California Wage Order 16: Construction, Drilling, Logging and Mining Workers

California Wage Order 16 covers on-site workers in construction, drilling, logging and mining, and it gives them overtime after 8 hours a day, paid travel between job sites, reporting time pay, meal and rest breaks, and the right to refuse more than 72 hours of work in a week. It has several rules found in no other wage order, including special rest-break rules for continuous operations and a 12-hour schedule option for offshore oil and gas crews.

These rules matter on a jobsite where hours are long and schedules change daily. A crew that drives from the yard to the site on the company’s orders, or that gets sent home an hour into a scheduled shift, is often owed pay that never shows up on the check.

This guide explains who Wage Order 16 covers, how overtime and alternative workweeks work, travel and reporting time pay, breaks, tools and deductions, and how to enforce your rights. For the full picture of California’s 17 orders, see our California wage orders guide.

Who Wage Order 16 covers

Wage Order 16 applies to all persons employed in these on-site occupations, however they are paid:

• Construction: alteration, demolition, building, excavating, renovation, remodeling, maintenance, improvement and repair work, and work that requires a contractor’s license under Business and Professions Code section 7025 and following.
• Drilling: work to drill, establish, repair and rework wells for oil, gas or water, including installing and maintaining wells and pumps.
• Logging: work that requires a timber operator’s license, including cutting and removing timber and incidental work such as building roads, fire breaks, landings and skid trails.
• Mining: work in mines, quarries and open pits to explore for or extract nonmetallic minerals and ores, coal, and building materials such as stone and gravel, other than work covered by Labor Code section 750 (underground mines and smelters, which have their own 8-hour rule).

The Labor Commissioner’s classification guide lists examples such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, laborers, roofers, ironworkers, operating engineers, drywall installers, painters, flaggers, surveyors, teamsters working on-site, roughnecks, derrick hands, tool pushers, fallers, choker setters, blasters and miners. It covers these crafts when the worker is doing on-site construction. Off-site fabrication may fall under the manufacturing order, and construction office and support staff are covered by Wage Order 4. Order 16 replaces any other industry or occupational order for the occupations it covers.

By the numbers72 hours

Who is exempt

The hours, pay and break sections do not apply to administrative, executive or professional employees who are primarily (more than half their time) doing exempt work and earn a monthly salary of at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work. A footnote in the order notes that the federal “primary duty” test does not apply. A foreman who spends most of the day on the tools is usually not exempt; see our guide to misclassified exempt employees.

The order also excludes outside salespersons (but not workers who make deliveries or service calls to install or repair), the employer’s immediate family, and AmeriCorps participants. Government employees are covered only by the order’s coverage, definitions, minimum wage, meals and lodging, and penalty sections.

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Overtime and alternative workweeks

The standard rule is 1.5 times your regular rate for hours over 8 in a day or 40 in a week and for the first 8 hours on the seventh consecutive workday, and double time for hours over 12 in a day or over 8 on the seventh day. The employer does not have to combine two overtime rates for the same hour.

Wage Order 16 allows an alternative workweek schedule of up to 10 hours a day within a 40-hour week only if it is adopted by a two-thirds secret-ballot vote of the “work unit,” meaning all nonexempt employees of one employer within a given craft who share a common work site. Its election rules differ from other orders:

• Ballots must be mailed to unit employees not at the site on election day who worked there within the last 30 days.
• Employees can petition to repeal the schedule once 6 months have passed since it was adopted.
• If the work unit grows by 50 percent, the employer must hold a new ratification election.
• An alternative workweek of more than 8 hours a day cannot be used on a public works contract in violation of Labor Code sections 1810 to 1815.

Offshore oil and gas crews (and onshore separation crews directly servicing offshore operations) may adopt a schedule of up to 12 hours a day within a 40-hour week. Work beyond the scheduled hours is paid at double time, and work over 40 hours a week at time and a half.

You cannot be fired, disciplined or discriminated against for refusing to work more than 72 hours in a workweek, except in an emergency. Most of these hours rules do not apply to workers under a qualifying collective bargaining agreement that provides premium overtime pay and a regular rate at least 30 percent above the state minimum wage. Read more in our guide to 12-hour shifts and alternative workweeks.

Travel time and reporting time pay

Wage Order 16 says all employer-mandated travel that occurs after the first location where your presence is required must be paid at your regular rate, or at the overtime rate if it pushes you into overtime. If you must report to the yard to load materials and then drive to the jobsite, the drive to the site is work time.

If you report to the work site for a scheduled shift and are not put to work, or get less than half of your usual or scheduled day, you are owed pay for half the scheduled day: at least 2 hours and no more than 4, at your regular rate. The exceptions are threats to employees or property, a recommendation by civil authorities, a utility failure, or an act of God or other cause outside the employer’s control. Unlike most orders, Order 16 has no separate second-reporting rule, and its reporting time section applies to union workers unless the agreement expressly says otherwise.

💡 Example (hypothetical): Luis, a carpenter earning $30 an hour, is scheduled for an 8-hour day. The superintendent over-scheduled the crew and sends him home after 1 hour. Half of his scheduled day is 4 hours, so he is owed 4 hours of pay ($120), not just the $30 for the hour he worked.

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Meal and rest breaks

Meal periods: 30 minutes when you work more than 5 hours (waivable only if 6 hours completes the day) and a second one when you work more than 10 hours, following Labor Code 512. Every workplace must provide potable water, soap or another cleansing agent, and single-use towels for hand washing. An on-duty meal period is allowed only when the nature of the work prevents relief from all duty and you agree in writing.

Rest periods: 10 paid minutes for every 4 hours worked or major fraction of 4 hours. The employer may stagger breaks and may designate the place, which can include your immediate work area. In limited cases where stopping would jeopardize the product or process, the employer can skip a rest break, but it must let you make it up the same day or pay you for the missed 10 minutes in the same pay period.

For a missed meal or rest period, the employer owes one additional hour of pay at your regular rate for each workday. If you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement with a final and binding procedure for break disputes, the agreement’s process controls. See our guide to meal and rest break premiums.

By the numbers4 hours

Tools, uniforms, deductions and lodging

• Tools and equipment: the employer must provide and maintain required tools, except that an employee earning at least twice the minimum wage may provide hand tools customary in the trade, in conformity with Labor Code 2802. Ask about expense reimbursement for other job costs.
• Uniforms: required uniforms must be provided and maintained by the employer.
• Deductions: no deductions from wages unless allowed by law, and no fee for cashing a payroll check.
• Meals and lodging: camp housing or meals can count toward the minimum wage only with a voluntary written agreement and only up to the 2026 limits: $79.46 a week for a room occupied alone, $65.59 for a shared room, and $6.10, $8.42 and $11.28 for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The order also requires suitable seats where practicable and elevators or similar service when employees work 60 feet or more above or below ground level, where practicable and consistent with industry standards.

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Minimum wage, records and public works

The state minimum wage is $16.90 an hour in 2026 and $17.40 on January 1, 2027. Many construction jobs pay far more, but overtime is still owed on your regular rate. The employer must keep daily time records, meal periods and pay records for at least three years and give you an itemized wage statement. On public works projects, prevailing wage and certified payroll rules under Labor Code section 1776 also apply.

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How to enforce your Wage Order 16 rights

1. Log your day: when you arrived at the yard, when you left for the site, breaks, and when you were released.
2. Photograph sign-in sheets and keep texts that assign you to the yard or a site.
3. Check your union contract, if you have one, for its overtime and break-dispute procedures.
4. File a wage claim or talk to a lawyer within the deadline, generally 3 years for unpaid wages (4 with an unfair competition claim). See wage claims vs. hiring a lawyer.

Retaliation for complaining about pay is illegal under Labor Code 98.6, and state wage law protects workers regardless of immigration status (Labor Code 1171.5).

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Frequently asked questions

Is drive time from the yard to the jobsite paid?

Under Wage Order 16, employer-mandated travel after the first location where your presence is required must be paid. If you must report to the yard first, the drive to the site generally counts.

Do construction workers get overtime after 8 hours?

Yes, unless a valid alternative workweek was adopted by a two-thirds secret-ballot vote of the work unit, or a qualifying union contract applies.

Can I be fired for refusing to work more than 72 hours a week?

No. Wage Order 16 prohibits termination or discipline for refusing to work more than 72 hours in a workweek, except in an emergency.

Does Wage Order 16 cover construction office staff?

No. The DLSE classifies construction office and support personnel under Wage Order 4. Order 16 covers on-site work.

Are underground miners covered?

Workers in underground mines and smelters are covered by Labor Code section 750, which limits work to 8 hours in a 24-hour period. Quarries and surface mines for nonmetallic minerals, sand, gravel and rock fall under Wage Order 16.

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