Is an employer obligated to pay for unauthorized overtime?

Yes. According to California law, overtime must be paid regardless of whether an employee gets advanced authorization to work overtime. There is an exception, however. If your employer requires you to get authorization before working overtime AND you work overtime without your employer’s knowledge, then the employer probably does not have to pay you the overtime.

If an employee violates company policy regarding overtime without authorization it is within the employer’s rights to discipline the employee. Even still the law requires that the employee be paid for overtime hours worked that the employer either knew or should have known about. An employee cannot deliberately keep the employer from knowing about overtime hours worked and then demand compensation afterwards.

As a reminder, California overtime is pay at one and one-half times your regular rate of pay for any work done past eight hours and up to twelve in one workday, also for the first eight hours of work on the seventh consecutive day in a workweek. If an employee works past twelve hours in one workday or past eight on the seventh consecutive day they must be compensated at twice the regular rate.