Legal Question in Employment Law in California

I work in San Francisco, California and am exempt employee. Earlier this year, my employer forced me to do the job duties of another department for almost 4 months. The head of the other department said she was working on a special project and didn�t have time to do the primary duties for which she was hired and is paid to do. Over the course of these months, I spent more than 150 hours, in addition to my normal duties and work hours, doing her job. I received no compensation for doing the primary duties of a department for which I was neither hired nor trained for. I don�t expect to receive any sort of compensation for it now, but I would like to know if there is any sort of action I can take if they try to force me do this again. Thank you.


Asked on 10/17/11, 1:18 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Not legal action. There is no limit on what an employer can demand of an exempt employee except the employee's limits on what they will take without quitting.

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Answered on 10/17/11, 1:38 pm
Arkady Itkin Law Office of Arkady Itkin

Hello.

As you may know there are several types of exemptions when it comes to overtime compensation. I am not sure if you fall under professional exemption or administrative/executive exemption. I will assume that you are exempt because you are a manager and are charged with various managerial/executive authority. If that's the case, then to be exempt from overtime the majority of your work has to be exempt, or are owed overtime. Let me give you an extreme example:

Suppose a CEO of a company (exempt executive) is being forced to work as a janitor or in the assembly line of the same company at a labor job. If the majority of his work during any time is not exempt, then he should be compensated according to the overtime laws. In other words, if you are an exempt administrative employee and 51% or more of your duties during the time period in quetsion are not those of an exempt employee, you are owed overtime compensation.

Depending upon the amount, you can bring a claim at your local DLSE (dept. of labor and standards enforcement). The initial claim for can be found online and the process is fairly simple and free, although some people choose to use an attorney. If the amount is large enough (I would say over $20k) a court action for violations of labor code is also an option.

Thanks,

Arkady Itkin

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Answered on 10/17/11, 2:09 pm


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