Overtime Pay in a Nutshell
Posted by robert ottinger on Sun, May 09, 2010 @ 12:07 AM
Overtime pay is governed by federal and state law. The federal law is called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA). These federal and state laws provide that employees should get overtime pay unless they fall into specific narrow exceptions. Under these laws, an employee must be paid time-and-a-half (overtime) for each hour worked over 40 in a week. This rule does not apply to someone who falls into one of the exemptions.
California provides even more overtime pay protection. If you work in California, you not only get time-and-a-half for each hour worked over 40 in a week, you also get 1.5 times your normal rate for each hour over 8 worked in a day, plus double time for each hour worked over 12 in a work day, an unpaid 30 minute meal break after 5 hours, and a 10-minute rest break every 4 hours. Those are the basics of overtime pay. The picture can get murky once you get into all of the exceptions to overtime pay.
Generally, everyone is assumed to be entitled to the overtime pay rules described above. But, companies are free classify their employees as exempt from these overtime laws if they fit into any of the narrow exemptions. Companies often try to classify their employees as exempt because then they get more work out of their employees for less. The problem is that many companies go to far and exempt many workers who really are entitled to overtime pay. Employees can challenge their employers by filing a claim with the Department of Labor or by suing the company themselves.
One of the more common tricks companies use is to misclassify an employee as exempt from overtime pay and pay the person a salary. People generally assume that salaried employees are not entitled to overtime pay, but this is wrong. Your title or pay formate (salary vs. hourly) makes no difference. If you want to know if you are entitled to overtime pay you can call our law firm and we will tell you - it is fairly easy to make this determination in most cases.