Overtime Bonus Violations Lawsuits on the Rise

San Diego, CAAs times get tougher for workers, more employees are filing overtime rate violations lawsuits and wage-and-hour lawsuits against their employers, alleging they were improperly paid for hours worked. Although some employers do not realize they have committed overtime bonus violations by not including bonus pay when calculating overtime rates, employees still deserve to be paid for all hours worked. More and more often, those employees are now filing an overtime bonus lawsuit or a wage-and-hour lawsuit to collect money owed to them.

According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel (9/20/12), more than 7,000 federal wage-and-hour lawsuits were filed in 2011, more than triple the number filed in 2002. The reason is that as employees face additional stresses at work, they pay closer attention to their pay, and feel more willing to come forward with a claim against their employer if necessary. Furthermore, employees who lose their jobs are more likely during tough times to obtain legal counsel.

While they might seek legal help for wrongful dismissal, attorneys are checking into whether or not the employee was paid properly while employed. This includes checking into overtime pay, to ensure employers factored in bonuses, shift differentials and commissions when calculating overtime wages. Many employers do not realize overtime wages must include non-discretionary bonuses, and therefore pay their employees too little for overtime.

This also means that in each pay period an employee works overtime, the overtime rate must be recalculated. Bonuses earned in one pay period are not necessarily the same as those worked in the next, and those differences have an effect on the one-and-one-half times the rate of pay for overtime. Even if those differences initially seem small, over the course of a few years, they add up to many missed dollars that could help an employee's finances. And, if the employer has failed to include bonuses in all their employee's pay, that can add up to millions of dollars the employer has saved.

Add the lost income and any fines the company might be charged, and what seems like a small amount of money suddenly becomes a large amount. Employees have filed lawsuits against various companies to obtain unpaid overtime wages.