California Overtime Implications

 The California Supreme Court's decision in Arias v. Superior Court  has profound implications on California's employment market and economy. Currently, two related enemies lay siege on California, threatening not only the state's future prosperity, but perhaps overall survival. The first aggressor, spearheading the attack, is the state's enormous budget deficit. Once touted as the world's eighth largest economy, California now faces a sixty billion dollar budget crisis and a series of tax hikes and spending cuts that only further endanger the people. The other, less recognizable aggressor is California's thriving underground economy.  Mainly comprised of businesses that exploit the constant growth of California's workforce to violate wage and hour laws,  the underground economy is responsible for tax evasion, unfair competition, business failures, job losses, and unsafe working conditions.  This threat, though less recognizable than the budget deficit, is arguably more lethal; after all, it is at least partially responsible for the budget deficit's birth.  Then, once the budget deficit arrives to terrorize California and its citizens, margins tighten and more businesses need to violate wage and hour laws to compete. This frustrates California's efforts to erase the budget deficit.   Anyway, regardless of which threat is more striking, taken together, the underground economy and budget deficit are so toxic that some observers rename the Golden State America's first failed state.

Scenarios to Erase California' Whopping Budget Deficit

The most harmonious way to erase California's budget deficit is to exterminate the state's underground economy. Official state reports emphasize that the underground economy causes California to lose a whopping six and a half billion dollars each year just in unreported taxable wage income.  Once California implements an effective program to collect the substantial taxable wage income it loses annually, revenues will be realized directly through additional taxes, penalties and interest, and indirectly through voluntary compliance and the resulting fair competition.   Suppose California had collected that money each year for the past ten years. Despite the national recession, the state would currently enjoy a five billion dollar budget surplus rather than a sixty billion dollar deficit. Furthermore, proper wage and tax payments are linked to fair competition.  The fair competition, in turn, would render California better equipped to manage an economic disaster like a national or a global recession. This option, as opposed to the budget plans dangerous tax hikes and spending cuts, is preferable in that it kills two birds with one stone; that is, it mobilizes California's silent but deadly underground economy to combat the more recent and imminent budget deficit.

California's Economy Relies on Proper Wage Payments

When employers fail to pay their employees overtime wages for working over 8hours in a workday or 40 hours in a workweek, the California economy suffers for the following reasons:

1. Less Jobs
When employers are following overtime laws, more jobs exist because instead of paying a single employee to work 12 hours in a day the employer is likely to hire two employees to work 6 hours each. For example, assume E makes $10/hr. If he works 12 hours he makes $80 for the first 8 hours and $60 for hours 8-12 (1.5x regular $10/hr rate). That is a grand total of $140 for 12 hours.

On the other hand, if two employees work 6 hours each, the employer only has to pay $120 for the 12 hours of labor, rather than $140 as per the example above.

2. Unfair competition

How can I company that follows overtime laws compete with one that does not? It is Understood! 

to a t-shirt company that gets the shirts for 5$/shirt trying to compete with one that gets the shirts for $1/shirt.

Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik is here to help you fight back against your current or former employer and get fully paid for all of the time you work.

California overtime laws

Employees are often required to work off the clock labor for their employers. Sometimes, the employees are required to clock out for a meal or rest break, despite the fact that the employees are in fact not taking a break; rather they are continuing to work without being paid. Other times, employees are required to attend mandatory training, attend mandatory meetings and/or phone conferences, though they are not paid for this work.

Are you spending time preparing for work, but not getting paid for that time?
Are you spending time closing down the store or office even though you have clocked out? Are you paid 1.5x your regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40hours in a workday or 40 hours in a workweek?

Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik is a premier overtime law firm, with a long history of recovering wages for employees throughout the state of California. Call (858) 551-1223 today if you believe you have been cheated out of money you earned by performing labor for your current and/or former employer.

Employees are entitlted to be paid for ALL of the hours they work, unless the employee can prove otherwise.

The Rainmaker Retreat

A few weeks ago Jon Zacharias from our office attended the Rainmaker Retreat in Las Vegas. The event was transformative and enlightening, he said. But most importantly, he came back with information that will forever change the way our law firm operates.

Rich Strauch from the Rainmaker Institute taught him how to create systems that run the law firm. Technology coupled with the Rainmaker's valuable information makes these systems beyond attractive for law firms. Instead of the people running the law firm, it is possible for a system to keep track of everything. Although our lawyers are smart, they are not smarter and more organized than a computer.

In addition, the Stephen Fairley of the Rainmaker Institute shared his unrivaled knowledge of how to market a law firm. We now know some very effective expensive marketing secrets, as well as some very effective inexpensive marketing secrets.

In short, if you are a small law firm, regardless of whether or not your doing well, you want to go to this retreat. If your struggling, it will take your firm to the next tier. If your doing well,  it will take you to the next tier.

Loss Prevention Employees

Are you a loss prevention employee who is called back to work for multiple shifts in a single day? Do you have to respond to security alarms in the middle of the night to see what happened? Do you have to stay after your supposed to be done working in order to provide corporate headquarters with information about breaches in security?

If you are a loss prevention employee and find yourself working off the clock without getting paid for the additional work, you may be getting cheated out of money you are earning.

Use it or Lose It

Businesses may place a cap on the total amount of vacation time you earn, bummer! However, businesses are generally not allowed to have a "use it or lose it policy." This means that if you don't use your vacation time in a certain year, you may still be entitled to keep it in certain situations.

Click on this link to learn more: Vacation Time Information