Wage & Hour Claims in San Jose and Paseo Robles, CA

Employment Lawyers For Labor Laws

If you have been deprived of the wages you are owed or forced to work without breaks, an experienced employment lawyer can provide you with the advice you need to protect your rights. The Advocacy Center for Employment Law handles wage hour claims near San Jose, as well as other claims relating to civil rights and employment law. Our employment attorneys have more than 35 years of experience with overtime laws and labor laws and providing our clients with strong and effective legal counsel.

Overtime Labor Laws

In the state of California, all non-exempt employees may not work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours in a week without receiving overtime pay. Overtime pay is calculated based on the number of hours that you work:

• For hours worked exceeding eight hours, and up to and including 12 hours, overtime pay is defined as being 150 percent of your regular pay rate.
• For hours worked exceeding 12 hours, overtime pay is defined as being twice the amount of your regular pay rate.
• If you work seven days in a row, you are entitled to overtime on the seventh day, irrespective of the number of hours you work in the week. The first eight hours that you work on the seventh day will be calculated as 150 percent of your regular pay rate, unless these hours are in excessive of 50 hours per the week and anything exceeding that will be twice your regular pay rate.

Lack of Rest Periods and Meal Breaks

All non-exempt California employees must be allowed to take a 10-minute rest period, with pay, for every four hours that they work, unless they will not exceed a 5 hour day. If an employer fails to provide an employee with the required number of rest periods, the employee is owed an hour’s worth of pay for each day that the rest period was not given.

If an employee works for more than six hours a day, he or she is entitled to a daily meal break of at least 30 minutes. If a workday exceeds 10 hours, a second meal break may be required unless the employee consents to waiving it. If the employee is required to stay at his or her place of residence during the break, the meal break is considered worktime and must be compensated as such. Our employment lawyers in San Jose, CA can provide you with legal counseling if you believe you have been deprived of breaks.

Failure to Provide Vacation Payout

Employers are not required to provide you with paid vacation time. If you have earned paid vacation hours, however, it is considered a form of wages and must eventually be paid to you. You do not forfeit the wages you are owed for unused vacation time at the end of the year. If you leave your job, no matter what the reason is, you are entitled to be paid for all of your earned and unused vacation days. If you believe that you have been wrongly deprived of your wages, it’s important that you contact an employment lawyer right away.

Exempt Salaried Employees

Have you been classified as”salaried/exempt” being exempt from overtime pay and in some instances rest and meal break requirements that are generally applicable to hourly paid employees? Our labor attorneys at the Advocacy Center for Employment Law can evaluate any suspected misclassification and offers strong legal counsel in resolution of these claims.

A recent trend in employment wage claims focuses on employers’ designation of workforce as “salaried/exempt”, being exempt from overtime pay, and, in some instances, rest and meal break requirements that are generally applicable to hourly paid employees. Exempt employees typically are management or administrative and professional employees whose regular duties include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment.

Recent challenges to the designation of staff as managers or salaried/exempt focus on what the employee actually does on a day to day basis. Where a manager is primarily doing the identical tasks performed by hourly staff, the salaried employee may have been “misclassified” and may be owed overtime pay. Similarly, managers who are not given sufficient managerial authority, through management of two or more staff, or are not paid at least double the minimum wage, have been held to be misclassified and entitled to overtime pay. If you believe you’ve been misclassified as an exempt employee, our employment lawyers in San Jose, CA are knowledgeable with labor laws and can provide you with legal counsel.

There are significant potential liabilities that companies face through use of “working” managers operating a cash register and stocking shelves, while, unfortunately, many organizations continue to abuse the exempt status by having its management staff fill in for hourly workers while not providing breaks or overtime pay for these “managers”. Where the managers’ actual duties become primarily those performed by hourly staff, the company is liable for the absence of breaks, overtime pay and penalties, computed at up to thirty days of the employee’s daily rate of pay. Further, retaliation for requesting these wages is a protected activity and is absolutely prohibited.

The Advocacy Center for Employment Law and our wage lawyers can evaluate any suspected misclassification and offers strong legal counsel for various labor law claims, including representation before the California Labor Commission and in both state and federal courts where necessary. The Advocacy Center for Employment Law has employment attorneys in San Jose, CA that often represent claimants on a contingency-fee basis, being paid only upon successful recovery for the client. If you have not been paid for hours worked or have not been provided breaks, the Advocacy Center has a strong track record in protecting you and asserting your wage claims, consistently winning large damage awards.