Help in CA ASAP

[Damon118]

Recently my employer has put me in salary, and at the time I didnt know any better. I am/was a site manager, can hire/fire and whatever else. But I beleive I am NOT exempt because of the fact that most of the time I am eather helping my employee's wash cars or covering shifts to wash cars. If you havent noticed, I manage a car washing service. And these were told to me to be my main duties aside from managing everything. Hopefully i am correct in thinking I am NOT exempt?

Secondly, after realizing i am to be paid overtime, and I was just Terminated, my former boss is going to sit down with me and figure out any OT due to me.

My main quesstions are regarding this:
Is the dates of payroll considerd the work weeks or actually days, say from sunday to saturday?

I know there is OT paid for the sixth and seventh day in a row,and DT for any hrs worked over 8 on the seventh day, but what about the 8th,9th,10th and so forth days in a row? OT or DT for those? Because eather I am just to tired or there is no law or info regarding any type of premium pay after seven days in a row.

taken from my last 2 pay periods.
I worked 7.18.05 all the way through to 8.1.05 which are 2 different pay periods, but I worked all those days in a row, do I get OT for working all those days in a row even though they are seperate pay periods or no?

Last thing I promise, I have lost wages due to me from 6 months ago, am I only allowed just the lost wages or additional moneys for interest or anything of that nature.?

[Pattymd]

If you are the manager of the establishment, generally speaking, no more than 20% of your time (40% under certain circumstances) can be spent doing nonexempt work; otherwise you do not qualify for the exemption from minimum wage and overtime. In addition, you must be paid at least $455 per week in salary (and I think it actually may be a higher amount in California) or you are automatically nonexempt.

And, the pay frequency is irrelevant. Each work week (7-day period as defined by the employer) stands alone for purposes of calculating overtime. Which means that the 8th day worked in a row starts the next work week and does not, in and of itself, require overtime pay.
Here is some information about the overtime requirements in California:
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Overtime.htm

You can contact the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to discuss and file a claim for unpaid overtime. Generally speaking, interest is not paid on back wages ordered by the division.

Good luck.

[Damon118]

Well more then 50% time spent on non-exwempt duties, so thats all clear.
But, you say pay frequency is irrelevant to work weeks. But,the company at which I worked at allways has calculated overtime by counting every 7 days in the pay period. Our pay periods end on 12th and 26th.
Example of current employee's overtime calculations:
7.13.05 8hrs 7.14.05 8hrs 7.15.05 8hrs 7.16.05 8hrs
7.17.05 8hrs 7.18.05 off 7.19.05 8hrs(7th day)
The company calculates that 40hrs reg. and 8hrs OT because of it beeing 48hrs within those even days.
so during the pay period of 7.13-7.26, 7.20.05(8th day) signafies the start of a new work week. But, for example if above employee didnt work on 7.17 & 7.18, then worked 7.19(end of 1st work week) through 7.24(middle of 2nd work week) employee would get paid 8hrs OT on the 24th since it beeing 6th day in a row.

I dont know if that changes anything, but this is the way the company calculates everything, so it would seem, going by that structure, the company should be paying me for all those straight days I worked.

The employer doesnt define the work weeks as sun-sat, or anything like that, but by the days within the pay periods, counting every seven. This in itself may not be legal, I am not sure. On a side note: this is a major reason I am not upset at all about not beeing with this company anymore, I don't think they even know what they are doing.

[Pattymd]

The employer must define the work week as a consecutive 7 days. It is the cornerstone of calculating overtime. Did you ask them when the work week starts? It is not necessarily the first day of your work schedule.

And again, each work week stands alone. End of story. The law specifies overtime based on days and hours in the work week, not in the pay period, which I assume is semi-monthly. Is that correct? Or are you paid biweekly? So, if they are calculating as you state, unless the first day of a biweekly pay period is also the first day of the work week, the work week would fluctuate and that is not allowed.

And you're right, it sounds like they don't know what they're doing.

Good luck.

[Damon118]

Yes, semi-monthly. Pay periods end on the 12th and 26th of every month, and paydays are the 1st and 16th of every month.
Ok, usually, if I was to change a schedule, we would start the change on a sunday and end it on a saturday, 7 days, but there has been times when it started on monday's and ended on sunday's. So I guess that could be considerd a work week...that changes. BUT, that would completely contradict the fact at how they calculate overtime, and like I said, the work weeks don't stand alone when they are calculating, because like I said, if someone worked the last 3 days of one so called work week, and the first 3 days on the new work week, within the pay period, they would calculate that as a 6th day overtime. Also, there has been some occasions, when they paid overtime for 6th day even though part of the days were on LAST pay period.
So what do I do, what can be done. By there way of calculating it seems I would get paid for so many straight days, but on the other hand, there way of calculating is not allowed, so So this type of calculating/doing things is illegal, or what? Im at a loss, I dont know what to do when trying to calculate my own overtime that is due to me for the meeting tommarow. If it's not allowed, then I can't do it that way.

Sheesh, dont even work there anymore and still gettin headaches from them.

BTW, thanx for the help so far. You can amagine what kind of a day its been for me trying to find laws, regulations, and calculate my owed OT when they arent doing anything correctly/legally.

[Pattymd]

I don't know how I can put it any more clearly. The work work must begin and end on the same day and at the same time every week, i.e. Monday at 12:01 a.m. through Sunday at midnight.