Hello:

I work in California in a Field Service job, we work 8 to 5 from Monday to Friday. Can a company make us take a day off to kill the overtime. They are not asking if we want to take a day off, they are telling us to do it.

Yes, they can. Your employer has no legal obligation to allow you to work overtime. They may legally adjust your hours accordingly unless you have a binding contract that says otherwise.

Thanks for your time.

It feels a little bad having to go the extra mile to get the job done by working 12 or more hours on one day, make the costumer happy and at the end of the week we get kill on the overtime, by the people that are telling us we are doing a great job.

Unless I am missing something then working 12 hours in a day would qualify you for overtime regardless of wether or not they cut you off at 40 hours for the week because overtime is paid on anything over 8 hours in a day and 40 hours in a week.

But, they could legally be sent home at whatever time that the hours they've worked plus the overtime totals their wage for 40 hours at straight time.

Example: If they work four hours of overtime on Monday and two hours on Tuesday, that's a total of six hours at time and a half or the equivalent of nine hours of straight time in terms of dollars. Assuming that they work eight hours on Wednesday, if they are sent home an hour early on Thursday and told not to come in on Friday, they've received the overtime they were due but they've also received the equivalent of 40 hours for the week. If the employer wants to handle it this way they can; they are not obligated to allow the employee to work the final hour on Thursday or on Friday and build up extra OT.

Ah, I see what you're saying, I guess I didn't get that from his original post. It sounded to me like they weren't paying time and a half for the hours that were considered overtime :) Thanks cbg

One more thing here from my last post.

Ok here a little more info, like I did my last week I work 5hrs of OT one day and 4hrs of OT the other, they make me take a day off, only counting those 9hrs as a regular time not counting them as 13.5 if they are consider time and a half. And if we go over 12 still the same situation. Unless they have to pay and they do the right math.