greetings of the day to all

Hello Mr. Mitra, Thanks for your response, and I appreciate it too, but I believe we must not ignore the value and purpose of the HR department existing in an organization. It is not just to make rules/policies, work over payroll, and create systems for better work-life, but to help the employees/workers in many ways. The HR department in his company is the prime responsible unit to solve queries/questions like Rajesh's.

Every employee in an organization deserves the right to seek help from the HR department with their questions/queries, and I don’t think we can deny or ignore this fact.

I accept that we are here to help each other as much as we can, but the Cite Community is not just to help others but to share experiences, knowledge, our learning, and to learn from each other as much as possible. If we just feel like we are here just to help others or we can just seek help from others, I seriously don’t think we can fulfill the purpose of the Cite.co community.

“CiteHR and Members of the Community must understand and accept the value of HR”

For example: I am an employee of a company, and if facing any problem and need to know anything related to anything for which my HR department in the company is responsible or answerable, my duty is to speak with them first, not just to speak with my friends in HR from other companies or with any community.

But if facing any problem which I want to discuss with my friends outside the Company/Department and unfortunately my HR is not responding, or we feel like we are not getting our answers, or facing some kind of problem, I deserve the right to seek opinions/guidance/suggestions from others.

But it is seriously not acceptable if one is not speaking with his/her HRD, though they can get the solution easily from them.

Hope that I have made myself very clear this time and answered the questions raised by you, Mr. UKMitra.

Regards