Your employer needs to treat you fairly. According to the Labor Commissioner’s Office, employees in California should not exceed 8 hours per workday and 40 hours per workweek. These are the legal numbers in most industries. Working more than the required hours...
Wage and Hour Violations
Wage theft outranks all other American theft
When most people think about common types of theft, they think of bank robberies or home invasions. They assume that physical assets or financial assets are simply being stolen by individuals in one-time events. But the truth is that some studies have labeled wage...
Understanding California’s prevailing wage law
For close to 100 years, California has had a prevailing wage law that sets the minimum wage that workers must be paid if they are working on a construction project that’s paid for, at least in part, with federal, state and/or local government funding. These projects...
Do California employers always need to pay on-call employees?
Some employers need to have employees on call so they can have them report in for work when they’re needed. From a federal standpoint, employees are only considered on-call if they have to remain at the place of business. California law provides a bit more protection...
Do your tips count toward minimum wage?
You recently moved to California and you got a job in which you collect tips. Perhaps you work at a cafe, a restaurant or a bar. In other states where you've lived before, you know that the minimum wage for tipped employees can be very low. They still have to make the...
How a California Supreme Court ruling affects non-exempt workers
California has some of the most employer-friendly laws in the country. However, employers too often don’t fully understand and/or abide by them, and employees may not realize that they’ve been cheated out of money they earned. When employers don’t comply with the...
It’s easy to mistakenly work off the clock
As an employee, there are times when you are on or off the clock. You usually need to clock into your shift and clock out at certain times. Working while you’re off the clock is not legal, because it means that you won’t be paid for the work that you do....
Your employer shouldn’t demand that you work off the clock
As an hourly worker, you deserve compensation for your time on the job. You may not have a promise of a specific number of hours each week, which can make budgeting to pay your bills more difficult. However, at the very least, you should be able to depend on receiving...
Can your employer “round down” the time you’ve worked?
As an hourly worker in California, you only receive compensation for the time when you are present at your place of employment performing work. Unlike a salaried employee, you cannot always predict what your income will be from week to week if your schedule changes....
Are you allowed to talk about your wages in California?
Have you ever had an employer tell you that you’re not supposed to discuss your wages with other employees? They may act as if you earn more and so the other employees would be jealous, for instance, or they may just make a blanket statement to the effect of “that’s...