How many of you work late into the night? Do you get compensated for the extra hours? These are some of the employment issues that arise in various organizations. However, today you can get legal representation from experienced employment attorneys such as UELG. But first, it is important to understand what exemption from the overtime laws mean. For better understanding, one should get acquainted with the following terms:

1. Overtime

Overtime is the extra working hours beyond the normal working hours. The normal working hours depend on various factors, for instance:

• Agreement between the employer and the employee on the working hours
• The profession or trade e.g. Doctors, Engineers, Nurses, Drivers, Teachers, Lawyers, among others.
• Legislation; the labor or employment laws

2. Labor laws

Labor laws are present in every state or country. It is essential as it helps prevent disputes among workers and employers. An employer may decide to force his or her employees to work extra hours without compensating them. Alternatively, the law considers other factors such as health of the employees. This ensures productivity as it preserves the health of workers.

Exemption from overtime laws

With all that said, the concept of overtime can now be explained. First, if you work for longer hours, your employer should pay you. However, not all employees get compensated. When you get paid for the extra time, you are Non-exempt employee otherwise you are exempt employee. In other words, you are exempted from overtime pay. For more information, read through the following topics:

Affected employees

The labor law affects the executive, administrative, and professional employees. They further include the following;

• Employees in the computer software field: If they are paid on hourly basis and they meet the requirements stated in the orders, they are exempted from the overtime laws.
• Drivers: if you are a driver plus your working time is regulated by the U.S Department of Transportation Code of Federal Regulations, then you are exempted. Nevertheless, those drivers whose hours are regulated by the Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations are exempted as well. In addition, Taxi cab drivers do not enjoy the privileges of non-exempt employees.
• Airline employees: Only those workers who work over 40 but not more than 60 hours during the work weeks due to changes not required by their employer but only at the request of the employee.
• Announcers, News Editor or Chief Engineer working in a radio station with a population less than 25,000 people.

Other employees affected include:

• Baby sitters especially under 18 years of age babysitting a minor in the employer’s house.
• Those employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
• Irrigators,
• Sheepherders
• Professional actors

Bottom line

There are legal institutions that deal majorly with employment issues. You can visit the United Employment Law Group for any assistance.

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As per the California Law, in case of ” non exempt employees”, the employer has certain responsibilities like paying for overtime and meal expenses. In case of ” exempt” employees, there are no such rules. In order to claim exemption, it is up to the employer to prove that the employee is exempt. Here are some of the most common exemptions under the California Law:

1. Managerial Exemption: In order to claim Managerial Exemption, the employee must meet the following points:i) The employee must have managerial responsibilities in one of the department or sub division of the enterprises.
   ii) The employee must be in charge of supervision of at least two employees.
   iii) Employee has the authority to hire a person or fire a person.
   iv) Employee frequently takes important decisions while performing his or her duties.
   v) The monthly salary of the employee should be at least 2 times more than the minimum wage of the state.

   2. Administrative Exemption:

   In order to claim this exemption, the employee must meet the following requirements:

   i) Employee spends majority of the time in work which is related to the normal business operations.
   ii) Employee always works under the supervision of a manager.
   iii) The monthly salary of the employee should be at least 2 times more than the minimum wage of the state.

   Computer Professional Exemption:

   In order to qualify for this exemption, the following guidelines has to be met:

   i). The employee must spend majority of the time in any one of the following works:
   a) Interacting with the users in order to improve the existing hardware and software systems.
   b) Involved in the design, development and testing of the various computer programs.
   ii) The employee must be extremely skilled and well aware about the different computer systems and their application.
   iii) The hourly wage of the employee must be above the minimum limit.

   4. Inside sales employee: In order to claim exemption under this head, the following guidelines must be met:

   i) The wage of the employee must be more than 1.5 times the minimum wage limit of California.
   ii) Majority of the compensation of the employee must be in the form of commissions.

2. Outside sales employee: In this case, these are the following guidelines which must be met:i) Must be at least 18 years of age.
   ii) The employee must spend majority of the time working in locations outside the place of the business.
   iii) Must be involved in selling only tangible items.

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Still many employers, whether they know the law and do it anyway, or are not aware of the guidelines use the differentiation of employee from contractor to get around the cost of paying proper fees such as:

• payroll taxes
• minimum wage and/or overtime requirements
• paid and unpaid rest or break periods
•  reimbursing business expenses
•  workers compensation coverage
• Unemployment, disability or Social Security taxes and payments.

The number one reason employers claim you are an independent contractor? It’s cheaper for them. Sure, it also means you can write off all of your expenses, but is it really worth it? Those may in fact be THEIR expenses and why should you be paying to run their business all the while being left totally unprotected. Contractors don’t have coverage for workers compensation or unemployment benefits. That means unless you are paying for it on your own, if you are injured on the job you are on your own and many insurance companies will deny your claim saying you should be covered by workers comp for a “work related injury.”

The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) sets out the guidelines for who can and cannot be claimed as an independent contractor.

• You perform a service that is outside the norm for the business employing you, such as marketing specialist for a home builder.
• Your work could be defined as a specialized skill.
• You were hired to complete a well defined task only to completion and not offered an actual position with the company.
• You have no supervision, but were given a specific job to complete and are to do so on your own and how you see fit.

If you have been deemed a contractor rather than employee by your company, but these do not define your actual duties then you have likely been misclassified, you need to speak with an employment attorney right away who can determine what you may be owed in compensation.

You only have a short amount of time to file any claim having to do with you employment, call United Employees Law Group today before you file the wrong tax return.

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Recently in San Francisco’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, oral arguments were heard on Campbell v PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is a wage and hour case in which the employees, unlicensed audit associates, are claiming that they have been misclassified as exempt and are owed overtime. If the plaintiffs are successful at recovering their overtime, it will open the door for more class actions brought by similarly situated employees.

The counsel for the plaintiffs presented their argument to a panel of three judges. The briefs read as follows:

“PwC argues that Attest Associates satisfy the Professional Exemption because—notwithstanding the routine and nondiscretionary nature of their work—PwC claims that they are functionally indistinguishable from fully licensed accountants, doctors, lawyers, and engineers. As a matter of law, however, the text, structure, and drafting history of the Professional Exemption limit its application to licensed accountants, and Associates are not licensed. Second, PwC argues that Attest Associates satisfy the Wage Order’s Administrative Exemption because they work “under only general supervision” despite up to six layers of managers who are responsible for Associates’ work. That argument fails, however, because PwC has not pointed to sufficient evidence to create a triable issue of fact that Associates “work along specialized or technical lines”—much less that they do so “under only general supervision”—as required by the Administrative Exemption.” 

PricewaterhouseCoopers counsel argument was as follows:

“Put simply, nothing in the Wage Order precludes unlicensed accountants from being shown to be exempt under subsection (b) of the Professional Exemption. Plaintiffs’ argument that the “drafting history” of the wage order at issue shows an intention on the part of the [Industrial Welfare Commission] to prohibit unlicensed accountants from being professionally exempt should be rejected, because the language and structure of the Professional Exemption are not ambiguous, and contain no such prohibition. Even the District Court did not accept Plaintiffs’ tortured reading of the text of the Professional Exemption, or claim to find unambiguous intent on the part of the [Industrial Welfare Commission] to exclude from eligibility for the Professional Exemption all unlicensed members of the accounting profession — and inevitably by extension, all unlicensed lawyers, doctors, dentists, optometrists, architects, engineers, and teachers. Doing so is flatly contrary to the overriding principle governing application of exemptions from overtime provisions, which is to consider individual employees’ work duties.”

The employees’ position essentially is that they are not exempt under either the professional exemption or administrative exemption because, they argue, that they are neither working in a specialized or technical role nor are they given the requisite discretion over how they may carry out their work to qualify as exempt from overtime.

PricewaterhouseCoopers argues that the tasks that auditors perform are not that different from the tasks a licensed accountant performs. Licensed accountants do fall under the professional exemption therefore auditors should as well. They further argue that the exemption status should be based on the job duties or tasks that the employees perform and not on whether or not they are licensed.

The court has not given its ruling but clearly has a lot to consider.

If you hold a position in accounting and are currently being paid a salary, you may be owed overtime. If you have any questions it is advisable to contact a California labor law attorney to discuss your situation.

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California employees are entitled to certain expectations when it comes to getting paid. There are exceptions to most any rule of course, which you can find in the chart that follows, but otherwise the information here regards the pay guidelines for all California workers.

1. California employees are required to be paid at least two times in every month. The employer must have predetermined pay days that the employee can count on being paid all wages owed. In addition, the company must post in writing how, when and where payment will be remitted.

2. All wages earned from the 1^st day to the 15^th day of the months must be paid to the employee by the 26^th day of that month; likewise pay earned from the 16^th day to the end of the month must be received by the employee by the 1oth of the following month. If your pay period is other than above, such as bi-monthly or every two weeks, you must be paid no later than 7 days after the end of that pay period. If your employer fails to comply with this timeline they may be liable for penalties and interest.

3. All overtime pay earned must also be paid in the following pay period, and all overtime pay must comply with the labor code.

4. If you are fired or let go your company must pay all the money they owe you within 24 hours of leaving the company. This includes wages, commissions and accrued vacation time.

5. Anyone laid off on a seasonal job must likewise be paid within 72 hours of the layoff date.

Some of the exceptions to these rules are as follows.

United employees Law Group helps employees everyday who have disputes with current and former employers, but do not wait until it’s too late to collect what you are owed. Call now we are here to help.

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With the many labor laws in California that protect workers, it is said to be one of the MOST WORKER friendly states. There is a high priority placed on protecting employees from any wrongdoing or misdeed by a co-worker or superior. Even with these laws in place, many employees who scrape by from check to check, are forced to work in less than ideal environments and required to work overtime without compensation. Because these employees fear the loss of a job they are taken advantage of.

Thankfully in California the law goes beyond the protections found in the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), adding our own additional protections to prevent such abuse as threats of reporting immigration status or retaliation against those who speak up against bad conditions.
In California, overtime pay must be paid to any non-exempt worker who is working over eight hours in a single shift, and 40 hours in a week. This definition goes beyond the Federal overtime laws which only require overtime pay once you reach 40 hours in a week.

The two worst offenses to this regulation that are common in California are, misclassifying an employee as being exempt and therefore refusing to pay them overtime, and demanding employees work OFF-THE-CLOCK to complete tasks without being paid. You can learn more about the specific reasons an employee can be considered exempt here.

The law in this area is pretty clear actually; in California you must be PAID for ALL time worked. This looks different all the time, but it may surprise you that one or more of these fit your situation:
-changing into and out of a uniform if required to do so at work
-clocking out before performing “closing duties”
-locking up and making bank deposits after work
-being coerced into clocking out before you are done, with the threat “if it takes you longer than someone else you’ll be replaced.”
These are all examples we have heard from employees who have been cheated out of overtime pay. In California we can go back a full four years to collect this kind of pack pay, and often with penalties and interest. These types of cases can add up quickly, as well as sometimes flagging an institution wide problem that can lead to a class action suit against the company.

Helping employees collect in situations like this is our specialty. We know the laws and can fight to get you the best compensation.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, we urge you to call United Employees Law Group TODAY. You will be given a free and completely confidential case review Let us see if we can help you too.

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Overtime is a fairly familiar concept to people, and so is the pay rate– one and one-half time for the first four hours, then for every hour after twelve, twice the pay rate. The math seams simple, and most people can do it in their heads without so much as a second thought. However, if you are paid by commission or by piece, what’s fair for overtime compensation may be a bit trickier to decipher. As an individual, there are two ways of determining what your base rate would be:

1. The commission or piece rate is used as the regular rate, and your overtime pay is one and one-half of that for the first four hours, then double that rate after 12 hours worked in one shift. For example, if you make $20 for each hat you sell (or make), your base rate would be $20 if you sell one hat per hour.

So overtime for the first four hours would be $30 ($20 x 1.5), and every hour after twelve, $40 ($20 x 2).

Though this way isn’t always applicable to every situation, so the other method is:

2. Divide the total earning for the workweek (overtime hours included) by the total hours of the workweek (including overtime). So say you make $10 an hour and work 45 hours with $200 worth of commission:

$10 (rate) x 45 (hours worked) + $200 (commission) = $650 (total earnings)

Then the $650 is divided by the hours worked:

$650(total weekly earnings) ÷ 45 (hours worked) = $14.45 (The rounded base rate)

So overtime for the first four hours would be $21.68 ($14.45 x 1.5), and every hour

after twelve, $28.90 ($14.45 x 2).

Almost all commissioned employees have mistakes made on their overtime hours and because most don’t even realize they are supposed to have ALL compensation included in the overtime rate, this usually goes unchecked. In some cases this could means years of unpaid overtime wages, add to that penalties and interest and the money you are owed can add up pretty quickly.

Your time is valuable, so make sure you are being compensated fairly for working overtime! Keep in mind that your weekly rate is variable according to the second method, so be sure each week you work overtime you are being paid adequately. If you find out your employer is not compensating you fairly for your work, you need to speak with an experienced labor attorney ASAP.

United Employees Law Group can help you understand if you qualify for overtime pay and if so, help you collect. We fight for employees everyday and you never pay anything unless we get a settlement in your case.

CALL UELG TODAY for confidential case review.

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Report Any “Under the Table” Earnings

The recession is still damaging California with its poor job opportunities and high cost of living. On top of that, people working in California still have to pay a state income tax in addition to the federal income tax. The state income tax rate is between 1% and 10%, which is determined by the amount of income a person makes within a year. Most people end up paying at least 5% of their income to the state, which can be a lot when you are living paycheck to paycheck. This is why more and more Californians are working “under the table” instead of getting a regular paycheck. In other words, they are getting cash payments for their labor that is given to them directly by their employer. This is most commonly done with service jobs, like waitressing and bartending, where workers get cash tips that they never claim to the IRS or California Tax Service Center. They think if they don’t deposit the cash in their bank account then there won’t be any proof of the income.

A person may be able to get away with a few dollars hidden here and there, but eventually it will catch up with them. You see if a person gets audited, the tax agents will look at their expenses as well as their income. If they see somebody with $20,000 worth of expenses every year only making $5,000 on the books, then it will obviously be a red flag that money is being hidden. When you get cash income from your employer, what are you going to spend that money on? Unless you are buying lots of video games and television sets,  chances are you will be spending that money on food, rent and car payments. The income on the books needs to coincide with the expenses you have or else you will be in trouble. The IRS and state tax agents have very sophisticated technology to scan for red flags in every tax return.

Nobody likes paying taxes and the tax laws definitely seem unfair to people who are barely making ends meet. However, the repercussions of cheating on your income tax forms is a whole lot worse than having to pay a portion of your income in taxes every year. If you get into legal trouble then you are looking at thousands of dollars in attorney fees along with having to repay the taxes you owe, plus interest and penalties. This makes income tax seem pretty small in comparison.

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In 1938 the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed, setting minimum wage requirements, but it did not apply to workers providing “domestic services” such as housekeepers, in home cooks, maids, nannies and gardeners. In 1974 FLSA was amended to include most of these domestic services with the exception of babysitters and companions for the elderly. However, the department of labor is proposing new regulations that would further restrict the requirements of exempt domestic employees, specifically companionship services.

FLSA states that, “employees in domestic service employment to provide companionship services for individuals who (because of age or infirmity) are unable to care for themselves” are exempt from overtime. The current law also characterizes “companionship services” as “services for the care, fellowship, and protection of persons ” unable to care for themselves.” Often these services will include tasks such as vacuuming, dusting, washing dishes, but it’s important to note that these tasks should not exceed 20% of the caregiver’s / companion’s time.

In 2007, Long Island Care at Home v. Coke, 551 U.S. 158, the United States Supreme Court acknowledged the DOL’s authority to “work out the details” of the statute’s broad language and upheld the companionship exemption’s applicability to third-party employers, such as agencies. Thus, the DOL’s new proposed description of “companionship services” would be restricted to tasks “that are directly related to the provision of fellowship and protection . . . .”  This proposed redefinition would still afford some time for services that are incidental to fellowship and protection but certainly not to exceed 20% of the companion’s time. This would greatly limit the amount of time the companion can spend on general household work, or this could result in the loss of the caregiver’s exemption. Lastly, the proposed regulation would limit the exemption to employees that are directly hired by the family or person using the service.

Should these new restrictions become approved, agencies and families can expect to see increases in labor costs for in home care services. Families or households that employ caregivers directly will need to pay close attention to the tasks being performed in the home or risk running afoul of the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.

While federal law affects all states, it is common for individual states to have additional rules and regulations that further define exemptions. In Maine, for example, the exemption for individuals “employed in domestic service in or about a private home and engaged directly by the resident or owner of that private home . . .” was repealed in 2008. Thus, in Maine as in many states, employers are already required to pay minimum wage and overtime to companions for elderly or infirm family members.

Labor law is complex, and if you have any questions regarding your employment it is recommended that you contact a California labor law attorney who can help you understand your rights and in many cases will review your situation without charge.

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Top Reasons You Are Not Receiving Overtime Pay

Regarding overtime, California and federal labor laws differ. Federal laws are governed by the FSLA, which requires that overtime pays 1.5 times more than the current rate once 40 hours have been worked. However, California labor laws require that employees receive overtime once they have worked more than eight hours in one day or 40 hours in one week.

Exceptions to this include:
–Exempt employees
-Alternative work week schedules

Exempt Employees Explained
Exempt employees are employees who are paid a fixed salary regardless of how many hours they work. However, employers often use this to their advantage when classifying employees so they will not have to pay them for overtime. It is important that all employees make sure they are being classified correctly by contacting a California labor law lawyer or by reviewing the California Department of Industrial Relations website. Just make sure you remember, a job title does not affect exemptions, your job duties do however.

Alternative Work Week Schedules Explained
Alternative workweek schedules are the schedules that employees have that do not pay them for overtime daily. However, not all employers have this in place because the employees have to be for it via a vote with 2/3 of them for it. Nevertheless, even with alternative work week schedules the number of hours should not go over 40 each week or overtime must be paid. Additionally, keep in mind when this is in place employees are not entitled to being paid overtime if they work more than eight hours a day. The good news is all of employees’ rights are not taken from them. They still are eligible for double time if more than twelve hours are worked per day in addition to all of their breaks (a second 30-minute lunch break is available for those who work more than 10 hours per day).

Bottom Line
Labor laws can be complex. However, employees should not let their employers take advantage of them. If you ever have any questions or concerns about your employment, it is important that you seek advice from an experienced labor law attorney who has YOUR best interests in mind. We can help you understand your rights and we never charge a fee up front. We work for free until we win your case. Make sure that you know your employment rights and get the money that is owed to you by your employers.

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