Lab. Code 226 requires an employer to give an employee a wage statement listing, among other things, the rate of pay and hours worked during the pay period.  This decision holds that the section does not require the employer to list separately the hours worked and the rate at which the employer pays contributions (as required by collective bargaining agreements) to Taft-Hartley employer-union benefit trusts based on the employee’s work, even though the employee is taxed on those contributions as earned income.  Lab. Code 227.5 requires different annual disclosures regarding contributions to such trusts.  And the contributions are not like wages in that they are not paid to the employee and he has no immediate claim to those funds.

California Court of Appeal, First District, Division Five (Simons, J.); February 5, 2018; 2018 WL 703621.