California Overtime Rights - Call Center Customer Support Workers
/Call Center Customer Service Employees
A call center is a central customer service operation where employees, usually with the job titles of "customer care specialists" or "customer service representatives" handle telephone calls for a compamny regarding technical support or the sale of products and goods. Call center customer support employees are used in many different sectors of business, including mail-order catalog houses, telemarketing companies, computer product help desks, banks, financial services and insurance groups, transportation and freight handling firms, hotels, and information technology (IT) companies.
Call center customer support workers are entitled to the benefit of California labor laws. Under CA labor laws, companies are required to keep records of the wages and hours that call center employees work for the employer’s benefit. Our employment law lawyers often find that call center customer service employees do not receive the accurate itemized wage statements clearly revealing all of the information that is required by California labor laws and regulations.
A major issue with respect to the wage and hour rights of call center workers is that employers fail to pay them for all hours worked. Hours worked includes all time an employee must be on duty, or on the employer's premises or at any other prescribed place of work, from the beginning of the first principal activity of the workday to the end of the last principal activity of the workday. This includes the time call center workers spending booting up and shutting down their computers pre-shift and post-shift. An example of common violations is when employees working in call centers spend time starting computers before shifts to download work instructions, computer applications, and work-related emails.
A major issue in the call center industry is that many companies pay customer service workers a salary without additional overtime pay for working more than eight hours in a workday or forty hours in a workweek. A salary, by itself, does not exempt employees from the minimum wage or from overtime. Whether employees are exempt from minimum wage and/or overtime depends on their job duties and responsibilities as well as the salary paid. Sometimes, in call centers, salaried employees do not meet all the requirements specified by the regulations to be considered as exempt.
Contact a San Diego employment law lawyer today for a free consultation about your overtime rights in the San Francisco or Southern California.
