A day rate for a ten- or twelve-hour day
A day rate covers straight time only. Every hour over 40 in a week is owed at one and a half times the regular rate, and the regular rate is the day rate spread over the hours actually worked.
Construction & day labor NY · NJ · FL
A day rate is not overtime. Cash is not a defense.
Day labor, demolition, painting and renovation crews are often paid by the day, in cash, for whatever the day turned out to be. The law counts the hours anyway.
HOW THE PAY GOES WRONG HERE
Laborers, demolition crews, painters, helpers. Here is what we see most.
Each of these may be a claim under federal law or the law of the state where you worked. The oldest weeks fall out of reach as time passes, so the clock matters.
No records, so “no proof”
The employer must keep time and pay records. When it did not, your own credible account of the hours carries the claim and the employer has to disprove it.
Paid late, or every two weeks
New York requires manual workers to be paid weekly, within seven days of the end of the week worked.
Called a subcontractor
If you bring no crew, no equipment and no business of your own, you are an employee, whatever the foreman calls you. New Jersey’s ABC test presumes it.
The company changed its name
Contractors reopen under new names. The individual owner who set the pay can be liable too, and a company that reopens under a new name does not always escape. We look at that.
WHAT TO SAVE
You do not need paperwork to start. This helps.
The sites you worked and the dates
Your daily start and end times, even from memory
Names of the foreman, the owner and coworkers
Any cash-pay envelope, text or sign-in sheet photo
Construction & day labor
You know your hours. We know what the law says you are owed for them.
Tell us where you worked, your schedule and how you were paid. A lawyer reads every message.
Tell us what happened (718) 484-7510