Posts Tagged ‘ Overtime Pay ’
Week Adjourned: 1.29.10
January 29th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Citizen of your Wallet? It seems that no amount of bad PR or more importantly, federal regulations, are effective deterrents against bad business practices by banks. This week, a potential class action lawsuit was filed against Citizens Bank alleging that customers have been unfairly charged overdraft fees. Sound familiar? It should. This is just one in a spate of similar lawsuits involving overdraft fees—including a class action against Bank Atlantic, in November 2009.
In this particular lawsuit, Citizens Bank could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars it allegedly unlawfully charged its customers by manipulating debit transaction postings to generate overdraft fees. In other words, CB seemingly put its customers into debt deliberately so it could charge overdraft fees. You do that to enough customers and presto—you’re rich—possibly even rich enough to afford those six figure senior management bonuses.
And the kicker? The fees were imposed under the guise of an ‘overdraft protection plan’ that the lawsuit alleges customers were not allowed to opt out of. I guess the epitaph to this could be—they don’t have your back—they have your wallet.
Top Settlements
If you Leave me Now, You’ll Pay an Early Termination Fee… (ok, so I’m not a lyricist) Keeping on the theme of
California Overtime at the Car Wash: Are Inspection Numbers for Real?
November 2nd, 2009. By AbiK
By now you’ve read the news about the California Labor Commissioner imposing close to $1 million in fines after a statewide investigation of the California carwash industry.
The investigation went as follows:
42 investigators
did
230 car wash inspections
netting
141 citations
for
103 car wash businesses
The citations issued total $916,711.
Ok, great. There’s some progress. But here’s the part I’m having a hard time swallowing (as reported at Reuters; the bold is mine)…
Investigators found 49 businesses that failed to provide workers’ compensation coverage for their employees. Citations issued totaled $240,000 and businesses without workers’ compensation
Overtime Pay Part 2: Revenge of the Administrative Assistants
October 18th, 2009. By Kristine B
Okay, so it may sound like a really bad, B movie. But the truth of the matter is that a lot of people are not getting their overtime pay because they have the words “managerial,” “administrative,” or “executive” in their job title. But those titles alone don’t make a person exempt from overtime. So for Pleading Ignorance this week, we’re looking at the ins and outs of exemption from overtime pay.
To refresh your memory, last week we looked at the three questions that you must answer “Yes” to in order to be considered exempt from overtime pay—meaning if you answer ALL 3 questions with a “yes”, you are not entitled to overtime pay.
The first question is pretty straightforward…
1. Do you make at least $23,600 per year (or $455 per week)?
If “No,” then you are eligible for overtime pay and you needn’t go further. But, if you answer ”Yes,” then move on to the next question…
2. Are you paid salary? 
To be exempt from overtime pay, you MUST be on salary. Employees who are paid an hourly rate are eligible for overtime pay. Fair enough. However, just because you are paid salary doesn’t mean you don’t qualify to get the extra bucks if you work extra hours. Remember, you must have answered “Yes” to all three questions, not just the one about the salary.
The first two questions are pretty no-brainer—but the third question is where things get screwy because it can appear to have a lot of gray areas. But in reality, it’s pretty straightforward as well…
3. Are your main job duties administrative, professional or executive?
Overtime Pay: How do I Know if my Employer Owes me Money?
October 5th, 2009. By Kristine B
Yeah, it sounds like a bad Whitney Houston flashback…”How will I know if he…” Whoa there—back on topic. Overtime pay? Good question. So that’s the focus of this week’s Pleading Ignorance.
If you’ve opened a newspaper lately—or looked at virtually any news website including our own recent post on 61 companies with OT pay issues—you’ll know one of the major issues in US courts right now is Overtime Pay—or more aptly, missing overtime pay from a lot of folks’ paychecks. What you might not have known is that overtime laws in the US are not as clear-cut as many people think. In fact, if you’re not getting overtime pay there’s still a chance you should be. How’s that? Read on…
Overtime in a Nutshell
Basically, overtime occurs when a person works more than a set amount of time either daily (over 8 hours in a day), or weekly (over 40 hours in a week). Overtime is regulated by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and by state laws. When both the state and the FLSA cover overtime, employers must go with whichever one holds the employer to the highest standards—essentially meaning whichever one provides the most pay to the employee (that’s good news for the employee).
When an employee works more than 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week—and let’s be honest, who hasn’t worked that much at some point—the employee is supposed to get 1.5 times her regular wage (that’s the “time and a half” everyone’s always talking about).
So, let’s say an employee makes $10 an hour and works 44 hours in a week. The employee should be paid $10 for the first 40 hours and $15 for the additional 4 hours.
Seems straightforward, no? But it’s not, because not everyone is eligible for overtime pay and that is where things can get kind of tricky, to put it mildly.
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