Firstly, IANAL.
I haven't seen it on this sub but I wanted to make an outline of your rights as a worker in the US under federal law. I also wanted to outline where to go if you think your employer is breaking the law. THIS OUTLINES ONLY FEDERAL LAW NOT STATE LAW.
Also I am writing this on mobile so sorry for any formatting issues.
For those of you wanting heavy reading, my sources are from the following sites:
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title29/chapter8&edition=prelim
https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/wh1282.pdf
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V
Ok so let's jump into it.
-Tips
Tips are the sole property of the employee. I see so many posts on here of employers garnishing or taking tips. This is illegal and your employer is in violation of the law. Additionally, if your job participates in a tip pool, there cannot be any managers or owners in that tip pool. This is considered stealing tips.
I would also like to throw out a note out there for my tipped friends who make under $7.25 but work overtime. Please please please check your pay stubs. Your overtime rate should always be $10.88 per hour regardless of your pay. This is because your employer is taking what the law calls a tip credit. This means that the employer says your tips bring you up to $7.25 an hour. If you make $2.13 an hour and work 45 hours that week, you should have 5 hours at $10.88. If this is not the case they are breaking the law and owe you that money. I have seen so many friends get fucked over by this.
-Overtime
Just like I said for tips, CHECK YOUR PAYSTUBS. Overtime must be 1.5 times your rate of pay. Overtime kicks in after 40 hours in a work week. If your employer is paying you every other week and calculating for hours over 80, that is illegal. Each work week stands alone.
YOU CANNOT SIGN AWAY YOUR RIGHTS TO OVERTIME. If they make you sign something saying they're not going to pay you overtime, it is not valid and they CANNOT enforce it.
Your employer must pay you 1.5 times what the law calls your regular rate. What does that mean? It means that if you do the same job the whole week then they have to pay you that same rate. If I make $15/hour painting houses, then my overtime MUST be based on that $15/hour. If they bump it below $15 that us illegal.
All work that is done by the employee must be paid. If you work unapproved overtime, THEY STILL HAVE TO PAY YOU OVERTIME. Regardless of the employers knowledge or approval, ALL OVERTIME GOTTA BE PAID.
There are groups of employees who are exempt from overtime. I'm going to list a few but just know that this doesn't necessarily encompass everyone.
-outside sales
-truck drivers
-movie theater employees
-computer employees
-teachers
-Salaried Employees
Hello to my salaried friends. From experience you get worked the hardest with none of the overtime to back it up. We often hear that people get moved from salary to hourly, but many don't know that there are specific requirements to not getting paid overtime. I'm going to try and keep this part pretty simple.
The law calls a salaried employee who gets no overtime an “exempt employee”. To be an exempt employee you generally need to fall into one of three buckets. This is where the law gets really complicated so I'm going to keep it really really simple. If you have questions please call the Federal department of labor wage and hour division with any questions.
1) THE MANAGER EXEMPTION – We call this the executive exemption. Sounds fancy but it isn't. You have to meet a few requirements. You gotta supervise 2+ full time employees and have management duties. You gotta have input in hiring or firing but don't need to make the final call. Lastly, you need to make $684 a week before taxes.
If you don't meet these, either you should be paid overtime or fall into a other bucket. The other thing I should mention is THE OTHER TWO BASICALLY ONLY APPLY FOR OFFICE JOBS. If you don't have an office job and are not getting overtime, then you are probably not exempt. HOWEVER check with a lawyer/the department of labor to check for your specific circumstances.
2) A DECISION MAKER – We call this exemption the administrative exemption. To meet this, you need to make a salary of $684/week. You gotta be able to make decisions in your day to day that are gonna impact how your company moves. HR? You're probably gonna fall under this. File clerk? Yeah you don't really make any big decisions. Another way to think of it is if I fuck up, is this going to be hard to clean up?
3) I WENT TO COLLEGE EXEMPTION – This is for you lucky bitches who actually got employed in a job that requires a lot of specialized education. Some examples are lawyers, doctors, nurses, accountants, etc. If you need your degree to do it, then they don't have to pay you overtime.
If you don't meet any of these you need to be paid overtime.
-Child Labor
This section is for my younger kiddos and parents of younger kiddos. Usually when I think of child labor I think of factory kids working in the early 1900s. BUT there are so many rules and that's because it is easy for greedy employers to exploit kids. Fuck those guys. So here's a few things to keep in mind if you're working under 18.
I just wanna say that none of what I'm saying applies if you work in agriculture. The rules change for that stuff.
The Federal age of employment is 14. Nobody under that age is allowed to work.
14/15 year olds have special rules. Essentially, if you have school the day your work, you cannot work more than 3 hours and you have to be off work by 7 pm. If you work in the summer you can't work more than 8 hours in a day and have to be off work by 9 pm. Also, if you're using any power driven equipment or working in a kitchen, you probably are doing something you aren't allowed to do.
16/17 year olds can work as long as they want. However, any scary machines are a no go. The big ones are trash compactors, deli slicers, or dough mixers. If your boss tells you to do it, they are breaking the law.
If you are made to go against any of these laws YOU ARE NOT IN TROUBLE. Your employer is the one breaking the law.
-Ok My Company is Breaking the Law. Now What?
I'm going to break down what to do after you've read this beast of a post and determined your boss is in deep shit. Luckily you have some options.
-Call the U.S. Department of Labor. The Labor Dpeartment can take ANONYMOUS complaints and investigate an employer. The other thing I like to mention is that the Wage and Hour Division DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR CITIZENSHIP STATUS. Undocumented? They don't give a fuck and won't even ask. They want to make sure you get paid for the work you do.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints
-Call your State Labor Dept.
If the Federal avenue is not working for you, your state will have its own labor department. It covers its own state laws which can be different from the federal ones. These are also anonymous.
-Get a Lawyer
It sounds pricey but can definitely be worth it. You can get a recommendation for a lawyer from your state bar.