Working Overtime In California

California overtime law mandates extra pay for working more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week. It’s a recognition that putting in those extra hours is harder and should be compensated at a higher rate than the regular hours everyone expects to work.

Federal Overtime Laws

Federal overtime laws define the minimum protection for employees. These are set out in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under federal law, employers must pay 1.5x your regular hourly pay rate for every hour you work past 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. Salaried employees are generally excluded from this rule and may be required to work beyond 40 hours per week without an increase in pay.

California Overtime Law

California offers even more to workers than federal law requires. Like the FLSA, California overtime law requires your employer to pay 1.5x your normal hourly wage for every hour you work past 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. You are also entitled to 1.5x your normal hourly wage for the first 8 hours you work on the seventh consecutive day of work. California has an additional increase if you work far beyond normal hours. You’re entitled to double your normal hourly rate for every hour you work past 12 hours in a day or past 8 hours on a seventh consecutive day of work.

You must work more than 8 hours per day and more than 40 hours per week to qualify. For example, someone whose regular schedule involves working for 10 hours per day, 4 days a week does not qualify for overtime pay for the extra 2 hours on each work day because she’s only working a total of 40 hours per week.

Nonexempt Employees

Some employees are exempt from the overtime laws, meaning that they are not legally entitled to overtime pay past 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. Exempt employees include executives, administrators, professionals, state and local employees, cab drivers, airline employees (under certain circumstances), actors, and workers whose overtime pay is governed by a collective bargaining agreement.

Nonexempt employees, on the other hand, are entitled to the protection of overtime laws. That means almost everyone who works for an hourly wage and is not a member of a union is entitled to overtime pay. Salaried workers are also entitled to overtime pay as long as they don’t fall under one of the exemptions.

Mandatory Overtime

Your employer does generally have the right to require you to work overtime, as long as you receive the appropriate overtime pay. In fact, your employer can fire you for refusing to do it. On the flip side, your employer is required to pay you for overtime work even if it’s unauthorized. However, you may be disciplined if you’re breaking a company policy about working hours or notifying your superior and you can’t try to conceal the fact that you’re working overtime from your employer.

How To Calculate Overtime

First, you’ll need to determine how many hours you’ve worked in a given week. If it’s more than 8 per day and 40 for the week, you’re probably entitled to overtime pay. First, count how many hours you worked beyond 12 hours in a given shift or beyond 8 hours on a seventh consecutive day of work. Those are the hours for which you make double your regular pay. Next, take the total number of hours you worked and subtract 40, then subtract the number of double pay hours (so you don’t double count them). In general, that’s the number of hours for which you make 1.5x your regular pay. There may be slight variations if you work 7 days in a row, which we see in the second example below.

Overtime pay is based on a multiple of your regular hourly pay rate. If you’re paid an hourly wage, that’s your regular pay rate and you just multiply it by 1.5 or 2 to determine your overtime pay rate. If you earn a salary, you’ll need to take your annual salary, divide it by 52 to get your weekly salary, and divide that by 40 to get your regular hourly pay rate.

For example, say you earn $10 per hour and your schedule last week looked like this:

First, you worked 13 hours on Wednesday. That’s one hour of double pay.

You worked a total of 53 hours last week. We take 53, subtract the 40 hours for which you don’t get overtime pay, and subtract the hour of double pay. That leaves you with 40 hours of regular pay, 12 hours of time-and-a-half, and 1 hour of double pay.

Let’s take a look at one more example. Say you make $10 per hour and your schedule last week looked like this:

With this schedule, you never worked more than 8 hours in a day. You worked a total of 42 hours for the week. However, you don’t just get 2 hours of overtime pay. Because you worked 7 days in a row, you get overtime pay for the hours you worked on the 7th day. That means you get 6 hours of time-and-a-half and 36 hours of regular pay.

Have You Been Denied Overtime Pay?

If you’ve worked overtime in California, you’re entitled to overtime pay. Unfortunately, employers will sometimes deny the appropriate pay rate in order to save money. If this has happened to you, you may need the help of an experienced California employment lawyer to help you get the pay you’ve earned. You may also choose to file a wage claim with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

California Attorney Search

The San Fernando Valley Bar Association offers a comprehensive attorney referral service to help connect you to an experienced lawyer who can help you with your legal questions. We can match you with the right employment law attorney for your unique situation.

Image Credit and License