Wage and Hour Disputes: Unpaid Overtime and Minimum Wage Claims

Wage and hour law covers what you're legally owed for the work you do: at least minimum wage for every hour, overtime for hours over 40 in a week if you're non-exempt, and pay for the time you're actually required to be working, including some prep and cleanup time depending on the job.

Common violations

The most frequent problems are misclassifying employees as independent contractors to avoid paying overtime or benefits, misclassifying hourly workers as "exempt" salaried employees without their duties actually meeting an exemption, requiring off-the-clock work (answering calls or emails before or after a shift, working through breaks), and simply not paying overtime at the required 1.5x rate for hours over 40.

Florida's minimum wage

Florida's minimum wage is set above the federal minimum and adjusts every year for inflation under a state constitutional amendment; it's scheduled to keep rising until it reaches $15 an hour. Tipped employees can be paid a lower direct cash wage as long as tips bring them up to at least the full minimum wage — if they don't, the employer has to make up the difference.

What a claim can recover

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employee who wins an unpaid-wage claim can often recover not just the unpaid wages but an equal amount again as liquidated damages, plus attorney's fees, which is part of why these claims are viable even when the unpaid amount itself is modest. Claims generally have to be filed within two years of the violation, or three if the violation was willful.