Unpaid overtime attorneys

The Siegel Law Group and its unpaid overtime lawyers represent employees in overtime wage lawsuits. In fact, all we do is pursue unpaid overtime wages for employees. This dedication has allowed us to recover over $60 million in unpaid overtime damages for employees we have represented over the last ten years. We file unpaid overtime lawsuits for employees to recover unpaid overtime and additional penalties available under state and federal law. If your employer failed to properly pay for your work, you may have the right to recover your unpaid overtime and additional damages. Contact on of our unpaid overtime attorneys to evaluate your case free of charge.

Common Overtime Violations

State and federal overtime laws are complex. Employers often take advantage of this complexity to deny employees overtime pay. For example, an employee who works 30 hours one week and 50 hours the next week is owed 10 hours of overtime for the second week. If his employer averaged his hours over two weeks, the employee would be deprived of 10 hours of overtime pay. Many employers engage in averaging the hours worked by employees over two-week periods to illegally deny overtime pay. Here are some other common overtime violations we see in our practice:

Employers who misclassify employees as exempt from overtime (salary requirement): Effective July 1, 2024, the Department of Labor will raise the salary level to qualify for overtime exemptions from $684 to $844 per week. If an employee does not make this amount, he does not qualify for the exemption.
Employers who misclassify employees as exempt from overtime (job duties): Employees must perform job duties that qualify for them for an exemption. This is contrary to the popular belief that all salaried employees are not entitled to overtime pay.
Employers who refuse to pay overtime unless pre-approved: Federal overtime law does notdistinguish between approved and non-approved overtime. If you work overtime, your employer owes you overtime regardless if it was pre-approved by your manager or NOT.
Employers who intimidate employees to not report all hours worked: Employees often force their employees to work around the clock, but intimidate them to prevent them from reporting overtime on their time sheets. When that happens, our attorneys can bring a claim for the unpaid overtime and additional damages recoverable by law.
Employers who deny overtime pay for pre-shift work: Employers must compensate employees for off-the-clock work if the employer knew or should have known that the employees worked these hours. We have represented call center employees whose employers require them to perform certain preparatory tasks prior to them being allowed to clock-in. In one case, we successfully represented over 15,000 hourly call center employees against CVS for failure to pay for pre-shift work.

WAGE THEFT

The cases we handle fall under the term, “wage theft.” Wage theft is broad term that refers to the systematic failure of employers to pay earned wages to employees. Wage theft is a major problem for workers nationwide and disproportionately effects low wage workers. According to a 2009 National Employee Project Study, 76% of low-wage workers in Chicago, L.A. and New York did not receive all overtime wages owed. On average, these employees were illegally denied eleven overtime hours per week. In fact, 68% of the workers who participated reported at least one pay-related violation in the previous week.

The Department of Labor ("DOL") has estimated that wage theft lowers a minimum wage workers’ income by 37-49% when a violation occurs. This can mean the difference between barely making ends meet and falling into extreme poverty. Indeed, the DOL estimated that 67,000 families in New York and California alone live below the poverty line because of employer wage theft. Wage theft is not only bad for employees; it also devastates to the economy. A 2017 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study found that an estimated 2.4 million workers, who live in the country's 10 most populous states, lose a combined $8 billion in income every year to wage theft. Wage theft also has secondary costs, such as increased spending on social programs and adverse public health outcomes related to poverty.

With employers continually developing tricks to cheat employees of their hard earned wages, having an experienced wage and hour lawyer is essential to protecting you against wage theft. Please contact the experienced attorneys at the Siegel Law Group if you believe you were victim of wage theft.

CONTACT our overtime lawyers

When our attorneys take on a case, we take it on a contingency basis. We take on this risk in this case with you, so that you are always assured that our interests and goals in the case are the same. Because of the risk of taking on a case, we are very selective about the cases we accept. We focus on the quality, rather than the quantity, of our clients. This allows us to devote the time and attention necessary to advise our clients and litigate their lawsuits. If you believe that your employer has cheated you out of your unpaid overtime wages, the employee labor lawyers at the Siegel Law Group are here to help. Please either email Jack at jack@siegellawgroup.biz or feel free to call or text us at (214) 790-4454.