California has long has a reputation of one of the states that has most protective of employee rights, and all businesses in California or employing California resident must be aware of the laws governing overtime pay. All time during which an employee is “under the control of the employer,” including daily work duties, closing duties, uniform changes, and other job-related tasks is to be compensated at the full hourly rate. As a California employee, it is important to know your rights and laws.

California law requires not only that employees pay 1.5 times your standard hourly rate after 40 hours in a week as mandated by federal law, but also after 8 hours in a single day and on the 7th consecutive day of work and beyond. Employers must also pay double the standard hourly rate after 12 working hours in a single 24 hour period, after 8 hours on a 7th consecutive day of work, and under other circumstances such as state and national holidays. Employees on “standby” or “on call” status must also be paid for their commitment whether they are called to active duty or not.

State law provides very clear outlines of how workers are to be compensated for their time as well as a very specific set of exemptions. The major exempted classes are Executive, Administrative, Professional and Computer Professional categories, and in the view of the law these classes of employee are paid a salary for completing their job duties as opposed to an hourly rate for their time.

Exempted employees are not covered by the standard California overtime pay law, and must meet a number of requirements in order to become exempt. An Executive Exemption is only triggered when an employee both makes at least $640 weekly and meets certain requirements on level of authority within the company.

Administrative exemptions are commonly limited to the supporting fields of companies such as human resources, finance and legal departments, and even within these areas an employee must hold influence on significant matters before becoming ineligible for overtime, making this one of the most difficult exemptions to prove.

The Professional exemption only applies to employees holding advanced degrees, recognized merit in directly creative artistic pursuits, or licensure by the State of California to practice in a field such as law, engineering or accounting. This exemption also requires that an employee have a broad measure of control over day to day duties as well as a high level of operating freedom.

California is well-known for its high-tech culture, and the design of the Computer Professional exemption reflects this. Only computer programmers who play a central role in design and analysis of software are exempt from the overtime law, with most technicians who spend 50 percent or more of their time writing code for specific tasks entitled to overtime pay under California state law.

The California state overtime law is intended to limit abuses of employee freedom by companies, outlining acceptable compensation and time-tracking to protect their rights. Exemptions from this protection are extremely limited, and the burden of proving the validity of an exemption always falls on the employer.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/ GaudiLab

The post The Value of Your Time as a California Employee appeared first on UELG.

Commonly, sales people rely profoundly on their commission and are generally classified as exempt employees or not entitled to overtime pay. Nonetheless, it’s important to know that in order to be classified as exempt, among other things; you should be actively selling at least 50% of the time. Whether you are an Inside Salesperson or an Outside Salesperson, the California laws strictly regulate salesperson commissions.

A past sales representative affirms he is owed about $30,000 in commissions. The sales representative’s California labor law attorney has filed suit in San Francisco claiming the computer manufacturing giant declined three former salespeople thousands of dollars in commissions. The plaintiffs are looking to represent all salespeople employed by the company who have not acquired their commission payments or bonuses. According to Bloomberg.com this could be at least 50,000 both current and former employees. This company declares that his loss may have occurred due to a malfunction in their order-management system and that around 2,000 out of the 23,000 personnel from its global sales team were afflicted by the glitch.

Commonly, sales people rely profoundly on their commission and are generally classified as exempt employees or not entitled to overtime pay. Nonetheless, it’s important to know that in order to be classified as exempt, among other things; you should be actively selling at least 50% of the time. Whether you are an Inside Salesperson or an Outside Salesperson, the California laws strictly regulate salesperson commissions.

The post Major Computer Company Allegedly Cheated at the Least 50,000 Current and Former Employees of their Sales Commissions appeared first on UELG.

So many regular and seasonal workers get both overtime and commission or bonus pay during the holidays. Are you one of them? Did you know you could be owed overtime pay ON your COMMISSION?!

That’s right, your overtime pay may not be based on just your base hourly pay; in some cases the commission and bonuses you receive are supposed to be added in before determining your overtime rate.  That means your time and a half or double time may be even higher than you think.

Want a bigger paycheck, check this out:

Let’s say you get paid $10 per hour and you are working two hours of overtime each day during the holiday season. At time and a half you’d expect to get $15 dollars an hour for those two hours right?

BUT, let’s say you made $400 commission in that two week pay period. If you worked 10 hours a day, five days a week, that’s 50 hours a week or 100 hours for the two week pay period.

Now divide the $400 commission over the 100 hours; that comes out to an extra $4 an hour. Now your overtime hours are worth $21, and double time is worth $28 an hour. That’s an extra $120 per pay period. I’m sure you’d like that extra cash right now, or any day for that matter.

Many companies, big and small, fail to calculate their employees’ overtime correctly.  Claiming ignorance is no excuse.  It is your payroll department’s job to pay you properly. Unfortunately, unless the employees suspect something is wrong and raise the question, it will just continue.

There are exceptions to this simple rule and you can see more information about the specific employees who are Exempt from overtime here.

If you are receiving overtime and you also get regular periodic bonuses or commissions, you need to make sure you are getting paid everything you are owed. Let the experienced team at United Employees Law Group review your case for free.

Call today before time runs out.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Iakov Filimonov

The post Are you getting overtime on your commission this Christmas? appeared first on UELG.

California labor law attorneys have recently received an extended explanation of “commission wages” from the opinion given by the California Second Appellate District court. This explanation related directly to employees that are classified as exempt from overtime under the commissioned salesperson exemption. In the case Areso v. CarMax, Inc., it was decided that CarMax’s commission plan of a flat rate per sale would be considered commission wages.

Essentially the plaintiff Areso was unsuccessful in the class action in which he was claiming misclassification as exempt from overtime under the commissioned salesperson exemption and owed overtime. California labor law attorneys for Areso argued that overtime was owed because CarMax’s commission plan did not meet the requirements as “commission wages” under Labor Code Section 204.1, which necessitates commissions to be “based proportionately on the amount or value” of the sale of the employer’s property or services.

California labor law attorneys for CarMax were pleased to hear the court found CarMax’s commission structure is a “performance-based incentive system and thus fairly understood to be a commission structure” due to the language that commissions can be founded on the “amount” rather than “value” of cars sold, interpreting “amount” to mean the number of cars sold. Furthermore, the court agreed with labor law attorneys for CarMax’s argument that prior decisions necessitate commissions to be base on “a percentage of the price of the product or service” (as first articulated in Keyes Motors, Inc. v. DLSE, 197 Cal.App.3d 557, 563 (1987)) as dicta as it related only to the part of the statutory language in Labor Code § 204.1 interpreting the “value” of the product or service.

In order for someone to be considered exempt under the commissioned salesperson exemption, Labor Code Section 204.1, the employee:
• must be involved principally in selling a product or service (not making a product or rendering a service)
• The amount of their compensation must be based proportionately on the amount or value of the product or service.

The Court opinion also interpret the word “amount” in the statute, and found that a flat payment for each car sold satisfies the statutory stipulation because the commissions are compensated based on the “amount” or number of cars sold. Further, paying a flat amount for each car is “proportionate” because it is a one-to-one proportion where the “compensation will rise and fall in direct proportion to the number of vehicles sold.”

Flat fees and proportionate percentages can be a little confusing if you are unsure whether or not you are classified as exempt correctly you should contact a California labor law attorney to examine your exemption status and determine if you are entitled to any back pay for overtime you may have worked.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Billion Photos

The post California Labor Law Attorneys Reexamine Commission Wages in Relation to the Salesperson Exemption appeared first on UELG.