Legal Question in Employment Law in California

It doesn't matter how often you are paid. Overtime is calculated on a work day and work week basis regardless of pay period length. Overtime is owed for any time over 8 hours in a day at 1.5x up to 12 hours and then at 2x after 12 hours, and any time over 40 hours a week at 1.5x. Overtime is also owed for any time in the 7th day worked in a work week at 1.5x up to 8 hours and 2x over 8 hours. BUT they do not compound, and the 7th day must be in the same work week as the first six.

So say your employer sets the work day from midnight to 11:59 pm, and the work week from midnight Sunday to 11:59 the following Saturday. If you work 6 hours each day starting Monday and work 12 straight days to the following Friday, you would get no overtime, because you worked six days the first week (Mon - Sat) and six days the second week (Sun - Fri) and didn't go over 40 hours in either week. In another example, say you work 12 hours Sunday 4 Monday, and 8 each Tue through Friday. You worked 44 hours. However, you don't get OT for the 4 hours past 8 on Sunday AND for the 4 hours over 40 you worked on Friday. You don't get to compound it like that. So you only get four hours of OT for that week.

When you combine these two rules you see why you don't get indefinite overtime once you go past six days. Each week is discrete and overtime is not compounded.

So if you work 15 days straight, exactly what you are entitled to depends on what days you actually worked and how many hours on what days within your employer's official work day and work week. So, theoretically, say we go with 15 days straight work. By definition that has to cross three work weeks. But say we go with my previous work week definition you can get the following result. Say in week 1 you work Saturday but you had Friday off and did not work over 40 hours that week. You then work 14 more days straight to the second following Saturday and then get the next Sunday off, for a total of 15 days straight. Unless you worked over 40 hours in each of the two weeks, you would only be entitled to overtime for the two following Saturdays and only at 1.5x. If you worked 8 hours every day you worked the calculation would be different because you would go over the 40 hours on Friday. If you worked over 8 hours in any given day, that would also change things.

So the bottom line is that only by looking at the actual hours worked in each day and each defined work week can the correct amount of OT be calculated.