Do you love your job? Perhaps you are just doing it for the bills. Whatever your reasons for waking up every day and showing up at your workplace, you may occasionally be subjected to working overtime. In most cases, working overtime comes with extra wages and may seem attractive. However, with personal and family obligations, extending your working hours may not be a viable option. So, can your boss force you to work overtime? Here’s what an employment attorney Los Angeles has to say.
Can your boss force you to work overtime?
A short and precise answer to this question is yes. The law doesn’t prohibit employers from exerting mandatory overtime apart from a few exceptional cases such as workers aged below 16 years and employers in sensitive occupations. According to wage and hour attorneys Los Angeles, your employer has every right to ask you to extend your working hours unless your employment contract states otherwise or if a collective bargaining agreement covers you.
Understanding the law
Now that you understand that your employer has the right to ask you to work overtime, is the pay for the extra working hours that you put in mandatory? The Fair Labor Standards Act requires business owners and employers to pay time-and-half to workers putting in more than 40 hours a week. As expected, the law language can get complicated for the average individual. Your unpaid overtime lawyer Los Angeles will explain that the federal law only takes into account the number of hours you work in a week. You are only entitled to overtime if your working hours exceed 40 hours a week. In the case where you work more than eight hours a day occasionally but the hours in a week don’t exceed 40 hours, your lawsuit will have less weight. If you need a lawyer to sue an employer for unpaid wages, these are some of the critical details that you might want to straight line.
Are there limits to overtime?
Overtime dispute lawyers Los Angeles explain federal regulations limit the number of hours an employee can extend necessarily in safety-sensitive occupations such as marine workers, pilots, and truckers. If you are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, your Los Angeles workplace lawyer will guide you on how to reject overtime instructions from your employer respectfully.
Can you negotiate overtime?
Fortunately, in some cases and with a good unpaid overtime lawyer Los Angeles by your side, you may be eligible to negotiate overtime arrangements with your employer. Stating concerns such as health conditions, childcare responsibilities, or other work tasks that make it challenging to extend your working hours could help you reject overtime. Normally, negotiations aren’t easy, and this is why you need to involve wage and hour attorneys Los Angeles in your case for better representation.
You might want to explore your options and conduct due diligence with the help of overtime dispute lawyers Los Angeles before accepting the offer or signing the employment contract. This makes negotiations easier. If you need a lawyer to sue an employer for unpaid wages and forced overtime, don’t hesitate to call us now!
