Is Your Employer Cheating On Your
Overtime?
The three most common ways employer cheat on overtime today are:
1. Cheating on hours.
2. Cheating on classification. Some jobs are exempt
from the requirement of paying time-and-a-half for overtime. The tests
are technical, and you should discuss your own situation with the Department
of Labor or with an attorney who knows this area of the law. The Supreme
Court has not issued many rulings on these questions, so the courts in
different parts of the country have done the best they could, but have
wound up applying different standards.
Legal advice is important. This firm provides this advice.
- Many employees are paid with a salary of a definite amount of money
per week, or per pay period, instead of an hourly wage. Many
salaried employees are entitled to overtime.
- Many salaried jobs are exempt from overtime pay requirements only
if the employer passes what is called the “salary basis”
test, but the employer has to pay overtime if the job fails the “salary
basis” test and is therefore “nonexempt.” There are
several parts to this test. Just getting a salary is not enough.
- One extremely useful rule is that if an employer docks the
pay of an employee for an absence of part of a day, or requires an employee
to use vacation time for an absence of part of a day, it must pay overtime.
- Employers can save a lot of money by misclassifying nonexempt employees
who are entitled to time-and-a-half for overtime as exempt employees
who do not have to be paid anything more for overtime, working them
long hours, and telling them they are not entitled to overtime. Each
such employer will continue to get away with it until an employee decides
not to put up with it any more, and takes action. This firm
is ready to help take that action.
3. Cheating by shifting overtime hours in a two-week
pay period to the week in which the employee worked less than 40 hours.
This kind of case can often be resolved quickly.
Important Information From The Association of
Trial Lawyers of America
 
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