All wage earners in America should make themselves aware of the many illegal ways bosses avoid paying employees overtime wages. While not all employers violate the wage laws, most employers have an incentive to cut corners over time and manipulate paychecks in order to save the employers money.

Companies Avoid Paying Employees Overtime for Several Reasons

There are many reasons companies avoid paying overtime, but these reasons are illegal and unacceptable. We have previously written about this problem before because it’s probably the most common cause of wage claims. Here are some of the common overtime violations:

• Timecard Time Removal
  Employers often remove the time you work from the timekeeping system which prevents you from receiving payment for all of your overtime hours. This is illegal. You should carefully review your time records and paycheck at the end of each pay cycle to make sure your employer is paying you for all time you work including overtime.
• Work Hour Manipulation
  An employer might find ways to reduce their costs by “moving hours” you work to different weeks to avoid paying overtime and thus reducing your paycheck. Employers often require employees to work off the clock either before or after their scheduled shift. Employers must legally pay employees for all work employees perform. Don’t forget that ALL work counts toward your hourly total, all the way down to the final minute. Businesses have no right to pressure you into working off the clock. This includes answering phone calls, emails, or text messages while not clocked in. This also includes clocking out or not being clocked in while cleaning up your work area, talking with other employees about work-related items, or driving to other work locations during work hours.
• Unpaid Breaks
  This is a common problem that causes the employee to lose several minutes each day for procedurally-guaranteed paid breaks. If someone lost 30 minutes of break pay each day and worked five days, then they’d lose 2 ½ hours off their weekly paycheck. Over the course of a year (assuming 50 work weeks), they’d lose 125 hours, which often hinders overtime accumulation.
• Job Misclassification
  Sometimes employees think they’re getting a big opportunity to become assistant managers, only to find out they must work a lot more. They experience little or no pay improvement for their efforts. If employees accept a salary, then they can completely lose overtime eligibility for that employer even though this is illegal.

These are just some of the ways employers illegally refuse to pay overtime. Employees can sue to recover pay including overtime they have earned.

Unpaid Overtime Is Illegal

Unpaid overtime is always illegal. Employees cannot and should not work unpaid time including overtime.

Ways Bosses Avoid Paying Employees Overtime: Rowdy Meeks Legal Group LLC Will Defend and Prosecute Your Right to Overtime Wages

Rowdy Meeks Legal Group LLC represents employees throughout the United States in unpaid wages claims including unpaid overtime. Please contact us for an initial free consultation if you believe your employer has failed to pay you all wages you have earned.