Q: Do California meals and overtime laws apply to small paving company of 11 employees?

A: The short answer is that the Wage Orders apply to all employers no matter what size. The complicated answer with respect to your question is whether your company is a government contractor and subject to additional laws regarding the rate of pay (prevailing wage) that they must pay to employees and which Wage Order would apply to them. There is a general order that is a catch all and applies to any company that is not included in the specific industry orders. I am not making any opinion as to which wage order applies. Further, the right to meal and rest periods is stated in the Labor Code as well, and that applies to all employers. I cannot imagine a paving company that is not doing government work. Many contractors that have to pay prevailing wages have unions to deal with for the workers and this is an additional twist on all of this.

If you feel that you are being denied meal and rest breaks, and you have several others who will join you in a lawsuit, you need to contact a local attorney in your area to see what can be done. For 11 employees, you do not need a class action, you can all join in the lawsuit to collect the unpaid premium pay for being denied the breaks. You get one hour a day for a denied meal break and one hour a day for 1 or more rest breaks being denied. The problem is proof, you need to be specific as to what days were denied, like on a calendar. And your statute of limitations can be as much as 4 years.

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