Free, source-cited references on the wage-and-hour rules that decide whether a field crew's workday was legal — meal and rest breaks, daily overtime, premium pay, heat standards, and how those rules differ across nine states. Every guide cites the statute, regulation, or court opinion behind each claim so you can check the work, and the two calculators show their method rather than producing a number from nowhere.
These pages are written by the team that builds CDO, which enforces these same rules live on a working 65-person crew. That's the bias and the credential in one sentence: we're a software company, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice — but the rule set is the one our product has to get right every day, which is a reasonably strong reason to get it right on the page too.
Where to start, by situation
- "I think we have exposure and I want to size it." → the penalty calculator, then the meal-break guide for what actually counts as a violation. Most people are surprised that three of the four ways to owe a premium involve a break that was taken.
- "My payroll runs on federal rules and we just moved into California." → the overtime guide and the overtime calculator. The 4×10 schedule that costs nothing federally costs eight overtime hours a week here.
- "We work in several states and I don't know what changes." → labor rules by state. Start with the comparison table; the divergence is concentrated in overtime triggers, break mandates, and heat.
- "I'm evaluating software." → why CDO for the concrete differences, or the head-to-heads with Connecteam and Housecall Pro. Both say plainly where the other product is the better buy.
- "It's August and my crews are on a roof." → the Cal/OSHA heat illness guide. Most contractors treat heat as a safety-fine problem; it is also a wage problem, because a denied cool-down period owes the same one-hour premium as a missed rest break.
- "I run roofing crews." → the roofing page, which walks a tear-off day hour by hour and shows where the four predictable compliance failures cluster.