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What Can I do If My Employer Doesn’t Pay Me All I’m Owed?
Employers have lawyers in their corner, and if you think you’re being ripped off by your employer, you should speak with a wage-and-hour lawyer Wayne, PA residents turn to about your rights. If you worked the time, you should be paid for that time, but there’s hundreds of ways employers try to rip off employees, especially when it comes to overtime pay. The lawyers at Brown, LLC are led by a former FBI Special Agent dedicated to fighting for employees’ rights in their time of need. They offer free consultations and most cases they handle, they’re only paid if they win your case.
“Am I entitled to overtime pay?” This is one of the most common questions an employee may ask a Wayne, PA wage and hour lawyer and the answer in short is yes. If you work over 40 hours a week, the employer must pay you time and half for overtime unless there is an exemption from overtime that the employer has the burden of establishing.
“What constitutes work?” This is another common employment law question. There are many laws that protect employees’ rights. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and Pennsylvania Overtime Laws including the Wage Payment and Collection Law protect employees in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Interesting enough other blogs who discuss Pennsylvania’s Overtime Rights sometimes fail to refer to Pennsylvania as commonwealth – is that important? Well, if your employment law cases hinge on your rights under the law, you should expect the employment law firm to know all the subtleties of it).
Going back to the question regarding what constitutes work, generally, anything performed for the benefit of the employer should be compensated as work, as a Wayne, PA wage and hour lawyer can explain. Some common example of labor violations includes when an employer does not pay for time spent doing pre-shift or post-shift meetings or certain types of security checks. Time spent logging into computers, or tech time. (Sometimes an employer will have at home employees believing that some work performed at home such as boot time, is like a commute and they shouldn’t have to pay for it). Also, another common Pennsylvania labor violation is when there is an unpaid lunch, but the employee is not completely freed from their duties, which means they should be paid for that lunch period as work.
In the restaurant industry, there are numerous wage and hour violations that occur all the time regarding the tip credit, sometimes involving Pennsylvania minimum wage. For example, even though a tipped employee is paid $2.13, overtime at time and a half is not $3.25! Instead if computed correctly the overtime rate is over $5 due to the rules concerning tip credits. Additionally, certain individuals are not allowed in a tip pool such as the owners which could invalidate the pool.
A big emerging topic under Pennsylvania law is the distinction between and independent contractor versus and employee. The more vigorously you are controlled by an employer the more likely the Court will find you are actually an employee and should be paid properly and receive overtime compensation. Other areas of law that are of great concern are Pennsylvania whistleblower laws, especially for those who work in the medical field and may be aware of Medicare Fraud or Medicaid Fraud which is actionable under the False Claims Act (FCA).
The answer to the titled question here regarding what you can do If an employer doesn’t pay you properly or you think you’ve been taken advantage of or if there’s a massive fraud going on in the company is you should speak with an employment or wage and hour lawyer in Wayne, PA. It doesn’t have to be our employment law firm, but make sure they have a background in the are of law you are investigating. Consult with a lawyer as soon as possible to protect your rights. If you have questions regarding your rights, feel free to call a wage and hour lawyer Wayne, PA trusts for a free, confidential consultation regarding most matters.