Employees refusing to work overtime - LabourMan Consultants (2024)

FAQs

Employees refusing to work overtime - LabourMan Consultants? ›

Employees will be in breach of contract if they refuse to work overtime and disciplinary action could be taken against them.

Yes, in general an employer may dictate the employee's work schedule and hours. Additionally, under most circ*mstances the employer may discipline an employee, up to and including termination, if the employee refuses to work scheduled overtime.

The fact is that employers can oblige employees to work overtime hours, and employees can be fired for refusing to work mandatory overtime. But there are, of course, federal agencies tasked with regulating labor and overtime — and there are ways to prevent mandatory overtime as much as possible.

In general, under both federal and state law state it is not illegal for an employer to fire an employee for refusing to work overtime. In other words, an employee is permitted to refuse to work overtime, but at the same time, an employer may also terminate you for your refusal.

Professional Response: "Given my current workload and well-being considerations, I think it's best for me to prioritize rest and recuperation. I would be happy to revisit this should the circ*mstances change."

Working unauthorized excess hours to be later compensated at a bigger rate is called overtime abuse and it is a quickly spreading fungus that infects all businesses, from small to enterprise, draining their resources, lowering productivity and stagnating their growth.

California pay law is more strict than federal law. California Labor Code Section 510 requires employers to pay at least one and one-half times the normal rate for time worked: over 8 hours in a single day, over 40 hours in a week, and. the first 8 hours worked on the seventh consecutive day of the work week.

If after you have discussed the matter with your employer the issue remains unresolved, you essentially have the following options: File a complaint with the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD), or your state's department of labor.

Examples of misuse of company assets may include using company equipment or facilities for personal use, diverting company funds for personal gain, stealing company property or information, or engaging in fraudulent activities using company resources.

It's common for jobs that require on-call duties or meeting up with clients outside the regular working hours. Compulsory but non-guaranteed: if you are offered to work overtime, you must accept it, but it's rarely offered. It's mostly reserved for busy periods of the year.

Can you be fired for working too much overtime? ›

In most reasonable states, employment is at-will. You can get fired for anything at all except for a few, very narrow, things. Yes, you are costing your employer extra money by working too much overtime and if they want to fire you for it they can.

Response: Unfortunately, yes. Your employer can require that you stay to cover the shift. If you do not comply, you could be terminated for insurbordination.

When an employee has the word “manager” or “supervisor” in his or her title, the company he or she works for may try to make the person work longer hours without overtime pay. The company will likely use the excuse that as a manager the employee is exempt from overtime pay. However, this may not always be true.

This can be trickier than it has any right to be. As a matter of general principle, yes, you should be able to say that you don't want to take on additional responsibilities unless you're paid appropriately for them, particularly when those responsibilities are clearly part of a higher-level, higher-paid job.

It is absolutely not wrong, to say no to your boss if you don't feel professionally safe doing so. Always be guided by your gut feeling, your inner voice, and don't let it over-ride any worries you might have about the outcome of refusing to speak alone.

There are no maximum or minimum hour requirements for salaried employees. If an employee works more than 40 hours, their pay will not reflect overtime hours. Likewise, if an employee works fewer than 40 hours, an employer can't reduce their pay.

Does California make an exception for 4/10 work schedules? Close. Yes — California's overtime law has a special rule that allows for a 10-hour workday within a 40-hour workweek. However, the schedule must be validly adopted through a clearly defined legal process.

Therefore, working seven days straight is typically not permissible under California labor laws. Under California Labor Code sections 551 and 552, employees are entitled to one day of rest out of seven, and employers cannot require their employees to work more than six days a week.

Overall, while there is no specific law in California that sets a limit on the number of hours straight that an employee can work, employers must provide meal and rest breaks to their non-exempt employees based on the number of hours worked in a day.