How do I pay overtime (premium pay) to an employee who worked from 6 a.m. to
5 p.m. with an hour meal period and then reported back to work from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.?

Premium pay is based on a “workday,” which is defined in the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders. “Workday” and “day” mean any consecutive 24-hour period beginning at the same time each calendar day.

Almost all of the IWC wage orders require daily overtime—that is, time-and-a-half for time worked over 8 hours and double-time for over 12 hours each “workday.”

Workday
Your question indicates that you have not established a “workday.”

By default the Labor Commissioner’s policy is to establish a “workday” from 12:01 a.m. to midnight.

Your employee worked from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (10 hours), and 8 p.m. to midnight (4 hours), in this “workday,” a total of 14 hours.

Your employee is entitled to 8 hours at straight time, 4 hours at time-and-a-half and 2 hours at double-time. The hour worked from midnight to 1 a.m. falls within the next day and will be added to any hours worked within that “workday.”

Example
An example to illustrate this and which occurs frequently in an establishment that is open around the clock is when an employee is asked to work a double shift when another employee fails to show up.

The employee works from 3:30 p.m. to midnight with a half-hour meal period and then works from midnight to 8:30 a.m. This is 16 hours of continual work, but no overtime is due because 8 hours falls within one workday and 8 hours falls within the next workday.

Of course if the employee reports to work for the usual shift at 3:30 p.m. on the second day, overtime will be due. He/she will have worked 16 hours that day and premium pay of time-and-a-half and double-time will be due.

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Reprinted with permission from the California Chamber of Commerce.