California Employment Law
Know More About It

Thanks to the California Employment Law and the current California
Governor's backing, California employees would be enjoying the benefits of getting the biggest hourly payment in USA beginning January 1, 2008. By
then, the California employment law ensure that a worker’s standard minimum wage is an hourly rate of $8.00, a rate that increased from the former $7.50 per hour.

Furthermore, California employees will also enjoy developments when it comes to their meals as well as well their lodging benefits at in same percentage to that of increase given for minimum wage. However, employers governed by the California employment law could use the increases in meal and lodging credits to be counted against the minimum wage if these employers have meals and lodging provisions for their workers. For example, federal employees that work outside of California will accept wages at only $5.15/hour because their meal and lodging allowances were deducted from their hourly rate.

Currently, the most debated concern with regards to California employment law would be the the overtime pay. Discussions on overtime pay are almost like stepping on a landmine, because the bone of contention is here is the proper classification of workers. California Employment Law classifies
employees into either an exempt or non-exempt and the failure to classify
workers properly could cost big bucks for a company. If for example, an
employee is entitled to overtime but was classified as exempt, they may be eligible for a big chunk of overtime pay later.

What then, is the difference between these two classifications of workers?
California employment law states that if you are a a non-exempt employee than you should be paid regulations established by the Industrial Welfare Commission, including overtime pay. Thus, a non-exempt employee should be
compensated for the hours he/she worked as overtime.

If in doubt regarding the category of your workers, consult the
California employment law codes and regulations or the Department of
Labor. Exemption of an employee depends with the degree of responsibility handling or professional status, and has nothing to do with how they are paid (salaried or hourly rate) and what job title they are holding.

Employees classified as exempt from overtime pay are usually licensed
professionals such as lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects or certified public accountants.Other types of workers which are clasified into exempt are those having the same job as their employers. In addition, external sales reps and employees who compose or create and make business policies with their
respective organizations are also exempt from overtime pay.

To reiterate, inquiries that you may have about classifying your workers
and want to pay them in accordance with the law, may be consulted to your local Department of Labor office and avoid problems that may crop up in the
future.