We are committed to defending employee rights in the workplace, ensuring you receive the wages and reimbursements you are legally entitled to under California law. Wage and hour violations affect employees across all industries. Because employees have a property right in their wages that vests when the wages are earned, wages and hour violations are also referred to as “wage theft,” since by withholding employee wages, companies unfairly profit from their employees’ property. Wage theft is considered to be a form of fraud.
Breaking Down Wage and Hour Violations
These occur when employers fail to comply with laws and regulations governing the payment of wages and employee working hours. Although California law provides strong protections for workers, many employees still are deprived adequate compensation for their work.
Common Wage and Hour Violations Include:
- Failure to Pay Minimum Wage: Employers must pay their employees at least minimum wage for all time worked by the employees, which is defined as all time the employees are subject to the control of the employer. Thus, any time an employee spends under their employer’s control that is not compensated is, at the very least, a minimum wage violation. Generally, these violations are either for time that was never recorded (“off-the-clock”) or time that has been rounded (a policy that shaves time off of your timesheet and credits you with less overall time than you were clocked in).
- Off-the-clock examples include: time spent before or after a work shift having to pass through a security check; time spent logging in to various software applications on your computer before being allowed to clock in; time spent after hours having to respond to texts or emails from supervisors or managers; and certain time spent driving or traveling for your work.
- Rounding occurs when you clock in early for your shift, but the company “rounds up” your time as if you clocked in at the scheduled start time
- Unpaid Overtime: California law requires employers to pay non-exempt employees a premium wage for all overtime hours worked. Eight hours constitutes a full day’s work, so any time worked beyond 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week is considered overtime and should be compensated accordingly (generally speaking, one and a half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for time worked between 8 and 12 hours, and double the employee’s regular rate of pay for time worked after 12 hours).
- Meal and Rest Period Violations: California law mandates that non-exempt employees have meal and rest breaks during their shifts. Employees who work more than 5 hours must receive an unpaid, uninterrupted meal break of no less than 30 minutes, during which the employee must be relieved of all work duties. Those who work more than 10 hours are entitled to a second meal period. Rest breaks are 10 paid minutes (you do not clock out) for every 4 hours worked. An employer must pay a premium wage of one hour at the employee’s regular rate of pay for each day in which it fails to provide all required meal periods. A second premium wage is available for failure to provide rest breaks..
- Wage Statement Violations: Employers must provide employees with accurate wage statements that reflect all hours worked, all wages earned, and any deductions applied. The failure to pay the above wages will necessarily result in an inaccurate paystub. Inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading wage statements are subject to a statutory penalty.
- Unpaid Final Wages: Withholding any part of an employee’s earnings, whether final pay upon termination, vacation pay, or regular wages, is unlawful. Employees are entitled to all wages earned in a timely manner after they quit or are terminated. If the employer fails to pay such wages, the employer will be subject to a “waiting time” penalty, calculated by multiplying the employee’s daily wage by the number of days the wages remain unpaid, up to 30 days.
- Failure to Reimburse: Employers may not pass along their cost of doing business to their employees. This includes requiring employees to pay for things like using their personal cell phone plans for work purposes, paying for their own high-speed data plans or electricity if working remotely, or using their own vehicles to perform work functions. Employees that are asked to do these things may be entitled to reimbursements from their employers.
- Misclassification of Employees: Employers sometimes misclassify employees as exempt employees (meaning, exempt from overtime and meal/rest requirements) or even as independent contractors (not employees at all). This is typically done to avoid paying overtime, minimum wage, or providing benefits. Misclassification is commonly used to deny employees their rightful compensation and protections under the law.
Your Rights Under California Law
California has some of the country’s most employee-friendly wage and hour laws. The California Labor Code and wage orders (regulations) establish worker protections. Employees are protected regardless of immigration status, and employers cannot retaliate against people who assert their rights under these laws.
What Can You Do If Your Rights Have Been Violated?
We will guide you through California’s complex wage and hour laws. Our goal is to help you recover unpaid wages, overtime, and other compensation you are owed.
