Does my employer have to pay me overtime?
The (ESA) has minimum standards that employers must follow. This includes rules about overtime pay.
In most jobs, when you work more than 44 hours in a week, the hours above 44 are overtime hours.
You earn 1½ times your hourly pay for each hour of overtime that you work. For example, if you get paid $16 an hour, your overtime rate is $24 an hour.
These ESA rules about overtime pay do not apply to you if you agree in writing to different rules.
Rules that you can agree to
The different rules that you can agree to are:
- taking paid time off instead of getting overtime pay
- having your overtime “averaged”, to a maximum of 4 weeks, which means you get overtime on the average number of overtime hours you work during a period of 2 weeks or more, not the actual number of overtime hours you work in each week
Unions can make averaging agreements that apply to workers.
