Connecticut Labor Law Breaks
Non-exempt personnel who put in at least 7.5 hours will receive 30 minutes. Employers are only excused from this obligation under these circumstances:
Compliance puts public safety in peril.
There can only be one employee who performs the job’s responsibilities.
There are less than five workers every shift in a given place.
Employees must be available to respond to critical situations for operations.
Connecticut Minimum Wages
The Connecticut minimum wage was recently raised to eight dollars and twenty-five cents an hour from the previous eight dollars even. However, like other states that raise their minimum wages each year, such as Oregon and California, Connecticut does not raise its minimum wage yearly. Other states raise their minimum wages yearly to compensate for inflation. Connecticut minimum wages are instead handled at a statutory level where votes must increase the state law.
All states have different minimum wages that are raised at different rates and by different systems, but all minimum wages, no matter the state, must be above the federal minimum of seven dollars and twenty-five cents.
Laws in Connecticut allow employees to take a twenty-nine point three percent tip credit when working at a job that acquires tips on a regular basis. Minimum wages in Connecticut are changed to time and a half when an employee has worked his or her forty hours in one week. However, employees are not required by law to be paid overtime for vacations, holidays, or paid time off.
Connecticut law also allows employers to legally pay minors working in government companies and agriculture eighty-five percent of the minimum wage. This means that a minor may be paid six dollars and eighty cents an hour. Other circumstances allow these minor workers to be paid this amount for only the first two hundred hours of work. An employee’s payment, benefits, and duties can legally be changed as long as the employer first notifies him or her.
Maternity Leave Laws
Maternity leave is protected by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act for companies or businesses with more than fifteen employees. Under this act, an expectant employee cannot legally be terminated due to pregnancy or maternity leave. Maternity leave is allotted for twelve weeks and must be taken in a continuous fashion without breaking the weeks up over several months. The Family and Medical Leave Act also protects an individual’s job while he or she is on leave. Maternity leave allows mothers time to bond with their newborns and adoptive parents to bond with their new child. Paternity leave can often be given.
Leave can also include the care of an ill child, the care of an elderly parent, hospitalization, pregnancy complications, and other medical needs. The Family and Medical Leave Act is only in place when a business or company has more than fifty employees in a seventy-five-mile radius. The act also states that upon returning to work an employee will obtain his or her former job or a job of equal pay.
Holidays
Despite which holiday is present, Connecticut law does not require employers to pay their employees for holiday time off. Employers also are not required to provide a day off for holidays. Some companies or businesses may choose to close on certain holidays, thus giving employees the day off. Connecticut also does not have a law that requires employers to pay their employees more on holidays. Employers may, however, offer benefits and more pay for working holidays, if they wish.
