Los Angeles California Employment Law Blog

In California, many of workers are eligible to receive overtime if they go beyond their regular work hours. However, it is not uncommon for employers to fail to pay these workers and be guilty of committing a violation related to unpaid wages. Often, workers are not even aware that they were supposed to get overtime under the law. In other instances, they are concerned about their job status if they file a complaint over unpaid wages.

It is important for them to know that they have rights and are protected under the law. Understanding when they should get overtime is one of the most vital factors in taking the necessary steps to receive those wages. An employee who is 18 or older and is nonexempt or a minor employee who is 16 or 17 and is legally allowed to work and not attend school can work eight hours in a single workday and 40 hours in a workweek without getting overtime. If they work beyond those hours, they are entitled to overtime pay.

Many people think of sexual harassment perpetrators as male and victims as female, and indeed, this is a common pattern. But, both men and women face harassment at work, and transgender and transsexual individuals often face both harassment and other obstacles to their careers. In response to this ongoing crisis, the California State Legislature has taken action to curtail harassment in the workplace.

Last month, we told readers about some new laws that took effect at the first of the year in the Golden State. One law prohibits employers from requiring employees to sign away their right to sue for workplace harassment and their right to disclose information about harassment and other unlawful acts happening on the job. Another stops employers from requiring nondisclosure agreements in settlements of sexual harassment claims. These new laws are calculated to defeat the silence that often allows harassment to rage unabated.

Payday comes and a worker finds that they have not been paid at all, or maybe, they were only paid part of the amount they earned. As many federal government employees can attest, this is a very frustrating -- and potentially financially catastrophic -- situation. What should an employee in California do if they have been illegally denied some or all of the pay they are owed? This blog post gives a quick overview of the process for filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.

Complaints filed with the division are confidential. Employees will be asked to provide some personal information, as well as the name and location of the employer, the names of managers or owners, the type of work performed and the time and manner in which payment was made. Further information, such as personal records of hours worked, paycheck stubs and information about how the employer usually pays, can be useful for the division's efforts.

Most employees in Los Angeles are what are called at-will employees, meaning that their employers are allowed to terminate them for any reason not expressly prohibited by law. Many employees, however, are employed pursuant to an employment contract that the employer and employee expressly entered into. These express contracts often require that the employee only be discharged if the employer has cause to do so. This blog post will take a closer look at employment contracts and when they may be found to exist

Employment contracts are most often found to exist when the parties sign an agreement that lays out the responsibilities of the parties with respect to the employment situation. It may be the case, however, that an employment contract may be found to exist even if there is no written agreement in existence. For example, let's say that an employer tells an employee that "you'll be here as long as your sales are above budget." If a court finds that such a statement was made by the employer, the court may conclude that an employment agreement existed even if it wasn't put in writing.