Unpaid overtime · California
Am I owed overtime if I'm paid a salary in California?
Often, yes. A salary on its own doesn't decide it, and neither does a title with "manager" in it.
California asks two questions. Are you paid at least a set floor, which is pegged to twice the state minimum wage for full-time work and moves most years. And do you actually spend more than half your working time on the kind of work the exemption covers. Fail either one and you're owed overtime for every hour over eight in a day, not just over forty in a week.
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The half-the-time rule is where this is won
The federal test asks what your main job is. California asks how you actually spent your week, and it wants more than half of it on exempt work before the exemption applies.
That's a harder standard than most employers realize they're being held to. An assistant manager who spends six hours of an eight-hour shift on the register, on the floor, stocking or cleaning, and two hours on scheduling and paperwork, is not exempt, whatever the job description says. The title is evidence of nothing. The schedule and what you were doing on it is the case.
This catches whole categories of jobs. Shift leads and assistant managers in retail and food. Inside sales. Office administrators. Junior roles in IT and support. Dispatchers. Anyone described as a coordinator.
Overtime in California is daily, and that matters
Over eight hours in a day, time and a half. Over twelve in a day, double time. Over forty in a week, time and a half. And on the seventh consecutive day in a workweek, its own rules again.
The reason this matters more than it sounds: somebody working four ten-hour days has worked no overtime under the federal rule and eight hours of it under California's. Misclassification cases here are usually larger than people expect for exactly that reason.
What also comes with it
If the exemption doesn't hold, it usually didn't hold for anything else either. The same finding tends to bring unpaid meal and rest break premiums, a wage statement that was wrong every pay period, and, if you've already left, penalties for a final check that was short.
That's why these claims add up to more than the overtime arithmetic suggests on a first look.
Things employers say that aren't the law
"You agreed to a salary." You can't agree away overtime in California. An agreement to be paid a salary is not a waiver and never was.
"You're exempt because you're salaried." Backwards. The salary is one of two conditions, and the duties are the one that decides it.
"You supervise people." Supervising matters, but the question stays the same: what did you spend more than half your time doing? Two direct reports and six hours a shift on the floor is not an exemption.
"We give comp time instead." That is not how California overtime works for most private employees.
"You never put the hours on your timesheet." Common, and not the defense they think it is. An employer that knew or should have known you were working the hours owes them. Your phone, your badge records and your emails usually show the day better than the timesheet does.
What to do this week
Write down your usual week as it actually was. Start time, end time, breaks taken and missed, days per week. An honest estimate across a typical month is a real starting point.
Keep your pay stubs, or get them. In California you're entitled to copies of your own pay and time records, and asking for them is normal.
How long you have
Wage claims reach back years rather than months, which is what surprises people about the totals. The day you call sets how far back the recovery can reach, and every month of waiting is a month that falls off the far end.
Being fired or punished for asking about this is unlawful on its own, and if that happened the firing may be worth more than the wages.
What it costs
Nothing to talk to me. If I take the case you pay nothing unless money is recovered for you, and case costs come out of the recovery rather than out of your pocket. If we don't win, you don't pay.
Get in touch
More on how these cases run: unpaid overtime and wage claims.
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