Short shifts under a alternative workweek schedule in California

In California, employees and employers may adopt an alternative workweek schedule or AWS.   An AWS is any regularly scheduled workweek requiring an employee to work more than eight hours in a 24-hour period.

If employees who are under a AWS receive few than the number of scheduled hours then a short shift has occurred.  For short shifts, employees are paid overtime for hours worked in excess of 8 and double time for hours in excess of 12.  From

For all Orders except Order 16, if the employer requires an employee to work fewer hours than those that are regularly scheduled, the employer must pay the employee overtime at the rate of one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of eight hoursand, of course, double the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours for the day the employee is required to work the reduced hours.

For Order 16 only, an employee who works longer than eight hours but no more than 10 hours in a workday pursuant to an alternative workweek schedule, must be paid an overtime rate of not less than one and one-half times his or her regular rate of pay for any work in excess of the regularly scheduled hours established by the agreement.

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Dwight Steward, Ph.D.

Dr. Steward regularly writes and speaks on topics involving business and individual economic damages, employment audits, and the analysis of payroll and time data in wage and hour investigations. Dr. Steward has also held teaching positions at The University of Texas-Austin in the Department of Economics and in the Red McCombs School of Business, The College of Business at Sam Houston State University, and at The University of Iowa. He has taught numerous courses in statistics, corporate finance, labor economics, business policies, managerial economics, and microeconomics.