Los Angeles Employment Lawyer

Wage an Hour

Most Wage an Hour disputes stem from classifications from the Fair Labor Standards Act. The original version of the act was passed in 1938 and was passed with the Great Depression as a backdrop. The original version of the Act was designed to combat deflation, excessive child labor, and people working excessive hours. As a side benefit, it was meant to create more job positions because the overtime provision (working more than 40 hours in a week) made it more expensive to have a few people work an insane number of hours over hiring more people.

In August of 2004, new FLSA standards went into effect. These standards were called FairPay by the Bush administration and were designed to provide overtime protection for the 21st century's workers. In effect, the revisions made significant changes to what qualifies an employee as deserving of overtime pay. These changes affect many technical employees. Some of these technical employees are now ineligible for overtime compensation. All industries have been affected but hospitality and service companies that employ individuals that work over time, wear company uniforms, or rely on tips have been most affected.

The biggest change to the Fair Labor Standards Act was the changes made to the definitions of employees that are ineligible for overtime pay. Low level working supervisors were reclassified as "executives" and lost their overtime rights. Conversely, some low level employees that were previously ineligible for overtime are now eligible for overtime. Now, determining whether a company must pay overtime is supposed to be based more on a job's function, and not so much on its title. Executive Assistants are one of those groups.

The majority of this type of dispute stem from two main areas. Theses areas are an employee working more than 40 hours a week or over eight hours in a day and not receiving time and a half for those hours and an employee not being paid for the steps around their shift. The second means that an employee is not being paid for travel between job sites, activities before and after a shift starts, or activities to prepare for work that are central to a person's job. Basically, if an employee is eligible for overtime pay, they must be paid time and a half for all hours worked above 40.

As this is an extremely complicated area of employment law, it is necessary that you contact an employment lawyer to determine the true scope of your case. What you think is a minor thing could be a major thing. Los Angeles Employment Lawyer Perry Smith is here to help you determine what has gone wrong in your place of employment.