Have you wondered what your wages, hours and overtime rights are as an employee in California? Here is some basic information! Contact the Law Office of Bowman and Associates today for more information. We will schedule a FREE one hour consultation today! CALL NOW…916-985-2600

Wage and Hour Issues in California

Wage Payment

In general, wages must be paid at least twice each month on regularly scheduled paydays. Paydays must be designated and posted, showing the date, time and location for payment.

Wages earned between the 1st and 15th of the month must be paid by the 26th and wages earned between the 16th and last day of the month must be paid by the 10th day of the next month. If you have a weekly, biweekly or semimonthly pay period, than wages must be paid within seven calendar days of the end of the designated period.

Payment Upon Termination

You must be paid for all earned wages, including vacation, at the time of termination. Read More »

For anyone who has ever spent time in a hostile work environment, the options for recourse must seem daunting. Unless there is a back-up job waiting in the wings, which few have, you may be hesitant to speak up for fear of finding yourself jobless.

This is known as retaliation; it’s illegal.

It also happens all the time.

For those who do speak up, chances are good that protocol will require you to file a complaint within the company. If your company is responsive, you could see results immediately. Many times, however, you will wait. When HR does finally take action, it may not even address the specific individual. Sexual harassment training is a popular course of action for many companies.

As Susan Antilla pointed out in a column published yesterday, changes in the law have put more and more pressure on victims of sexual harassment in the workplace to use internal systems to file complaints. Often, the internal system falls far short of solving the problem. Read More »

Salaried employees who are classified as “managers” are improperly classified as exempt. In order to be properly classified as an exempt employee, managers must be paid a salary of no less than twice the minimum wage; and must supervise (which generally must include the power to hire and fire) two or more employees; and must customarily exercise independent discretion; and must spend more than 50% of the time performing those managerial tasks, rather than the same sort of work as their hourly underlings.

What often happens in California:

Employers will simply add a small amount of managerial authority to a crew member, call that crew member the manager, and put them on a salary. While there is nothing wrong with do that, it does not excuse an employer from paying overtime if that salaried worker then works more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week. When improperly classified employees work long hours, they may be entitled to overtime pay reaching back four years. Read More »

The Harris County sheriff’s office fired its technology director because he protested and revealed the office’s plan to hack into the county government computer network, the former employee charges in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Wilfrido Mata had served as the sheriff’s director of infrastructure technology and worked for the sheriff’s office for 10 years. Mata’s lawsuit charges that he was informed late last year that the office would be doing a security audit on its computer system without informing the county’s information technology director. The suit alleges that those leading the audit said they could obtain the information they needed through “packet sniffing,” the computer equivalent of wire tapping a phone. According to the lawsuit, Mata raised objections, and when they went unheeded, he went to the FBI. Mata’s lawsuit said he met with FBI agents twice. The FBI asked him to wear a wire to a meeting with the Sheriff’s information technology officials. A week later, he wore it while speaking with the Sheriff’s chief administrative officer. Mata told the administrator the packet sniffing was illegal, then revealed the recording device and said he was cooperating with the FBI, the lawsuit states. Despite what the lawsuit calls years of superior job performance reviews, Mata received a reprimand a month after the confrontation, followed by a rating of “average” in a February performance review. He was fired in May. Read More »

A group of 11 current and former black employees of Southern California Edison filed a lawsuit against the utility giant, alleging a pattern of racial discrimination against them. The suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, describes a “racially hostile” work environment in which few blacks are in senior management at the Rosemead-based utility. The claim also alleges unequal pay and job assignments. The claim does not list how much money is being sought by the employees.

“It is and continues to be a negative culture,” said Charles T. Mathews, an attorney representing the employees. “They are all second class citizens at Edison.” The suit also alleges that the number of African-Americans employees at the company has “decreased dramatically despite an overall increase in the number of persons employed” by the company since 1996. Utility employees have twice filed class-action lawsuits, in 1974 and 1994, against Edison alleging racial discrimination, Mathews said.

Some employees in the suit were also part of the 1994 suit which resulted in a consent decree in which the utility paid $11.3 million into a settlement fund and agreed to start training and leadership programs, according to court documents. A federal judge in 2003 ruled that the consent decree was fully complied with and dismissed the case, according to court documents. Mathews alleged employees “have systematically watched (Edison) ignore it,” equating them to workers on a plantation. “Don’t ask for an upper management position because you won’t get it,” Mathews said. Read More »

Are you working for the state? Are you tired of Furlough Fridays and the possibility of your wages being taken down to the Minimum Wage level? You may have options. Contact the Employment Law Firm of Bowman & Associates, APC. today for your free consultation.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made an order that most state workers pay be cut to the federal minimum wage level. His reasoning behind this decision is due to California lawmakers inability to pass a state budget.

The Governor’s decision was backed by a state appellate court, however no changes have been made to state worker’s pay thanks to State Controller John Chiang. Chiang states he is unable to make the changes to employees pay because the states payroll computer system is not up to date, and would not be able to withstand such a major change.

In addition, Governor Schwarzenegger is working to implement Furlough Friday’s once again. Read More »

There seems to be an increase of CEO’s violating work place policies. This unfortunate situation has left many employees wondering what will happen next and what options they have.

Mark Hurd, the chief executive of HP, has announced that he will resign from his position after a sexual harassment probe.

The HP board has appointed chief financial officer Cathie Lesjak as interim chief executive, but she has ruled herself out of the top job on a permanent basis.

Hurd said in a statement that he had been the subject of an investigation into alleged harassment of a contractor. The probe had cleared him, but found that he had broken HP’s Standards of Business Conduct.

“As the investigation progressed, I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP and which have guided me throughout my career,” Hurd said.

Mark Holston, HP’s general counsel, said during a conference call that Hurd had charged expenses to the company while having a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor between 2007 and 2009. The expenses reportedly ranged from $1,000 to $20,000. Read More »

UT Southwestern Medical Center should pay more than $3.6 million to a doctor who said he faced discrimination and retaliation after resisting pressure to commit billing fraud, a federal jury decided Wednesday.

The jury took only about an hour to put a price tag on the racial and religious persecution it concluded that the Egyptian-born Muslim suffered.

UT Southwestern, which portrays itself as a world-class institution that prizes diversity, denied mistreating AIDS clinician Naiel Nassar and quickly vowed to appeal.

“We are greatly disappointed by the jury’s decision and do not believe it reflects the fairness with which UT Southwestern approached Dr. Nassar’s employment,” the university said a public statement. Read More »

The San Jose Mercury News reports that Jose Castellanos, a former employee of Coastside Scavenger has filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination against the company and its new owner, Recology of the Coast. The suit alleges that the trash and recycling company fired him in retaliation for his whistle blowing reputation within the company, and that his sons, also ex-employees, had complained about illegal business practices.

Castellanos worked at Coastside Scavenger for 37 years. In the lawsuit Castellanos says the company started to criticize his job performance and suggested he resign in the wake of his sons’ decision to file a grievance over alleged wage and hour violations and unsafe working conditions. They were fired in 2008. He was also demoted from operations manager to lead mechanic. After he was fired, general manager Chris Porter called him a “crook” and a “thief” and went out of her way to malign his reputation to prospective employers.

“It was wrong what they did to me. They shouldn’t have terminated me just because my sons had a lawsuit against them…They did a lot of bad things to me. They bounced checks on me, they harassed me – I had to file a lawsuit as a matter of principle,” Castellanos said this week on his way to a job interview.

A lawyer for Coastside Scavenger did not return calls. Reached by telephone Tuesday, Porter was surprised to learn about the lawsuit. “I have absolutely no comment,” she said. Read More »

According to the Denver Post, Colorado House Minority Leader Mike May is facing allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation in a lawsuit filed by former employees of a hotel he owns in Wyoming.

In a suit filed in federal court in Wyoming, an employee alleged that May asked her to spend the night with him while he was visiting the Holiday Inn in Casper and that she was denied a promotion after turning him down.

May, a Parker Republican who leaves office after this year because of term limits, said the allegations are untrue.

The Wyoming lawsuit was filed May 14 against MARS Development LLC, a hotel development company that May co-owns. In the suit, three other employees also allege that they faced retaliation for making complaints about sexual harassment at the hotel. Read More »