Overtime laws have existed since long before the time of the Great Depression, and are intended as a punishment to employers, to increase worker health and safety and as a tool to incentivize hiring and employee retention. Federal law sets minimum wage and overtime standards, and California state law provides even stronger worker protections. “Overtime” in California means any work beyond 8 hours in a work day, 40 hours in a work week and any work on the 7th day in any work week. The general rule is employees are to be compensated for overtime work at 1.5 times their regular rate of pay, and 2 times that rate in certain circumstances. If your rate of pay is unclear for any reason, we encourage you to contact us and we can walk you through the analysis to figure it out.
Having handled hundreds of overtime pay cases, we know the rules may appear tricky, at least at first. We can also tell you that your financial recovery for even small amounts of unpaid overtime can be quite large, since steep penalties often overshadow the amount of the underlying unpaid wages.
Cole & Van Note is one of California’s top law firms handling such cases and is currently investigating numerous companies for these illegal practices. If you feel you have been impacted negatively by any of them, we encourage you to quickly contact us since strict time limitations apply.
