Pay and overtime
The federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets a minimum wage and requires time and a half for every hour beyond forty in a workweek. Many states and cities set a higher minimum, and the higher figure controls. The overtime rule protects non-exempt employees. Whether you are exempt depends on your actual duties and a minimum salary level, and not on your title or on the fact that you draw a salary. An assistant manager who mostly runs a register is probably owed overtime. The same is true of many workers labeled independent contractors who are told when, where and how to work.
What the law does not promise
Federal law requires no paid vacation, no paid sick days, no severance, and no meal or rest breaks for adults. Many states fill some of those gaps, and the state labor department's site lists what yours requires. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave a year for a new child or a serious health condition. It applies only if your employer has fifty or more employees and you have worked there twelve months and 1,250 hours.
Rights people do not know they have
- You may discuss your pay with coworkers, because federal labor law protects that conversation for most private-sector employees who are not supervisors.
- You are covered by workers' compensation for an injury on the job, whoever was at fault.
- You can generally collect unemployment after a layoff or a firing that did not involve serious misconduct, so file the week you lose the job.
- You cannot lawfully be fired for reporting a safety violation, filing a wage claim, serving on a jury or refusing to break the law.
Paper and deadlines
Keep your offer letter, the handbook, pay stubs and performance reviews at home, not on a work laptop you could lose access to in an afternoon. Unpaid wage claims go to your state labor agency or to the federal Wage and Hour Division, generally within two years. Non-compete agreements are void in a few states and narrowed in many others, so have an employment lawyer read yours before you assume it binds you.
Note A severance agreement trades money for a release of your legal claims, and it is usually negotiable. Workers forty and over must by federal law be given at least twenty-one days to consider a release of age claims.
