Overtime

Almost 40% of California workers are working more than 50 hours a week, according to a January, 2006 Los Angeles Times article. Overtime work is a necessity for much of the American workforce. While overtime work can provide a family with welcome extra income, it also takes away from personal and family time and can lead to stress and an unpleasant work environment.

Except for executives, administrators, or professionals, and certain outside salespersons who are exempt from overtime regulations, California law requires most workers to be paid an overtime premium of one and one-half the employee’s regular rate of pay for work over 40 hours per week or 8 hours per day. An employee is entitled to receive double time for hours worked in excess of 12 hours in any workday, and for all hours worked over 8 on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

Many workers are paid a salary and work more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week without being paid overtime, because they are improperly classified as managers or administrators by their employers. Both California and federal law have very specific requirements, which must be met for an employee to be considered exempt from overtime regulations.

Frequently, employers improperly calculate overtime pay, do not pay overtime pay when they should, or tell commissioned employees that they are not entitled to overtime pay.

Damages for not paying overtime can be considerable – after adding in the unpaid overtime, interest on the unpaid wages, penalties and attorneys fees, in some cases the amount owed by the employer is more than the amount of the wages that people are paid! California overtime laws provide that the employer must pay the employee’s attorneys fees – so many cases can be handled on a contingency basis. If this is done company-wide, a class action may be appropriate.