YourLawyer.com® 1-800-LAW-INFO (1-800-529-4636)
Unpaid Overtime
Unpaid Overtime Claims - Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers are required to pay overtime to all employees working more than 40 hours per week in most situations. Under FLSA, employers must pay eligible employees who work more than 40 hours in the workweek at least one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for the overtime hours (hours worked over 40 in a workweek). FLSA defines a workweek as seven consecutive 24-hour periods, or 168 consecutive hours.
If an employee is covered by the FLSA, an employer cannot disregard an employee’s overtime hours, even if the employee agreed to work for a fixed amount of pay, regardless of the number of hours actually worked. While the method of calculating the overtime due to the employee may vary, the employee is entitled to overtime pay for all hours over 40 worked during any given work week. The amount of pay an employee is owed can only be determined by knowing the total number of hours actually worked by that employee in each workweek. An employee must be paid for all of the time considered to be hours worked and all time that is hours worked must be counted when determining overtime hours worked.
Under the FLSA, the following categories or classes of workers are automatically eligible for overtime pay, regardless of how much they earn:
- “Blue collar” workers or other manual laborers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy;
- Police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and other “first responders”;
- Licensed practical nurses; and
- Paralegals.
Unpaid OvertimeRSS Feed
Unpaid Overtime Lawsuits Often Big Winners for American Workers
Sep 25, 2007 | Parker Waichman Alonso LLP
As the American workday becomes increasingly longer, many employers look for ways to avoid paying workers the overtime pay that they deserve. But lately, some of those employees have been taking their bosses to court to recoup unpaid overtime – and many of them are winning.According to an article in BusinessWeek magazine, some of the nation’s biggest employers, including Wal-Mart, Starbucks, IBM and Merrill Lynch, have all been sued – repeatedly- by employees...
IBM, Universal Music Group Workers Say Employers Cheated Them Out of Overtime Pay
Jul 27, 2007 | Parker Waichman Alonso LLP
Unpaid overtime is at the heart of class action law suites filed in California against two high-tech giants this week. Sales specialists at IBM and information technology (IT) employees at Universal Music Group claim that the companies failed to pay their workers overtime as required by law. The IBM case alone could cost the company as much as $5 million.Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) employers must pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours per week. The rules...
Dept. of Labor Says Company Owes $2M in OT
Dec 20, 2006 | www.hr.blr.com
The Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit accusing Rife Industrial Marine in Texas of misclassifying workers as independent contractors. The lawsuit accuses the company of violating the overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The department says that the company owes almost $2 million in back wages. The department filed the complaint against Rife Industrial Marine and Rodney Rife, president of the company. The department alleges that the...
Drug firm reps sue for overtime
Dec 1, 2006 | Los Angeles Times
Drug company agents, who say they routinely work 60-hour weeks visiting doctors' offices, said Thursday that they had sued Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson and six other drug companies for failing to pay overtime. The lawsuits, which could involve tens of thousands of U.S. employees, add the pharmaceutical industry to other sectors that have been accused of giving rank-and-file workers managerial-like job titles to avoid paying overtime. The suits follow Pfizer's announcement Tuesday that...
Unpaid Overtime
News Feeds
WE ALSO OFFER OUR FIRM NEWS AS RSS/XML FEEDS.
LEARN MORE ABOUT RSS