America has all sorts of labor rules and laws, some of which some companies follow to the letter, and some of which some companies either take advantage of or bend the rules in such a manner as to effectively do so. When it comes to overtime pay, the Federal law is clear that working more than 40 hours in a workweek, will entitled an employee to overtime pay at a minimum of a 50% increase in pay, and certain States have additional rules, that allow overtime payment for even exceeding eight working hours in a day, depending upon the State.
The one thing that you can expect in American labor law is various exemptions, and not too surprisingly for employees, most exemptions favor the employer over the employee. For instance, if you are considered to be an executive, administrative, or professional employee and make over $23,660 per annum, you are not entitled to overtime pay, no matter how many hours that you work in a given week, and no matter how much of your personal time is taken up with e-mails, text messages, and phone calls, whether it's the weekend, or after regular business hours. The only possible benefit of being a salaried employee, is because there isn't any fix amount of hours required to be worked in any given week, this entitles the employee occasionally to be able to leave work early or arrive late in order to attend to personal matters from time-to-time, or if business is slow, to curtail one's hours and still get paid the same amount of money that is currently earned on a salary basis without reprimand. In actuality, though, most employers want the extra work hours and personal time commitments from their salaried employees, without wanting to give back much in return. This means, in effect, that most salaried employees work more than 40 hours in a week on average, while receiving compensation that does not take into account the extra hours worked or personal hours sacrificed for work.
There are also jobs in America that require the employee to clock in when beginning their workday and to clock out when leaving their work at the end of the day. For these employees, it is clear that they are entitled to overtime pay, for any work over 40 hours in a given week, and if they also received e-mail, text, or phone calls directly relating to work, when not on the clock, that too qualifies as worthy of overtime compensation. However, most companies expect a certain amount of work to be accomplished on either a given day or a given week, and thereby subtly or not too subtly encourage, train, or turn a blind eye to some work being accomplished off of the clock, and thereby without providing corresponding compensation. This type of work, in which you are effectively working on the company's business but off the clock, should not be permitted as a matter of course, and in actuality, is almost always, not compensated. Not too surprisingly, many companies utilizing this off the clock policy are able to successfully implement this by effectively browbeating or making employees feel guilty for not accomplishing more when they are on the clock.
In almost every labor condition, the employer holds the upper hand, to which, unspoken but strongly implied, there is always the threat that should any employee have the audacity to question the employer's judgment on what should or shouldn't be overtime, should or shouldn't be compensation, may end up costing that employee their livelihood, whether rightly or wrongly, legal or not.