Overtime Violations

Even if employers pay you the minimum wage, Federal and State laws labor laws require them to compensate you appropriately for overtime. Specifically, if an employee works for more than forty hours in one week, they are entitled to one and a half times their regular hourly wage for every hour they work over forty hours. Unfortunately, employers try to exploit their workers and have them work ever-increasing hours without paying the required amounts. Employers must have accurate timesheets and proper documentation showing how many hours each of their workers have worked in any given week to prove that their employees were not entitled to overtime. Their failure to keep those records could – in some cases – automatically entitle employees to back pay for any unlogged overtime as well.

Hourly Compensation Violations

Similar to overtime violations, in our ever-increasing and overworked society, there are some employers who ask their employees to work double shifts or more than ten consecutive hours in one day. Under the law, however, when employees work more than ten hours in one day, they are entitled to an extra hour of pay in addition to whatever overtime might be due to them. Employers often do not provide this pay and rob their employees of hundreds of hours of compensation rightfully owed to their employees.

Retaliation

An employer is not allowed to retaliate against an employee who complains about wage violations. The main reason people fail to report these violations is that they fear to lose their jobs or getting demoted for speaking up against any type of employer abuse. However, any form of retaliation is separately actionable and can lead to the recovery of additional damages, above and beyond backpay. For instance, if an employee is terminated for speaking up, he or she can be compensated for the wages they would have received had they not been terminated or demoted and potentially obtain damages for mental anguish, as well as have their attorney fees paid.