Overtime Pay Exemptions

Roughly 86% of the employees in the United States are entitled to overtime pay for every hour they work over 40 hours in a given work week. However, many unscrupulous employers use employees’ unfamiliarity with state and national overtime pay laws to take advantage of them and wrongfully deny them the overtime pay to which they are legally entitled. Under the FLSA, only the following types of employees are exempt from overtime pay:

• Executive: If an employee regularly performs managerial tasks, oversees at least two employees, and has the power to hire and dismiss workers, that employee is exempt from overtime pay.
• Professional: If an employee has dedicated time to the pursuit of advanced education specific to his or her job, that employee is considered a professional and is not entitled to overtime pay.
• Administrative: When an employee’s primary duties are based on office work pertaining to management procedures or general business operations, that employee is an administrator and is exempt from earning overtime pay.

Common Reasons Overtime Pay is Illegally Denied

Every day, dishonest employers deny their employees the overtime pay they have earned. Common excuses bosses use to illegally deny their workers rightful pay for overtime hours include:

• Making an employee seek prior approval of overtime hours before they may be compensated for them
• Wrongfully claiming an employee is exempt from overtime pay
• Denying overtime pay to workers who earn a salary instead of hourly wages
• Failing to include bonuses when calculating an employee’s base pay to determine overtime wages
• Failing to pay employees for time spent in on-the-job training, meetings, or work-related travel time
• Making employees work off the clock to avoid paying overtime
• Illegally docking hours
• Averaging hours over a pay period instead of calculating hours worked during one work week

If you believe you have been illegally denied overtime pay, you could be entitled to compensation in excess of the wages you are owed. To learn more about overtime pay and employees’ rights, contact an experienced national overtime pay lawyer.

Contact a National Overtime Lawyer

The laws dictating overtime pay differ from state to state and can be very complex, so it is often crucial that employees retain the counsel of an experienced employment lawyer to determine whether they are entitled to overtime pay which they did not receive. With offices in Arizona, Utah, and California, the national overtime lawyers at Phillips Dayes Law Firm are able to help employees from across the United States pursue just compensation after they are illegally denied the overtime pay to which they are entitled. If you believe that you are owed overtime pay for hours you worked, we encourage you to contact a national overtime lawyer at Phillips Dayes Law Firm schedule a free overtime pay lawsuit consultation.