Are you searching for a wage and hour employer defense attorney in San Diego or Southern California? Wage and hour violations expose California employers to expensive litigation, class actions and PAGA lawsuits as employees attempt to cash in on the rise in plaintiff’s lawsuits against employers. California Courts have witnessed a significant increase over the past few years in wage and hour related litigation. It is not a secret that the Courts tend to lean toward the side of the employee in these cases, so it is important to take action to protect yourself as an employer as much as possible.
What Steps Can You Take To Reduce Exposure as an Employer?
The most productive step you can take is to constantly update internal policies and procedures, the employee handbook, managerial behaviors and employee contracts and manuals. Employers are faced with one of the toughest arrays of new laws and regulations regarding employment – especially in the area of unpaid overtime and minimum wage-related issues.
The most important take-away from this discussion relates to what you need to do the moment you become aware of an employee-related dispute or contact from an external attorney or law firm: take 5 minutes and call your wage and hour employer defense attorney at the Watkins Firm for a free consultation at 858-535-1511. We can tell you right away if there is a genuine risk. Often there are steps our employer clients can take to immediately reduce or mitigate entirely the financial and legal risks at hand. Take action!
What they don’t tell you is there is a secret clock that is already running and you probably only have a few weeks to remediate the situation or face an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit or PAGA action.
A San Diego Wage and Hour Employer Defense Attorney with More Than 40 Years of Experience
When you call the Watkins Firm you will be working with a San Diego wage and hour employer defense attorney with more than 40 years of experience. Wage and hour issues often relate to ambiguity associated with the hours required to perform the work at hand, and the written expectations of San Diego employers. The employee will claim “it was an expected part of the job to work at night and on the weekends. They know there’s no way to get the work done in 8 hours a day.” There have been recent case results where employees with no documentation except a few after hours emails have convinced a court that they were required to work overtime, even though they submitted timecards and accepted pay checks showing no overtime hours.
One has to be cautious about the classification of employees and the types of workers who you consider to be “exempt.” Minimum wage violations often occur in straight commission environments or when a mistake is made in a situation involving a tipped employee. California does not allow our employers to take “tip credits.”
Wage and hour violations expose employers to expensive litigation. Employers must take substantial action to establish firm boundaries regarding minimum wage, overtime hours, the use of company resources, and the documentation of hours worked during the course of employment. Overtime policies must be clearly established in all internal employee contracts, employee handbooks, and in some cases even on timecards themselves.
The management team must implement new strategies to clearly communicate overtime policies consistently throughout the organization. This must be backed up with extensive documentation, and in some cases changes to system access after-hours and closer scrutiny of employee activities and time reports.
Recent changes in the law have brought a new threshold of challenge for San Diego employers. Unpaid overtime violations and other wage and hour violations expose employers to expensive litigation and other risks.
We invite you to review our podcast Episode 26 – Wage and Hour Employer Updates as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.
