Community

Written for the person who does payroll on Sunday night.

One post every Wednesday: California wage and hour rules, the mistakes each industry makes, and the paperwork that decides a claim two years later.

Disputes, Claims & Litigation

What actually turns a workplace conflict into a lawsuit

Most workplace conflict never becomes a legal claim, and the ones that do are rarely the ones that felt worst at the time. What converts a dispute into a case is usually not the original incident — it is what the employer did in the two weeks afterwards, and whether any of it was written down.

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Industry Playbooks

Five ways California restaurants lose wage claims

Restaurant wage claims almost never come from bad intent. They come from five ordinary habits that are legal in most states and expensive in California: rounding the lunch clock, closing off the clock, cutting shifts short, letting managers into the tip pool, and assuming a salary makes a manager exempt.

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California Overtime & Hours

Why California counts overtime by the day, not the week

Most of the country calculates overtime once a week. California runs a second test every single day, and it is the one small employers miss: past 8 hours in a workday is time-and-a-half, past 12 is double time, and a week that never reaches 40 hours can still owe both.

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