Under state and federal law, non-exempt employees who work more than 40 hours a week are entitled to overtime pay, payable at a rate of 1.5 times their base rate. If an employer does not properly pay overtime wages, the employer may be required to compensate the employee for these unpaid sums and be subject to additional penalties and legal remedies.
How Employees Are Denied Overtime Pay
An employee is denied overtime pay when he or she is entitled to it, works overtime and does not get paid for that time or does not get the overtime rate of pay for that work. How overtime is denied is often affected by the type of worker, such as:
- Salaried employees – While there are certain “exempt” employees who are not entitled to overtime pay, many employers try to get out of paying overtime pay by making workers salaried or giving them certain job titles. However, salaries must meet certain thresholds and exempt workers must perform certain duties in order to be considered exempted.
- Hourly employees – Some employees are simply paid their base rate of pay even if they exceed 40 hours of work in a week. Others may be instructed to work “off the clock” such as making preparations for the workday, work during their lunch, or close the business after the last customer comes in. Workers may be entitled to overtime pay in these situations.
- Independent contractors – Too often, employers try to protect their own interests by classifying workers as independent contractors to get around federal and state overtime and wage and hour laws. When an employee is misclassified as an independent contractor, he or she may still be entitled to overtime pay if misclassification is proven.
Examples of Unpaid Overtime Violations
While there are many ways that unpaid overtime violations may occur, some of the more common reasons include:
- Required to work during unpaid meal breaks, such as answering the company phone
- Not compensating employees for time to travel for work purposes
- Giving an employee the chance to leave early on another day in exchange for working overtime today
- Not compensating employees for required company training or meetings
- Not compensating employees for work-related tasks performed before or after a shift, such as putting on their work uniform and safety gear, sanitizing their gear, booting up a computer or running reports
- Requiring employees to clock out but still requiring them to work after this time
- Requiring employees to perform work tasks in an unreasonable amount of time
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