Your employer asks you to work overtime after a long day, but you agree to it because you’d like to make the extra money. You know that you’re supposed to be paid time-and-a-half for any overtime hours that you put in.
But the next time that you reach a pay period, instead of paying you extra, your employer tells you to just take comp time. You worked five hours of overtime, so they tell you to just take five hours off the next week. They assure you that this evens everything out. But are they allowed to do so?
You still deserve time and a half
First and foremost, you always deserve to get time-and-a-half if you have to work overtime. If you worked five hours, you shouldn’t get five hours of comp time. That would only be giving you compensation at your regular rate. Instead, you need one and a half times as long. This means that you need to get an extra 2 1/2 hours off, and top of the five hours that you already worked, for a total of 7 1/2 hours of comp time.
Are you a government employee?
The next thing to consider is whether you are a federal employee or not. Comp time is only allowed for federal employees in Florida, as Florida uses federal overtime laws. Other states have set up their own overtime laws and may allow this for more employees, but Florida is not one of them.
As you can see, there are two ways that your employer is potentially violating your rights. Be sure you know what steps to take.
