Overtime pay (50% more than you make during regular workweek hours) is required in most Tennessee jobs that earn a wage. Even salaried employees may also be due overtime pay if their titles did not match with certain, federally defined duties they performed. Frequent and recurring abuses add up as do the systematic methods corrupt employers use to rob entire Tennessee workforces. Working with a wage and hour attorney can help the underpaid Tennessee employee recover his or her losses as well as cover legal costs.

For Tennessee wage workers, your time is your pay. There are times, though, that corrupt employees will shave your hours or creatively structure your workweek to prevent you from earning overtime pay that you rightfully deserve. This is because the Tennessee overtime pay rate is half-again (1.5x) what you normally earn.

Some Tennessee employers have also been found to mislabel their wage workers and illegally eliminate overtime payment by categorizing their employees as salaried employees. Corrupt Tennessee corporations that mislabel wage workers as salaried employees often do so to avoid paying overtime. Salaried employees must meet two conditions. They must (a) earn a certain minimum amount of salary for their work and they must (b) perform certain job functions. To determine whether you qualify for overtime backpay, see the section Overtime for Tennessee Salaried Employees below where duties test is explained.

Wage and hour law is the specific brand of law Nashville native, Attorney Jim Higgins and other employment lawyers at HHP practice when they litigate for unpaid overtime repayments. If you are a wage worker who regularly worked over 40 hours a week but received only regular pay for your overtime hours or if you worked over 40 hours a week and were wrongly paid salary when you should have been earning an hourly rate with overtime, fill out the Higgins, Himmelberg & Piliponis overtime employment information sheet for a free consultation.

Tennessee Overtime Pay

Tennessee overtime pay for wage employees begins with the first minute over 40 hours you work in a workweek (see exceptions below). Overtime in Tennessee is calculated solely by the workweek (never by the day, though your employer is required by law to offer two paid breaks and one unpaid 30 minute lunch for every 8 hours of work). Despite what an employer may tell you, overtime pay is not optional for overtime worked. Overtime is not a bonus, though your employer has no obligation under Tennessee law to offer the extra hours that earn the 1.5 times your usual wage.

The most common Tennessee overtime wage underpayment technique is for an employer to shift hours around between workweeks. If your employer frequently changed when your workweek began and ended or made a workweek shorter than 7 days to avoid paying you overtime, you likely have a good overtime wage and hour case and should speak with one of HHP's overtime attorneys immediately.

(Exceptions to the above are rare and include certain medical professions that use a "8 and 80 Overtime System.")

In addition to a regular workweek for calculating overtime, your employer must be the one to keep records of the hours you worked and pay you for every one of these. If you feel pressured to work extra hours, then Tennessee employers are required to record these hours, pay you for them, and use these hours to calculate your breaks and overtime. Additionally, breaks under 30 minutes and required training must be paid and count toward hours worked during your Tennessee workweek.

Additionally, no person in Tennessee may be employed without knowing what their wages or final pay will be under the Tennessee Wage Regulation Act. This Tennessee law also prohibits your employer from deducting moneys as a penalty/fine from your wages, including fines for being late. No Tennessee employer may withhold a paycheck for any reason. While an employer does not have to pay a Tennessee employee for time he or she does not work, no employer in Tennessee may take money away from an employee for time worked.

Overtime for Tennessee Salaried Employees

Mislabeled salaried workers suing their Tennessee employers for overtime withheld is not new but new federal statutes limit employer's ability to overwork salaried employees while underpaying them. New federal FairPay wage and hour rules qualify more salaried Tennesseans (and an estimated 6.7 million Americans) for overtime pay.

If you earn a salary of less than $23,660 per year ($455 a week), you qualify for the same overtime payments as wage laborers. (NOTE: Police and fire personnel and other "first responders" do not qualify for this "white collar overtime.")

The new wage and hour statutes also strengthen the duties test by ensuring that employees labeled as "outside sales," executive," or "administrative" perform functions that govern their work titles. This prevents Tennessee employers from having an entire office of salaried managers who do little managing but because of their title can be paid less than their hourly wage counterparts.

A management employee must supervise at least two persons AND manage an enterprise or a department; an administrative employee must have direct influence in the business of his/her employer and discretionary powers in his/her duties to be exempt from the overtime payment. If you made less than $455 a week and your executive title did not reflect your influence over a company's operations or its employees' actions, then you most likely are due overtime payment for the hours over 40 that you have worked.

Take Action with a Nashville Wage & Hour Lawyer

Tennessee wage and hour law allows victims who work with a lawyer to recover both withheld overtime/unpaid wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. Tennesseans also have the option of suing for punitive damages for extreme pay mispayment or work conditions. In most cases, attorney's fees are also included in the settlement.

Tennessee employment law explicitly forbids a company from firing an employee who files a wage and hour lawsuit in good faith against an employer. The longer your employer has had corrupt pay practices in place, the greater your recoveries can be--but shorter is your time to recover your underpaid or unpaid wages. Contact the Nashville overtime lawyers at Higgins, Himmelberg & Piliponis by filling out our Tennessee overtime/wage recovery form or by calling us at 800-705-2121.