Im a lighting technition, where in the industry, it is pretty much a standard that we recieve a 4 hour minimum pay due to it being a split shift. we set up the gig we leave, they have there corperate party, we come back after the party, break down the gear, go home.. (example1) now sometimes the gigs take 3 hours to set up, and 1 hour to breakdown, we get payed for 8 hours. my boss works me 6-7 days a week, and doesn't want to pay me overtime for the hours im not actualy doing physical labor. yet with the 6-7, 8 hour minimums its putting me in at 48-56 hours for my week/ 8-16 hours O/T which is kind of understandable, in a sense of= Why pay someone to work, if they're not working.. but then again who wants to work (example2)10am-7pm then 3am-9am is a rare event, but most of them are like example 1. we set up 3pm-6pm come back anywhere from 11pm-2am and start working till the job is done.normaly 2 hrs. not your everyday jobs hours. should they pay me O/T at the end of the week for anything over 40 hours for the week or not??? i think they should. for the past year they have'nt payed me O/T and just one of my pay periods i calculated a loss to me of almost $500. what should have been payed out in overtime was'nt payed.. it adds up... so please give me your opinions. also there are sometimes time frames in which we need to be out of the venue by certain times otherwise the client will get charged more for the venue than what is really needed if we are timely. therefore we cant get the 4 hours in of phisical labor if we wanted to. thanks for reading about my kinda tricky situation.. comments nee:D ded

You only have to be paid overtime if you actually work more than 40 hours in a workweek. The additional pay you are receiving for the split shift, or for hours NOT worked, do not need to be counted. See specifically #4 here:
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Overtime.htm

You do, however, also need to be paid time-and-half overtime pay or double-time pay under certain circumstances. The FAQ above addresses this as well. But note that only hours worked need be counted.