No Specific Law on Water Temperature

Q Is there a law that says that employers with 45 to 55 people in a building with three bathrooms need to have hot water?

--D.B., Anaheim

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A There is no specific law requiring that restrooms have hot water. Federal and state laws require that employers provide a safe and healthful workplace, however. If it could be shown that a lack of hot water were causing the spread of disease, there might be grounds to cite an employer under Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws.

--James J. McDonald Jr.

Attorney, Fisher & Phillips

Labor law instructor, UC Irvine

Final Pay Is Due on Date of Firing

Q It is my understanding that when a company terminates an employee, it has 24 hours to provide the employee’s final check.

I recently worked for a company that would not issue a final paycheck until the next regular pay day--the Thursday after the week worked. The company even went so far as to put this in writing.

Is this legal?

--B.O., Valencia

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A When an employee is fired, the employer must pay all earned wages, including earned but unused vacation pay, at the time of the termination.

If an employer willfully falls to pay as required, the company, as a penalty, must continue to pay the employee’s wages for up to 30 working days or until the termination payment is made, whichever comes first.

The California Labor Commissioner’s Office enforces violations of these rules. To contact that office, look in your phone book under “State of California--Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.”

--Don D. Sessions

Employee rights attorney

Mission Viejo

Others Can See Social Security Number

Q Many years ago, our company decided to use our Social Security numbers as employee identification numbers.

Now our Social Security numbers can be put on all paperwork and then put into the company computer. This number can be seen and retrieved by anyone in any of the seven divisions throughout the country.

The company said it had the right to do this. The Social Security Administration said it’s a civil matter--the administration only issues the numbers.

I would like to know if I have the right to keep my number completely private.

--R.S., Moreno Valley

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A A wide range of information that employers typically collect on employees is private, including certain information in an employee’s personnel file.

But your Social Security number probably would not fall within the area of protected information. In fact, employers are obligated to keep records of their employees’ Social Security numbers for a number of reasons, including wage-and-hour record keeping. Thus your employer has the right to ask you for the information.

In addition, the courts typically have not considered such a personal identification number as sensitive, confidential information that employers should keep confidential. As a result, I believe you would lose any challenge relying on a right-to-privacy argument.

--Diane J. Crumpacker

Management law attorney

Fried, Bird & Crumpacker

‘Glowing’ Evaluation Is Rewritten

Q A few years ago, on the day my former boss announced his resignation, he sent me an e-mail saying he planned to write a glowing review of me for the year we had worked together. So I was stunned when the evaluation was in no way glowing. As a friend said at the time, it translated to a B-minus.

I learned later that the evaluation had been rewritten by one of his superiors, who was only vaguely familiar with my work and was under instructions from someone higher up to make no evaluations too positive.

I was outraged, since our annual raises are tied to these evaluations and I would have a received a bigger increase had I got a more positive evaluation.

Did this violate any sort of employee-rights law? Do I have any recourse? I have an evaluation in my file that unfairly represented my work.

--A.R., Los Angeles

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A You probably have no legal recourse.

Many employers require members of two levels of supervision to have input into each performance evaluation. If this is what your company does, your supervisor at the time could only promise to do his part.

Even if your former supervisor did have sole input into your evaluation, you have no legal recourse unless you reasonably relied on what he told you to your economic detriment--for instance, if you had a job offer from another employer but decided not to take it because you reasonably believed you would make more money if you remained with your current employer.

You should consider discussing this situation with your new supervisor or the human resources professionals at your company.

If the evaluation unfairly represents your work, the company has an incentive to rectify the situation. If the company declines to take steps to correct the situation, you could write a statement explaining the facts and ask the company to attach your statement to the evaluation in your file.

--Deborah C. Saxe

Management attorney

Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe

If you have a question about an on-the-job situation, please mail it to Shop Talk, Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626; dictate it to (714) 966-7873, or e-mail it to shoptalk@latimes.com. Include your initials and hometown. The Shop Talk column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.