Wage and hour disputes sometimes revolve around overtime not being paid correctly. An employee may claim that they put in a few hours of overtime, but then they were just paid their standard wage, for example. They believed they were going to make time-and-a-half, which is the whole reason they agreed to work overtime in the first place.
It is true that California employees often deserve time-and-a-half, such as when someone works more than eight hours in a single day. The same is true if they work more than 40 hours in a week. But California law does not require them to wait until the end of the week. Even if they only worked 10 hours during the week, if all of those hours were on the same day, they would have logged two hours of overtime.
One important thing to remember is that California goes a step beyond other states and can sometimes require double-time pay.
Exceeding 12 hours
The most common example of this is if someone works more than 12 hours in a single day. Once they have exceeded eight hours, they should be paid time-and-a-half. But once they exceed 12 hours, they get double their base pay rate.
For example, someone who worked 16 hours would deserve their base pay for the first eight hours, time-and-a-half for hours nine through 12, and then double-time for hours 13 through 16.
Additionally, if someone works seven consecutive days during the same workweek, then they should be paid double-time for everything over eight hours on the final day. If they worked nine hours and were only paid time-and-a-half, it would still be too low because it was their seventh day in a row.
As an employee, it is very important to understand when overtime pay applies and what steps to take if you have not been paid correctly.
