Ohio Employment Law

Ohio’s laws do not specifically address when an employer must count an employee’s time as hours worked for purposes of its minimum wage and overtime requirements. Ohio does look for guidance from the regulations regarding what constitutes hours worked to set forth under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

An employee shall not work more than 40 hours in a week.

Each week stands alone when computing overtime. An employee’s workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It need not coincide with the calendar week but may begin on any day and at any hour of the day.

On-Call – An employee who is required to remain on call on the employer’s premises is working while on call.

An employee who is required to remain on call at home, or who is allowed to leave a message where they can be reached, is not working (in most cases) while on call. All actual work performed while on-call must be paid.

Lecture Meeting or Training Time – Participation in lectures, meetings, training sessions, and comparable events shall be considered part of the workday unless they fall outside regular hours. Time spent in such activities will not be included in working hours if they occur outside regular hours, are voluntary and unrelated to job duties, and no additional work is undertaken concurrently.

Employees will receive compensation if any of the following criteria are not fulfilled, ensuring they receive at least the minimum wage for all hours dedicated to the seminar.

Recording Requirement – Every employer shall make and keep for a period of not less than three years a record of the name, address, and occupation of each of the employer’s employees, the rate of pay, and the amount paid each pay period to each employee, the hours worked each day and each workweek by the employee, and other information as the director of commerce prescribes by rule as necessary or appropriate.

Records may be opened for inspection or copying by the director at any reasonable time.

Any work performed beyond 40 hours per week is considered overtime. Each week stands alone when computing overtime.

Pay – Employees shall be entitled to 1.5 times the regular rate of pay for overtime work performed.

‘Pay rate’ means an employee’s annual base salary or other rates of pay by which the employee qualifies for exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act or the state minimum wage law, but does not include bonuses, stock options, incentives, deferred compensation, or other similar forms of compensation.

Ohio labor laws require employers to provide employees under the age of eighteen (18) a 30-minute uninterrupted break when working more than five (5) consecutive hours. Ohio does not require employers to provide breaks, including lunch breaks, for workers eighteen (18) years old or older except for nursing mothers.

Ohio does not require employers to provide breaks, including lunch breaks, for workers eighteen (18) years old or older. An employer who chooses to provide a break in excess of twenty (20) minutes does not have to pay wages for lunch periods or other breaks if the employee is free to leave the worksite, in fact, takes their lunch or break, and the employee does not actually perform work.

Breast Feeding Law 

A mother is entitled to breastfeed her baby in any location of a place of public accommodation wherein the mother is otherwise permitted. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3781.55 (2005).