If you are a construction worker or home builder, you are no stranger to long hours, inclement weather and working outside of the typical nine to five office hours.
Your probably already know how important your job is to the growth of the community, but unfortunately, what you may not know is that you could be missing out on hundreds of dollars each pay period if you are a Houston home builder not receiving overtime pay.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor and the
Fair Labor Standards Act, if you are a
construction worker who either engages in interstate commerce by handling goods that originated out of state, or if you work for a company whose gross sales are more than $500,000, you are entitled to be paid overtime at one and a half times your hourly rate of pay for the hours over 40 that you worked.
But many times, employers use certain unfair practices that prevent you from earning this overtime. Let's take a look at what the FLSA deems as the most common problems construction workers face:
- Taking a certain number of hours worked and grouping them together as "bank time" and then paying "comp time" instead of straight overtime pay
- Counting time worked on a bi-weekly or semi-monthly basis, instead of looking at the number of hours worked in a one-week period. For example, an employee works 35 hours one week and 45 in week two, but is not paid overtime for the 5 hours in the second week since the two-week total is 80.
- Non-payment for the time it takes to get from the main employer site (also known as the shop or home base) to the construction site
- Not paying for hours of "down time" or "rain delays"
- Failure to pay for lunch breaks when the employee was not properly relieved of all work duties
These unfair practices happen a lot more often than you would think, especially at a time when employers know that the bad economy keeps many workers in need of a steady-paying job. Don't let your need for employment keep you from receiving the overtime pay you deserve.
Category: Other Workers We Help
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