Most of the time, the real problem lies in the obliviousness of the employees. The majority of the employees in the United States of America are unaware of their workplace rights and are often exploited because of that. Especially when it comes to the wage and hour, the violations in this particular area are at large only because of the lack of knowledge regarding the laws related to it. If you feel that you have been a victim of any kind of wage and hour violation, you should be immediately talking to a wage and hour attorney Los Angeles to know what can be done in such a scenario.
But before you dial up the attorney, you must understand the most common wage and hour violations so that the next time it happens, you already know what needs to be done. Follow through.
1 Classifying all the employees as exempt from the overtime pay
Since the employees are unaware of their rights, most of the time, the employer considers all the employees as exempted from the overtime pay. Though the employees who are exempted must indeed be paid on a salary basis but some employers take undue advantage of such lack of knowledge of the employees.
2 Considering employees as independent contractors
This is one of the most common violations that employers make. The majority of the employers never conduct any analysis to ensure that the independent contractors classify for it or not. The consequences of such misclassification can affect the employer’s unemployment taxes, payroll taxes, overtime pay, and many other things.
3 Making inappropriate deductions
There are some employers who offer paid time off or advance paychecks to the employees. But this can go seriously wrong when the employee leaves the job or is terminated as in that scenario, the employee still owes money to the employer. Such kind of practice is not encouraged or not mentioned in any of the state laws unless there is a written agreement for such deductions has happened between the two parties.
4 Violations for travel time
It is difficult to keep the track of time for employees who move from one place to another for their jobs. Though they are not paid for travel to and from the job site, the employer is bound to pay the employees if they are traveling from one job site to another.
5 Paid sick leave violations
According to California law, an employee is eligible to have a paid sick leave from anywhere between one day to three days. And these time offs also include any kind of routine doctor’s appointment, taking a family member to the doctor, etc. Many employers do not validate such kinds of acts and violate the paid sick leave rule.
6 Not paying severance package to terminated employees
When an employee is fired or terminated from the job, the employer must pay all the remaining unused vacations, earned wages, and other stuff on the last day. But many times employers refuse to pay all of that which is a violation of the law. The employee can demand a claim under the wage and hour laws and that can cost huge to the employer.
7 Failing to pay the earned commissions or bonus on the overtime
The employers must include the commissions, bonuses as part of the remuneration while doing the overtime calculation for the non-exempt employees. And if the employer fails to do so, you have can exercise your right under the wage and hour laws.
8 Delayed compensation
Such kind of violations generally takes place at the startups as they take time to generate revenues. Thus, they make the employees agree to deferred compensations which is a violation of the Wage Act.
9 Failing to pay the time spent in meetings to the non-exempt employees
The employees who fall under the non-exempt category must be paid for the time that they spend in training or meetings if the meetings are outside of the regular working hours and the training is related to the job.
10 Paying by the shift to non-exempt employees
There have been many instances where the employers pay their employees as per their scheduled shifts which have become difficult for the layers to defend if the lawsuit is filed. Employees are entitled to be paid for all the hours they have worked; be it overtime or not. The employer paying only the shift hours to the employee despite him working before or after the shift is a violation of wage and hour laws.
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