Colorado Overtime Labor Laws

I think it’s important for us to take a particular look at what’s going on with Colorado overtime law. The state has its very own unique set of regulations regarding overtime pay and what constitutes overtime, as well as its own unique exclusion to these laws.

As with most states, however, Colorado starts out its overtime law with the same basics as most other states, along with the federal government. Basically, it goes along these lines: employees have to be paid one and half times their normal payment rate for time over 40 hours of work per week. We know this rule already.

Colorado overtime law continues, though, to say that that 1.5 times pay rate is also due for any time put out by a worker over 12 hours in a day, including any 12 hour consecutive period no matter if it starts one day and ends another. And of course, that 12 hours does not include any time spent on break or at lunch.

Minors, on the other hand, have a special rule all to themselves in Colorado overtime law. Employers can make them work in real emergency situations more than eight hours a day, or more than 40 hours a week. But if such an emergency situation arises, the employers must then pay those minors the overtime rate for all time over those eight hours in a day or 40 in a week.

Other special rules in the Colorado overtime law are exclusions, not inclusions like the above minor emergency clause. These exclusions—meaning these folks are not entitled to overtime pay—are worth our attention. Some examples of these jobs include any administrative positions, or an executive, managerial, or supervisory position. Anyone employed in outside sales, domestic employees, taxi cab drivers, babysitters, and elected officials and their staffs are also excluded.

The labor laws for Colorado including overtime and the federal labor laws can be found on the Colorado Complete Labor Law poster.