Orange County Employment Lawyer
Wage an Hour
The majority of Wage an Hour disagreements come from classifications that are laid out in the Fair Labor Standards Act and similar state laws. The first version of the FLSA was passed in 1938 with the Great Depression serving as a backdrop. The Act was originally passed to combat deflation, to stop excessive child labor, and to prevent people from working excessive hours. As a side benefit, Congress felt it would create more job positions because the overtime provision would make it cheaper to have more employees working fewer hours.
In August of 2004, highly contentious new FLSA classifications and standards went into effect. This new version of the FLSA was called FairPay by the Bush Administration. According to the Department of Labor, FairPay is designed to provide overtime protection for the 21st Century's Workers. In actuality, the revisions made significant changes to how a person is classified as being eligible to receive overtime pay. These changes affect many technical employees as well as service and hospitality companies that employ individuals that wear company uniforms, rely on tips, or work overtime have been most affected. Some of these individuals are now not eligible for overtime pay when they had been previously.
The biggest difference between FairPay and the Fair Labor Standards Act is in the definitions of employees that are eligible and ineligible for overtime pay. Low level working supervisors that were previously eligible for overtime have been reclassified as "executives" and are now ineligible for overtime. Conversely, other low-level employees that were ineligible under the FLSA are now eligible under FairPay. FairPay bases overtime eligibility more on a job's function than its title. Executive Assistants have gained eligibility because of their job's function.
Most of these disputes occur in two areas. Type one of the disputes involves an employee working more than 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day and not receiving the time and a half they deserve for those extra hours. The second type of dispute involves an employee not being paid for things that have to be done before or after their job for their job to go well. Such things as travel between job sites, activities before and after a shift starts (like cleaning equipment of changing out of a company-mandated uniform), or activities to prepare for work that are central to the job are included in the second type of dispute. Basically, if an employee is eligible for overtime pay, they must be paid time and a half for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week.
This area of employment law is quite possibly the most complicated. As this is true, it is necessary to contact an employment and labor attorney to determine the true scope of your case. Orange County Employment and Labor Attorney Perry Smith is here to help you determine what has gone wrong in your place of employment.