Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), all hourly, non-exempt employees are entitled to one and one-half times their normal hourly rate for all the overtime they spend working. It sounds simple enough, and for most workers it is, but employers need to make sure they’re including all the compensation earned by workers when calculating their overtime rate.
An overtime class action lawsuit against the U.S. division of Weatherford PLC alleges, among other things, that the oil company failed to properly calculate employees’ overtime rates. According to the wage and hour lawsuit, the company did not take into account certain bonuses (called “wellness bonuses”) that employees had earned when calculating the premium overtime compensation they should be paid when working more than eight hours a day or forty hours a week.
The class action lawsuit, which was filed in California in 2014, also alleges that Weatherford illegally denied workers compensation for the meal breaks they worked through.
Although the FLSA does not require employers to provide their workers with breaks throughout the workday, some state labor laws do, including California. Under California labor law, all hourly, nonexempt workers are entitled to one, paid, uninterrupted rest break of at least ten minutes for every four hours they spend working. For every five hours worked, employees are entitled to one, unpaid, uninterrupted meal break lasting at least half an hour. For every day an employee does not take one of these breaks, for any reason, that employee is entitled to one hour’s worth of pay, in addition to all other wages, bonuses, tips, etc. earned that day. Continue reading ›