Tom the Lawyer

Do you think there’s anyone who’s ever driven a car who hasn’t used a parking lot?

Think about it. Most of the time, not all of the time, but most of the time, parking lots are taken care of and watched over by parking lot attendants.

What about this? Have you ever seen a parking lot with a sign that said, “Back in 30 minutes. On a break?” Or driven up to a parking lot with no attendant which was closed for a break? Of course not. Such attendants often have to work through their breaks. They often don’t get such time off.

We currently have a case filed on behalf of parking lot attendants, and are hopeful we can get them paid for the meal and rest breaks they’re being denied. In California, when employees are denied a legal meal break or rest break, they’re entitled to one hour’s pay for each meal or rest break per day they miss. For a 5 day a week job, if they miss a meal and rest break every day, that could be one year’s pay!

What if they don’t get those breaks? What can they do? They can go to the Labor Board. But the Labor Board is awfully busy. Maybe they could call my office. Or the office of any other attorney who represents employees.

In most cases, Parking Lot Attendants who work in California are entitled to a 30 minute meal break – uninterrupted by parkers or leavers – after every 5 hours of work. So if they work over 10 hours a day, they are entitled to 2 such breaks. If they miss one of them? They’re entitled to one hour’s pay each day that happens as well.

Parking lot attendants can do a lot for us. They might even park our cars. Or help us find a place. Or help us get in (or out of) a space. They give us receipts if we need that for tax purposes. They’re patient. When was the last time you ever had a parking lot attendant yell at you? Maybe never.

Keep on parking! And thank your Parking Lot Attendant! And not just on Thanksgiving.

Suppose you’re selling luxury or less than luxury goods. You know, Coach, Disney, Oochi, Gucci, or something else, Sears, for example.

You might be expecting a pretty good income, depending on your sales each payday, based on your promised commission.

But happens if that commission you’re expecting suddenly disappears? Like last year’s favorite clutch?

If you’re a commissioned salesperson in California, you’re entitled to know what commission you’re going to get for selling your employer’s fine goods. That’s easy if you always get a 50% commission (wouldn’t that be great!???).

But what if you don’t know? What if your employer changes the commission rate every day. It would be pretty easy to let you know that morning, right? But suppose your employer decides, for whatever reason, maybe even on a whim, to change how much you’d make by the hour, and not tell you until the end of the day. Or not tell you at all.

In California, at least, it doesn’t get to do that. You’ve got a right to know how much you’ll make on each commissioned sale before you start selling. And, you’re entitled to see how much you earned on each sale as part of your paycheck. So if you have commissions that change during the week, or even the day, and you can’t figure out if you were paid correctly, your employer may owe you money.

So if you work in California, you may be able to collect unpaid wages, depending on your job and your employer, up to six months, or one year, or three years, or four years, depending on the facts of your case.

Right now, we have a case going on behalf of commissioned sales people who worked for Sears in California since August, 2015. Are you thinking, “But Sears filed for bankruptcy!!??” Yes, it did. And yes, we are still going after those wages we think are due from Sears. We’ll see.

Remember – Whether you’re selling Burberry or Blueberries, Kate Spade or Michael Kors, Barbie Kenmore, or Ken Craftsman, if you’re on commission, in California, your employer has to make sure it pays you the commission it promised. And that’s true whether your first name is Michael, Chanel, Christian, Hermes, Marc, Kate, Ken or Barbie, or some other great-selling name.

Did you get a promotion recently? To assistant manager, or even manager, perhaps? Or Supervisor, or Chief or Superintendent or Administrator?

At the same time, was your pay changed from hourly to salary? So now, instead of making, for example, let’s say $20/hour (maybe more, maybe less, for you, of course), you’re making $40,000 a year. In fact, if you worked 50 weeks in a year (let’s say you got two weeks off for vacation), working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that would be 40 hours a week, times 50 weeks would be 2,000 hours. And 2,000 hours’ work at $20 per hour would be $40,000. So it would seem to be the same, right?

But what about overtime? Oftentimes, most of the time, people who are paid a salary aren’t paid any overtime. So if you get to work at 7:00 a.m., get a coffee, and then start working, even though you’re not set to begin until 8:00 a.m. – because there’s so much work to do, and your boss just keeps piling it on, if you’re salaried, you most likely won’t get paid for that.

Of course the same is true if you’re salaried and you have to work through lunch, after work, or at home, that is, you’ll probably still only get paid that salary. Do you get calls or texts on days off? Emails? Or on vacation? Do you get paid for that? If you’re on a salary, I’m betting you aren’t.

Maybe being paid a salary is the legally correct way for an employer to pay you. Most employers try to do the right thing and obey all laws regarding their employees, I’d like to think. But a lot of them, either negligently or intentionally, don’t pay their employees all the money they rightfully earn.

In California, if someone is called a boss or administrator and not paid overtime – when in fact, because of the work they do, they should get overtime, maybe even doubletime – that’s illegal.

Are you an Administrator? Manager? Chief? Supervisor? Some other title like that? Track your hours worked each day. Keep that record of all the hours you work – at home, not at work – week in, week out, month in, month out, you get the picture. Similarly, keep a record of all the expenses you incur. You never know when you might want to consider whether you’ve been treated fairly in your paycheck each week or in regard to expenses like phone bills or gas or uniforms.

Contact my office if you’re wondering about your own situation. I’d be glad to hear from you. You can call 626-795-0205, 818-547-5200 or email me at Tom@falveylaw.com. If you haven’t taken a look at it already, you might also want to see cases we’ve already filed, to see if anything there might apply to you, on another website, www.Falveylaw.com.

Thanks for reading. Keep on managing well! Do a good job! Be a great boss!