labor lawAdivision of labor law center

California overtime law is, simply put, one that says that employees should not be required to work more than eight hours in a workday or 40 hours in a workweek unless they receive special compensation for it.

We should note that employees in this case are defined as nonexempt employees who are 18 or older, or any employee aged 16 or 17 who is not lawfully required to be at school or prohibited from doing the work in question.

And, of course, we should also define what special compensation means in California. In this case, the special pay is 1.5 times the worker’s normal rate for all the hours that he or she works over that eight hour cutoff in a day or 40 hour cutoff in the week.

California law makes it clear that its definition of a legal day of labor is eight hours, and that workweeks go for six days. If an employer has an employee work beyond these eight hour and six day limits, then they must compensate that employee that 1.5 times pay rate for any time of the day in excess of those eight hours, up to 12 hours, and for the first eight hours of a seventh day worked in a week.

We should also be sure to know that special overtime compensation in California jumps up to double normal pay for any time in a day over 12 hours of work, along with any time spent working on a seventh day in a week over eight hours.

Like most states, though, these rules in California have exemptions, or employees who don’t get the overtime rates that we discussed above. Some of these exemptions include so-called executive, administrative, and professional employees. Certain employees in the computer software field who get paid on an hourly basis are also exempt.

And like most states, California also exempts employees of the state or any city, county or other government district. Other exemptions exist, which perhaps when we have a second later, we could go into.

As for now the California Complete Labor Law poster reflects all of the overtime laws as well as all of the rest of the state and federal labor laws for employees to view.

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