Off-the-Clock Work: Any work that an employer requires an employee to perform without properly compensating them for their time. This often occurs when employees are asked to complete pre-shift or post-shift tasks, work through unpaid breaks, respond to work messages off the clock, or complete any compensable work under the FLSA without pay. Employers violate wage laws when they require or allow work they know or should know is being performed without pay.

Unpaid Overtime: When an employer fails to pay their non-exempt employees the required overtime rate of 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek (or according to applicable state laws for standard workweeks). This includes when an employer fails to pay at the proper rate, fails to track all hours worked, or discourages employees from reporting overtime.

Regular Rate Violations: When calculating your overtime rate, an employer must include all your earnings, including all non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, commissions, incentive pay, etc. When an employer fails to correctly calculate an employee’s regular rate of pay to properly determine overtime pay, a regular rate violation occurs. Federal law requires overtime to be based on your full regular rate and earnings, not just your hourly rate.

Misclassification of Employees: Employees may be misclassified as independent contractors or as exempt employees, which prevents them from receiving overtime compensation or other wage and hour protection benefits under the FLSA. Treating an employee as exempt when they should legally be non-exempt can lead to a wage and hour claim. Exempt status depends on salary basis and primary job duties; job titles alone do not determine exemption.

Missed Meal and Rest Breaks: This violation occurs when an employer fails to pay for short breaks, interrupts or shortens a meal period, requires employees to work during an unpaid meal break or automatically deducts meal periods when employees work through them. Although these breaks are not mandated by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, many states' wage and hour laws may mandate employers to provide these uninterrupted breaks to their employees.

Minimum Wage Violations: When an employer pays employees less than legally required minimum hourly rates for all hours worked, including off-the-clock time. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay non-exempt workers no less than the federal minimum wage for all their hours worked and keep accurate records of those hours. State and local minimum wages may be higher than the federal minimum wage and your employer is generally required to follow state law when it is more protective. Paying below that rate can lead to a wage and hour claim.

Failure to Reimburse Expenses: Employers are required to cover business expenses and not shift the burden to workers. There are cases where employees are required or allowed to pay business-related expenses out of pocket without proper reimbursement, causing their hourly rate of pay to fall below the legal minimum. This can include requiring employees to purchase uniforms or equipment needed for the job, failing to reimburse mileage or travel expenses required for work travel, requiring employees to use personal phones or vehicles without adequate reimbursement, or even misclassifying employees as independent contractors to avoid reimbursing business expenses. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires reimbursement of all necessary business expenses when expenses reduce pay below minimum wage. Many state laws require reimbursement regardless.

Donning & Doffing: Refers to changing into or out of job-related clothing, gear, or equipment. A violation occurs when employers fail to pay employees for time spent putting on (donning) or taking off (doffing) required work clothing, protective gear, or equipment that is integral and indispensable to their principal job duties. If the gear is necessary for your job, the time spent changing into and out of it is considered work time and must be paid.

Illegal Tip Pooling & Wage Theft: This refers to a form of wage theft that occurs when an employer takes, diverts, or improperly distributes tips, deducts unauthorized expenses, or withholds wages that legally belong to employees who earned them. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, tips belong to employees, and employers are prohibited from keeping any portion of them, regardless of whether they take a tip credit. This can include requiring tipped workers to share tips with managers or others not permitted to participate in a tip pool, or redistributing tips in a way that reduces a worker’s earnings.

State Wage and Hour Laws: State wage and hour laws create additional protections for workers beyond the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and employers must follow whichever rule (federal, state, or local) is most protective of employees. These laws regulate minimum wage, overtime rules, reimbursements, recordkeeping, breaks, and other working-condition requirements. Violations occur when employers fail to comply with any state-mandated standard and employees may bring claims under both federal and state law.