I was hoping that others here in California might be able to help me with a question that myself and several other employees of a company have been pondering but unable to find an answer. Our employer is a corporation, but a few locations are still directly franchised and our location was sold to the franchisee.

During a team meeting the shift leads were asked if they would be okay if they decided to end the direct deposit and move back to paper check, most of whom said sure but nothing was directly confirmed nor were any of the hourly wage employees given notice of this change. Many of us rely on the direct deposit as we all have our bills taken out at a certain time. A lot of us had withdrawals hit, overdraft our accounts or be denied because they enacted the paper check 2 days after the meeting without letting anyone know.

The new owners didn't really seem to care when we talked to them, they said they got approval from the leads of the store, yet that only made 5 people out of everyone that knew it "might" happen. I informed them I was overdrafted by a few hundred dollars due to this but they didn't care nor comment on that. Names weren't accurate on the checks and they slowly paid some of us in cash in small increments throughout the following few days.

Is this practice legal? We were trying to look through California laws on this and would like some assistance from people more knowledgeable.