I was interviewed for a job with the GM and was asked to show up at 730 am the following week to get a feel if this job would be something I would be interested in. The person training me said I was to stay until 12 noon. near the end of the day she set up additional days for me to come in and train with her. During these training days the GM asked how every thing was and I said great. after 30+ hours of training the GM called me into his office and offered me the job on certain days with a hourly wage, I filled out all the legal forms w-2 etc. I asked when I was going to get paid for the training hours and he looked surprised and asked if actually expected to get paid for this "observation time". I said yes of course, and he said he would see what he could do. He has since spoken to some of the staff and expressed that because I wasn't officially offered a position or had an agreement for an hourly rate that he wasn't entitiled to pay me for this training. Although I like the job, this GM is offending me with what I think is a piss poor way to start out our working relationship. I am wondering what legally I am entitled to for this training time? any advice???

The "law" on this issue are the following two federal DOL regulations.

29 CFR 785.27 - General.
Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
(a) Attendance is outside of the employee's regular working hours;
(b) Attendance is in fact voluntary;
(c) The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee's job; and
(d) The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.

29 CFR 785.28 - Involuntary attendance.
Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer. It is not voluntary in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.

Since you never received any offer until after the ‘training’ you received, I would consider as job previewing and will not be compensated, unless agreement was made prior, but it unprofessional of them not notifying you prior. Hope you get compensated though.

This is not a bad argument and may indeed be correct. If you want something firmer, contact CA-DLSE and ask them.