Employers in West Virginia must conform with these state rules regarding overtime pay for employees.
In West Virginia, employees must be paid one and one-half times their regular rate for any time worked in excess of 40 hours.
Employers with six or more employees are covered by the overtime pay laws, unless 80 percent of their employees are covered by any federal act relating to minimum wage, maximum hours and overtime compensation.
Most employees in West Virginia are covered by the overtime pay provisions with the following exceptions:
Ride sharing. The mere fact that an employee is participating in any kind of a ride sharing arrangement does not result in the application of the overtime pay law, requiring overtime pay or otherwise regulating the hours the person may work.
Rules for nurses. A hospital may not compel a nurse to work overtime if the nurse believes doing so would jeopardize the safety of patients and employees. This law does not apply to voluntary overtime, when a nurse needs to complete a patient's care already in progress, where a collective bargaining agreement is in place incorporating a procedure for the hospital to require overtime, or when an unforeseen emergency arises.
The law also provides that when a nurse works 12 or more consecutive hours, the nurse must be allowed at least eight consecutive hours of off-duty time after shift completion. With certain exceptions, a nurse should not work more than 16 hours in a 24-hour period. Where an on-call nurse has worked 16 hours in a hospital, the hospital is to make efforts to find a replacement nurse to work. Hospitals are also to designate an anonymous process for patients and nurses to make staffing complaints related to patient safety.