Employee Misclassification
Exempt or Nonexempt… Are You Being Fully Compensated?
Employers have been known to misclassify an employee as exempt in order to avoid paying the employee overtime wages. This technique is deceptive and is against the provisions of the California labor laws. The lawyers at Rheuban & Gresen have extensive experience investigating and pursuing wage and hour claims against employers who have violated the law in the misclassification of employees. If you are unsure whether you have been properly classified, contact the wage and hour law attorneys at Rheuban & Gresen.
Exempt Versus Nonexempt
Employees classified as exempt are generally salaried employees who are exempt from receiving specific meal and rest periods or overtime wages. Employees classified as exempt generally must fall under one of three categories: management, professional or administrative. All other employees are given a nonexempt status - meaning they are paid hourly and are not exempt from overtime or meal and rest periods.
Employee Misclassifications
Employers frequently misclassify an employee as exempt in order to force unpaid overtime. This is commonly achieved by giving an employee a title as a manager or supervisor (or other position with exempt status) when the individual in fact does not manage anyone. In order to be considered a manager under California law, usually the employee must manage at least two other employees AND more than 50 percent of the employee's job duties must be managerial. Other commonly misclassified employees include construction workers, sales representatives, non-licensed engineers, technical writers, commissioned workers with poorly defined commission plans and other workers who are misclassified as professionals.
An Experienced Employee Rights Lawyer Can Help
In order to determine if an employee has been wrongfully misclassified, our attorneys analyze our client's job duties and compare to the valid exemption rules. If more than 50 percent of the employee's job duties are nonexempt tasks, the individual should be generally classified as nonexempt and paid for overtime hours worked.
If you believe that your employer may have misclassified your job position in order to avoid paying benefits, overtime or other wages, it is important to consult a knowledgeable employee rights attorney. In the meantime, prepare a list of your job duties along with the average time spent on each task in a given workday or workweek. In your initial consultation, our lawyers can review the list with you and examine the potential for a lawsuit to hold your employer accountable. In many cases, we investigate the classifications of your coworkers and determine if the case could be handled more cost effectively in a class action lawsuit. Our law firm has skillfully represented employees in class action litigation against employers.
Contact our Los Angeles Law Firm
If you believe you have been misclassified as exempt when you should have a nonexempt status, contact our employee rights attorneys at Rheuban & Gresen.
