Wage & Hour Disputes

You work hard for the money you earned and are entitled to. Whenever an employer fails to pay you your wages and/or overtime, whether it be because of misclassification of employment status or inaccurate computation, you may be entitled to damages and penalties under the various Wage & Hour laws.

If you think you may have a wage and hour claim against your employer, you may find yourself asking some of these questions:

• Can my boss take my tips?
• Why does my boss pay me late?
• My boss pays me in cash, what do I do?
• Why doesn’t my boss pay me on time?
• Why doesn’t my boss let me take lunch?
• My boss doesn’t let me take rests, what do I do?
• My boss doesn’t want to pay me, what do I do?
• Can my boss force me to work overtime without paying me?

In California, the law requires that employers pay nonexempt employees who work more than 8 hours a day or more than 40 hours in a workweek shall be compensated one and one-half times his or her regular rate of pay for all hours worked over eight hours in any workday and over 40 hours in the workweek. A “workweek” may be established differently for every employee, but once an employee’s workweek is established, it remains fixed regardless of his or her working schedule.

There are two different ways that an employee can seek redress for unpaid wages or unpaid overtime:

(1) They can file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division.

(2) File a complaint in a court of law. To file a complaint with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division, you’ll need the following information:

• Your name
• Your address and phone number (how you can be contacted)
• The name of the company where you work(ed)
• Location of the company (this may be different from where you worked)
• Phone number of the company
• Manager or owner's name (who should we ask to speak to?)
• Type of work you did
• How and when you were paid (i.e., cash or check, every Friday)

However, an employee can also file a civil suit in a court of law represented by a lawyer. In these situations, the employee can recover back pay and other legal remedies.