Legal Question in Employment Law in California

In California, non-exempt employees who work in excess of 8 hours in a "workday" must be paid overtime premiums. The question is, when does the workday begin? There is no law that says the workday must begin at 12:01 A.M. It can begin at any time you establish for your business. However, the beginning of the workday must remain consistent. You cannot change it from one day to the next to avoid paying overtime. And it should be communicated, preferably in writing, to your employees to avoid any problems down the road.

Mr. Kirschbaum is exactly correct. You need an established work day end/start time that you stick to and then determine whether OT is owed based on that. When I worked for a security company long ago, we had a 7am work day start/end so that swing shift and graveyard shift employees would all work their shifts in a single work day rather than straddling a work day. Bars and night clubs with 2am closing times will usually set something between 4 and 6 am as the work-day start/end time for similar reasons.

Any work over 8 hours per day OR over 40 hours per week must be paid at time and one-half and any work beyond 12 hours per day must be double time. If the employee works 7 consecutive days, you must pay time and one-half for the first 8 hours and double time after that. In addition, if the employee is not free to take a meal break of at least 30 minutes during the 8 hour shift, you must pay him/her one hour of wages. If you violate overtime laws, you may be held liable to pay overtime earned going back 3 years (and sometimes 4 years), plus interest at 10% PLUS attorneys' fees incurred by the employees' attorney, plus waiting time penalties in some cases. It is not a good idea to try to manipulate the situation to where you have employees working overtime and not getting paid appropriately. These cases can get very costly and even turn into class actions, if applicable. You may consider hiring part time employees to work the excessive hours. If you provide benefits to full time employees, many companies don't provide benefits to part time employees. 949-481-6909.