California Unpaid Wages Lawyer

Many workers in California are not receiving the full wages they have earned. Employers use a variety of different methods to deny employees the amounts they are owed under federal and state laws. You may not be receiving appropriate pay for break times or overtime. Your employer might not be paying the full amount required under local minimum wage laws. Your employer might not have compensated you for vacation pay or work done off the clock. Or you might be misclassified as an independent contractor or exempt employee.

Regardless of the reason you haven’t received the full amount you are owed for your work, a California unpaid wages lawyer at Justice Law Corporation can work to set things right. Our team knows how to ensure that you recover compensation for the wages you’ve lost, as well as other remedies allowed under the law.

Wage and Hour Laws Guarantee You Certain Pay

Employers in California are required to comply with an array of federal, state, and local laws that are often referred to as “wage and hour” laws. These legal requirements are designed to ensure that workers receive fair compensation for the hours they work for their employers. Wage and hour laws set standards about issues such as:

Paying higher wages when employees work more than a standard workday or work week
Ensuring employees receive at least a set minimum amount per hour
Not delaying too long before paying wages for work performed
Compensating employees for all work performed and for paid breaks and time-off
Classifying employees properly so that they are provided with their full rights

Sometimes, employers are not aware of the ways that their conduct is denying workers the full wages they have earned. Other times, employers understand the standards they should comply with, but they cut corners, hoping employees will not notice or that they will not act to enforce their rights under the law. At Justice Law Corporation, we know that assistance from a California unpaid wages lawyer can not only enable employees to recover compensation for unpaid wages from the past but also ensure that all workers receive full and fair compensation in the future, improving the workplace all around.

Unpaid Overtime

While there are exceptions, many employees in California should be receiving additional pay when they work hours over a certain standard limit. Federal law requires overtime pay for employees who work more than 40 hours in a given work week, unless those employees fall under a specific exemption. California law sets overtime requirements for work weeks and individual workdays.

When employees work more than 8 hours in a day, the additional hours are supposed to be paid at one and a half times their normal rate. If they work more than 12 hours in a day, the hours beyond that threshold are supposed to be compensated at twice the regular rate of pay. The overtime requirements do not apply to certain types of workers, such as executives, and there are special requirements in place in certain industries because of the non-traditional schedules used in these fields.

Employees may believe that they are exempt from overtime requirements when, instead, they should be receiving additional pay for extra hours. An unpaid wages lawyer can review the details of job duties to determine whether an employee is entitled to receive overtime and, if so, work to obtain compensation for past lost wages and ensure the proper application of overtime rules in the future.

Meal and Rest Breaks

Far too often, employers fail to provide required breaks for employees, or they unlawfully deduct pay for break periods that should be compensated. Any employee who works a shift of at least five hours is supposed to receive a “meal period” break of 30 minutes or more. (If the shift is no longer than six hours, the employee can waive the right to a meal break.)

If a worker is still expected to fulfill some duties during the meal break, then the employer must provide compensation for that time. When it is a true break, the employer does not need to pay for that time. However, if an employer fails to provide a required meal break, that employer is supposed to pay a full hour of compensation essentially as a penalty for denying the break.

Additionally, for every four hours worked, an employee is entitled to a rest break of at least ten minutes. This rest period is counted as work time, so employers must pay employees while they are on a required rest break. If you suspect that you are not receiving compensation for rest breaks or not being given appropriate meal breaks, or that you are not being compensated for missed breaks, a California unpaid wages lawyer at Justice Law Corporation can review the circumstances and explain your options for recovering what you are owed.

Off-the-Clock Work

Employers often expect employees to complete certain tasks before they clock in or after they have logged out for the day. This is a violation of wage and hour laws in many cases. Unless an exception or exemption applies, employees should be compensated for all the time they are working. Workers who have been denied pay for work performed off the clock need to take legal action to call attention to this practice so that employers will be forced to abide by the rules. Legal action can also enable the recovery of past unpaid wages.

Misclassification of Employees

There are exceptions for minimum wage requirements, overtime provisions, and other wage and hour laws when an employee is classified as belonging to a category of workers who are exempt from these rules. Usually, employees are exempt because they are highly compensated or because they have chosen to work in an artistic field where it may not be economically feasible to pay prevailing rates for hours worked.

Employers often misclassify employees as exempt from wage requirements when, in fact, these employees should be paid at least minimum wage and receive overtime for extra hours worked. They also sometimes classify employees as independent contractors, which allows the employer to ignore wage laws and force employees to shoulder the burden of payroll taxes. When employers cheat employees by misclassifying them, an unpaid wages attorney can work to recover compensation that was wrongfully withheld and ensure that workers receive appropriate treatment in the future.

FAQs About Unpaid Wages in California

Since there are so many ways employees can lose out on compensation wrongfully withheld by their employers, workers often come to us with questions about unpaid wage issues. We offer free, confidential consultations where we can review the facts of a situation and provide answers based on those facts, so we invite you to contact us if you’d like an answer to your specific question. For background information, here are some broad answers to common questions we receive from employees.

If I Have Accumulated Paid Time Off and I Quit or Get Fired, Does My Employer Have to Pay Me for It?

While California does not require employers to provide vacation time, when an employer establishes a practice of providing paid vacation time, then they must follow certain rules. They must pay an employee for vacation time accrued, even if the employee is terminated for bad cause. If the employer combines vacation time and sick leave into a single “paid time off” category, then the employer must pay for accrued time in that category.

Moreover, an employer cannot establish a “use it or lose it” policy for vacation time because vacation pay is considered a type of wage. Once an employee has earned a wage, the employer cannot take away the right to receive it. However, an employer can set a cap on accrued vacation time so that if an employee has accumulated a certain number of hours of paid time off, they cannot add more unless they use some of the hours accrued.

What are My Wage Rights if I’ve Been Terminated?

California laws give employees specific rights when their employment is terminated, even if it is the employee’s choice to end the employment relationship. If an employer discharges an employee, the employer must pay all wages due, including accrued vacation time, on the day of discharge at the location where the employee was discharged.

If the employee quits and gives at least 72 hours’ notice of the intention to quit, then the employer must pay wages owed when the employee leaves. If the employee quits without advance notice, the employer is required to pay wages owed within 72 hours, and the employee can ask to have those wages mailed to them. When an employer is late with final payments, a California unpaid wages lawyer at Justice Law Corporation can work to obtain extra pay in the form of late payment fines that amount to a day’s wages for each day payment is delayed.

What Types of Compensation are Included in Workers’ Wage Rights?

The right to timely payment of wages includes more than just hourly pay or regular salary. It can also include pay for piece rate work, bonuses, sales commissions, overtime pay, vacation time pay, tips, and amounts due for unpaid meal breaks. When a worker has earned compensation, their employer does not have the right to withhold it, regardless of the type.

If I’ve Been Paid Less Than the Applicable Minimum Wage, Can I Recover Unpaid Wages?

Unless your position fits an exemption or exception, your employer must pay at least the minimum wage required under the circumstances. The state minimum establishes a basic threshold for most jobs, and tipped employees are required to be paid at that level with no deduction for tips received. Certain jobs are supposed to be compensated at a higher rate, such as positions at fast food restaurants and in the health care industry.

Local governments often set their own minimum wage standards, and employees are entitled to be paid at the highest applicable rate. If your employer hasn’t been paying the appropriate rate, the team at Justice Law Corporation knows how to work effectively to recover your unpaid wages.

Should My Unpaid Wage Claim Be Handled Through a Class Action Lawsuit?

Unpaid wage claims can vary tremendously, so it is hard to determine the best legal options for pursuing justice without analyzing the specific facts involved. When an employer has been practicing a particular form of wage theft against multiple employees, the interests of those employees may be best served by combining their claims into a single lawsuit. Other times, a claim should be handled individually.

Talk to a California Unpaid Wages Lawyer to Find Out How to Obtain Justice and Maximum Compensation

Unpaid wages can add up to serious amounts of money. When an attorney at Justice Law Corporation is able to prove that your employer has not been paying the compensation you have earned under the law, then we can work to recover not only your unpaid wages but also additional amounts for interest, penalties, and fees. In addition, your efforts to bring issues to light will ensure that you and others in the workplace will be paid fairly in the future.

We invite you to talk to a California unpaid wages lawyer on our team to find out what may be possible in your case. To get started with a free consultation, call us at 818-230-7502 or contact us online today.