An employer is required to pay overtime to their employees. The overtime premium is half of your hourly rate. You should be paid “time and a half,” or your usual hourly rate, including half of the overtime premium. This goes for every overtime hour you worked.
But, not all employees can earn overtime premium. No matter if you are entitled to overtime premium, whether you will get it will depend on your job duties, how many hours you have worked, and of course, on your state’s law.
If your employer is refusing to pay overtime or bonuses owed to you, contact an experienced business attorney that represents employees.
Which Employers Should Pay Overtime Premium?
The majority of employers have to pay overtime, but not all of them do it. If you want to learn if your employer has to pay you overtime premium, you should determine if the company is covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), an hour law the sets out overtime rules and the federal wage. In general, a business is covered by the FLSA and has $500,000 or more in annual sales will have to pay overtime.
If your employer does not have those high sales, but is covered by the FLSA, they must pay overtime. If the company is engaged in “interstate commerce” (business between states) again, they should pay overtime. Interstate commerce covers making phone calls to or from another state, handling goods that will go or have come from another state, and sending mail out of state.
In case your employer is local or quite small and does not have coverage by the FLSA (which is rare), then you can get your overtime if your state’s law determines that.
Are You Entitled to Earn Overtime Pay?
If your employer is covered by the FLSA, then every eligible employee should get their overtime premium. The only exception here is if the employees fit into the exception of the law. If you meet any of those exception categories, you are “exempt” from the federal overtime law. This indicates that you are not entitled to overtime.
The following categories can’t get overtime premium:
- Volunteers
- Independent contractors
- Outside salespeople
- Employees in small newspapers
- Newspapers deliverers
- Workers who work in fishing operations
- Small farms employees
- Baby sitters
- People who provide companionship to people who cannot care about themselves (nurses and personal and home care providers are excluded from this)
- Criminal investigators
Working Overtime
Under the FLSA, overtime work is considered anything more than forty hours per week. Some states have a different calculation for the overtime.
Connecticut’s overtime minimum wage is $16.50 per hour; the regular Connecticut minimum wage is $11.00 per hour. If you earn more then the minimum wage rate, you should get at least 1.5 times your regular hourly wage for every overtime hour you worked.
Connecticut allows employers to count certain types of bonuses or premium compensation against the required overtime rate for their employees.
If you have worked overtime hours, you should get overtime premium for every extra hour you worked. To calculate the overtime premium, you should calculate your regular rate of pay. It includes every compensation you receive for your employment (wages, performance-based bonuses and prizes, commissions, and shift differentials).
Money or items you received that are not part of your compensation (gifts, holiday bonus, parking space, etc.) are not included in the rate of pay.
You are entitled to a 50% premium for every extra hour you worked. For the overtime, you must be paid time and a half: 150% of your regular rate of pay.
Contact an Attorney If Your Employer Won’t Pay Your Overtime
If you are eligible for overtime premium and have worked more than forty hours in a week, but your employer did not pay you the overtime, make sure you talk to them. Also, educate yourself about your state’s law on this matter. Check how big the company you work for is (if it has sales less than half a million dollars per year, that might be the reason).
If both state and federal overtime laws apply, your employee should provide you with overtime premium.
In states with their overtime law, you need to contact the agency in your state that covers hour and labor standard violations.
Finally, you should contact a business and employment law office who has experience in such cases.
Our team at Aeton Law Partners is here to listen to your case and offer you legal help.
Call our office today and let us represent you in the process and get justice on your side.