When there is an emergency, Bay Area residents know that they can call police, fire or EMS dispatchers at any time, day or night. Dispatchers are the hard-working men and women that make sure help gets to a victim or a person in need as quickly as possible. These dedicated men and women often offer life-saving or safety advice over the phone while the person on the other end waits for help to arrive. Recently, it was made known that some of these invaluable employees have become victims themselves because of wage and hour violations.
A court recently ordered one county to pay over $60,000 in back wages and overtime pay. It seems that the department incorrectly used a policy that calculated overtime pay differently for law enforcement officers. The policy was also applied when it came time to calculate the pay of the dispatchers.
Since the dispatchers were not officers, they should have been entitled to overtime pay for anything over 40 hours a week. Some weeks, a dispatcher would work upwards of 60 hours. Though reportedly this error in pay was an error and has since been remedied, these employees suffered financially while being paid unfairly.
If a Bay Area worker suspects he or she has become the victim of similar wage and hour violations, he or she may not know how to proceed. If an employee plans to seek justice against an employer that has wronged him or her, he or she may want to consult an experienced attorney. An attorney can help a client utilize the legal process to collect any monetary compensation he or she may be rightfully owed for his or her hard work.