Wage & Hour Compliance

The stakes are high for employers who don’t comply with California’s wage and hour laws. We provide clients with expert coaching and information to correctly classify and pay employees, minimize legal fees and avoid penalties.

There is probably no greater area of employment litigation in California than wage and hour law.  Compliance requires knowledge of federal, state, and local laws.

If wage and hour challenges are great for large employers with dedicated staffs, they can be almost insurmountable for smaller employers with fewer resources.

The areas where employers get in trouble most often are:

  • Misclassifying an employee as an Independent Contractor
  • Misclassifying a nonexempt employee as exempt
  • Failing to keep adequate time records
  • Improperly implementing an alternative work schedule
  • Failing to accurately calculate and pay overtime
  • Improperly scheduling or enforcing rest breaks and meal periods
  • Miscalculating and paying penalties

Three common assumptions will almost always get an employer into trouble:

  • If an employee is salaried, s/he is exempt from overtime pay requirements.
  • Your outsourced payroll processor will ensure that your pay practices are legally-compliant.
  • A worker who invoices you and agrees to pay all of his/her payroll taxes is an Independent Contractor.

The burden for compliance with wage and hour laws is on the employer.  Penalties for wage and hour violations often accrue per employee, per day, and employers are subject both to claims brought by former employees as well as penalties assessed by state and federal agencies charged with wage and hour enforcement.

According to Findlaw.com, California’s Private Attorneys General Act (2004) grants “…every employee of every California employer … authorization to bring a class action lawsuit seeking thousands of dollars in monetary penalties based on any violation of the California Labor Code, no matter how small, technical, or short in the duration of the alleged violation, all without any need to show that the plaintiff-employee was actually harmed or suffered any damage.  Indeed, this new law rewards employees for bringing these lawsuits, by giving them a percentage of any recovery of monetary penalties.”

We help our clients navigate through the wage and hour mine field.

 

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