San Diego, CATroy D (not his real name) has been working for a wireless internet service provider for a few years and says that the company has a habit of failing to pay employees for overtime work. Many angry employees are investigating lawsuits against their employers, alleging that they, too, are not being paid properly for overtime work.
"I started with the company in 2003 and have been with them for about five years," Troy says. "I was hired on as a broadband engineer. I did the normal routine, worked hard and was a team player. The company was pretty successful and paid overtime back then. Then, management changed. After that, it went downhill. The company emailed us that it wanted the installation department to do comp time [where time off is provided in lieu of overtime pay].
"We started acquiring comp hours and tried to use them, but the company told us it was poor timing for us to use our comp hours," Troy says. "But, they wouldn't give us overtime pay unless there was an extraordinary situation. We had no contract regarding comp time and the company had no rules for using comp time. We all have a lot of accrued comp hours that we can't use."
As if not being paid for overtime was not enough of a problem, the company also expects employees to be on call 24 hours a day, without compensation. "If you do not answer a phone call on the weekend you are reprimanded verbally," Troy says. "They accuse you of not supporting the company and they give a lot of guilt.
"Overtime work depends on each situation and scenario??"technology is in a flux. Sometimes, you only work eight hours a day for months at a time, other times something happens and you're scrambling and constantly working. I took some of my vacation time last week and was called to work four times. It was easier to call me in from vacation than have someone from a different region take care of our towers.
"It is a typical mentality of this company. The do not care about their workers on the front lines and employees are taking the brunt of it. We are often told that if we don't like it, we should find another job."
Making the situation even worse, Troy's company says it has not been accurately calculating vacation time and is not allowing employees to use their sick time. "I had four weeks of vacation accrued and when I went to use it, the company informed me not to read the vacation time listed on my pay stub because those hours are inaccurate. They also have nothing actually documented to tell us what is accrued for comp time."
Troy says he is actively looking for another job, tired of dealing with employers who will not properly compensate employees for the hours worked. Unfortunately, this is a situation that occurs all too frequently in California??"employees are expected to work overtime without proper compensation.
If you worked overtime hours without proper pay, contact a lawyer to discuss your legal options.