Employee Wage and Hour Claims

Diligent work should always be rewarded with fair pay, but some unscrupulous employers take advantage of their employees by cheating them out of their wages. Americans have the right to payment of their full wages in a regular and timely fashion, and should not have to fight to receive compensation for overtime and other services rendered.

Unfortunately it is far too common for people to lose their rightly earned compensation due to oversight, mismanagement, or outright deception on the part of employers. While the federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets in place a number of regulations on minimum wage and overtime qualifications, recent changes to the law have left many people confused as to what exactly constitutes fair compensation.

The FLSA is intended to protect workers from exploitation from lost wages due to abuses of overtime pay laws.  Many workers are not compensated for overtime worked, or are forced to into working off the clock or unpaid meal breaks.  All told, unpaid overtime accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages every year. 

Perhaps the most blatant violation of the FLSA stems from recent changes to the law that allowed employers to “reclassify” workers into overtime-exempt categories.  In order to be exempt from overtime laws a worker must fall into one of a number of categories that prevent them from working standard eight hour days and 40 hour workweeks.  These jobs must also require certain levels of training and expertise, such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or be of necessity, such as public safety officers such as police or firemen.

Many information technology workers and stockbrokers have certain levels of training and expertise but nevertheless work standard workdays and weeks.  Many companies “reclassified” these workers into exempt categories in order to take advantage of the nature of their professions and keep them working longer for less pay.  These workers are used to long hours, but they are also used to being fairly compensated for their labor, and when employers attempt to exploit the law for their own uses it is insulting to every hard-working man and woman in America.

The federal government legally protects your wages, but is up to you to take action against your employer if they are withholding your pay or are disregarding labor laws. You have a right to be paid in a fair and just manner and an experienced FLSA lawyer can help you obtain your rightful compensation. If you lost wages because you were not compensated for overtime pay, were forced to take illegal unpaid meal breaks, were forced to work off the clock, or were a victim of any other violation of overtime pay laws, contact a knowledgeable labor attorney today.