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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 \u201cunder the control of the employer,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cstandby\u201d or \u201con call\u201d status must also be paid for their commitment whether they are called to active duty or not.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Shutterstock\/ GaudiLab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California has long has a reputation of one of the states that has most protective of employee rights, and all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[928,924,21,938,52,943,940,614,935,944],"tags":[95,97],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-california-labor-law","category-commisson","category-employee-rights","category-minimum-wage","category-overtime","category-overtime-compensation","category-unpaid-sick-leave","category-unpaid-wages","category-vacation-pay","category-wage-and-hour-claim","tag-pay","tag-wage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n