California Technician Labor Rights
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Under the relevant California labor laws and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, most technicians and technologists - such as engineers and workers in the avionics, veterinary and ultrasound industries – are entitled to receive overtime pay for working more than 8 hour workdays or more than 40 hour workweeks. At Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik, our California employment law attorneys focus on helping technicians, technologists and other workers whose education finished after college in lawsuits to recover overtime wages and penalties.
California labor laws require employers to pay all technicians and technologists overtime wages at one and a half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 8 hours in a workday, 40 hours in a workweek or the first 8 hours of a seventh consecutive workday. There are certain exceptions to California overtime laws and regulations. In the case of technicians and technologists, employers often rely on the professional exemption to avoid the obligation of paying for overtime labor. Instead of paying these techs overtime pay as required by California and federal wage-and-hour regulations, employers often illegally pay them a fixed salary without additional pay for working overtime hours. Technologists and technicians are also regularly cheated out of meal breaks and rest periods.
As a general rule, in order to meet the labor law test of a learned professional employee who is not entitled to overtime pay, technologists and technicians must: Make at least $455 per week; primarily perform job duties that require advanced intellectual knowledge in a recognized field of science or learning; and consistently exercise independent discretion and judgment. The ‘advanced knowledge’ requirement of the learned professional exemption refers to knowledge that technicians and technologists acquire through a long period of concentrated training and instruction. Technicians and technologists who become highly-skilled by working, rather than by receiving formal instruction, are usually entitled to be paid overtime wages.
When we investigate whether or not they are entitled to overtime pay under California employment regulations and the federal Fair Standards Labor Act, our overtime law attorneys often discover that technicians and technologists are being cheated out of their full wages and benefits they are entitled to make. Although employer’s throughout California- from the Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area- label technicians and technologists exempt from overtime pay, these workers do not meet the requirements of the learned professional overtime exception because the actual job duties they perform do not require a specialized academic degree that is a standard prerequisite for entrance into the profession.
If you are a technologist or a technician whose schooling ended upon graduating from a university and you are not paid overtime wages, contact one of our experienced labor law attorneys today to see if you have a valid claim to collect unpaid wages and penalties under the labor law. We represent technologists and technicians throughout California, from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area, in lawsuits to collect:
- Unpaid overtime wages and penalties on behalf of salaried technicians and technologists
- Meal break and rest period compensation and penalties
- Reimbursement for work-related expenses such as mandatory training
- Compensation for the time spent on-call or standing-by under the employer’s control
- Penalties for failing to pay hourly technicians for work performed off-the-clock
- Damages for Wrongful Terminations and Demotions
- Penalties for harassing and discriminating against technologists and technicians
