What Are Your Rights as an Assembly Line Worker in California?

Assembly line workers in California have a variety of employee rights under the law, including the right to receive at least minimum wage, as well as to be paid for any overtime hours worked.

What Is an Assembly Line Worker?

Assembly line workers work in factories and assemble products. Many industries require assembly line workers to create their goods. These workers may specialize in one particular step of the assembly process, or they may work as a team, rotating positions with other workers. Assembly line workers create individual parts and join these parts together to create a whole. For example, motor vehicles are constructed by assembly line workers. Some workers create the parts, while others put together the car or truck.

Many products are made by assembly line workers, including motor vehicles, aircraft, electronics, machinery, and appliances.

What Are the Duties of an Assembly Line Worker?

Assembly line workers must perform a variety of duties, including cleaning and operating factory equipment and working as part of a team in order to assemble products.

Depending on the industry, these workers may assemble products by machine or by hand. Some assembly workers may need to know how to weld pieces together or use power tools. Workers may be required to assess products for quality control and remove damaged or defective products from the assembly line. Some workers may also package the products, affix labels or logos, or put together shipments. Assembly line worker duties may also include monitoring equipment or machines necessary for assembling products.

As working in a factory may be dangerous, workers may need to be aware of safety standards and regulations, and abide by guidelines regarding personal protective equipment.

What Is the Minimum Wage?

Minimum wage standards are set by the federal government, as well as individual states. The minimum wage allowed by the government as of 2020 is $7.25.

However, the minimum wage in California is much higher. For companies with more than 25 employees, the state has mandated a $13.00 minimum wage. The minimum wage for companies with 25 or fewer employees is currently $12.00, though there are scheduled increases in the coming years.

Minimum wage laws apply to every California worker unless they are considered “exempt” under California law. Workers who are exempt from these laws include outside salespersons, direct family members of the employer, and apprentices.

For nonexempt employees, companies are required to comply with minimum wage laws, and must pay employees at least minimum wage for each hour they work. Additionally, companies are also required to pay overtime wages to employees who work more than 40 hours a week.

While many states only require overtime to be paid if more than 40 hours are worked in a week, California also requires employers to pay overtime to employees who work more than eight hours in a single day. All work in excess of eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week must be paid out at one and a half times the employee’s regular rate. Regardless of whether the overtime hours worked were authorized by the employer, these hours must be compensated at the higher rate.

If employees work more than 12 hours in a day, or work seven days in a row, they may be eligible for overtime wages to be paid at twice their usual hourly rate.

It is important to note that even if an employee agrees to work for less than minimum wage, verbally or in writing, this agreement does not hold up to California labor law—minimum wage is an absolute obligation of the employer to nonexempt employees.

What Are the Overtime Laws For Assembly Line Workers?

Many assembly line workers work long hours or pick up irregular shifts. Workers who work shifts longer than eight hours are entitled to overtime pay for the extra hours, even if they have not worked 40 hours total that week. Additionally, workers who have worked seven days in a row are entitled to overtime pay of double their regular rate if they work more than eight hours on the seventh day.

Assembly line workers are also entitled to meal and rest breaks, where they should be uninterrupted by their employer. Any employee who works more than five hours in a work day is entitled to a 30 minute lunch break, as well as a ten minute break for every four hours worked. Employers are prohibited from discouraging workers from taking their breaks. If employees are forced to miss one or more of their breaks, they may be entitled to additional compensation from their employer.

California law also prohibits employers from allowing assembly line workers to do off-the-clock work without pay. This includes pre- and post-shift duties, as well as time spent waiting for work.

Other major California labor code violations include issues with expense reimbursement, misclassification, unpaid training, timely pay, rounding time, and more.

What to Do If Your Rights Have Been Violated

If you believe that your employer has withheld overtime wages, denied you breaks, or violated other California wage laws, you may be able to report these wage and hour violations to the California Labor Commissioner’s Office. Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees who report labor violations.

A growing number of workers are filing California wage and hour lawsuits over various violations of California labor law. Some workers may be eligible to file a class action lawsuit against their employer in order to pursue reimbursement for owed wages and additional compensation. Various lawsuits have settled in the millions. A qualified attorney may be able to review your case and determine the best course of action for you to receive your owed compensation. Under California law, workers have two to three years to report these labor law violations.

Filing a lawsuit can be a daunting prospect, especially when some workers may fear that their employer may seek retaliation against them for bringing up their concerns. However, there are laws in place to help protect workers from this kind of retaliation—you have the right to demand to be treated fairly under the law at your place of work.

Join a Free California Wage & Hour Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were forced to work off the clock or without overtime pay within the past 3 years in California, you have rights – and you don’t have to take on the company alone.

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