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Are Coders Exempt From California's Overtime Laws?
Gizmo Kid asks: "How many of you Californian, full-time, software programmers are getting paid overtime? From what I understand, a law in California, passed within the last two years, says that software engineers who make less than $41/hour [PDF version] are required to be paid for overtime? Are your employers following the rules? I'm not sure mine is?"
that if you're making >$41/hr in these times, you probably aren't the one who's going to make a big fuss over not getting overtime pay...
What an amazing idea - usually this sort of thing just gets written into your T&Cs. It certainly does where I work. If you hit a certain salary grade, they don't pay you overtime - you get TOIL instead.
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography
Perhaps employer's [i]expect[/i] coders to work overtime, i suppose its a trait that goes with the job... maybe its included with the initial pay...proabably not...
It really works, you get decent holidays, you dont get screwed out of your retirement. It has democracy inside ! (no inherited positions of power, for example) It depends much less on imported oil. (which will run out in your lifetime, enjoy)
(Too many other reasons to mention)
Right now most IT companies that my friends work for, and mine as well are really putting the screws to the employees. Our company is demanding more work, giving scanty raises, and lowering our benefits. Unfortunately I live in Texas which is traditionally a state that favors the employer heavily. Good luck with your OT issue, but if it was me right now I would probably just lay low being the heartless coward I am :). I know that even if you win you will probably lose your job for not turning off the lights when you leave or something stupid like that. If I were you I would just take the screwing they are giving you, keep track of your hours, and if you ever get fired or quit then sue for back pay and take the nice fat bonus at the end :).
can being shunted outta work at the end of the day, then getting a phone call just as you get home that the networks playing up.. then logging in and spending hours fixing it count?
moo
Now, if only programming students workin more than 40 hours a week could get paid OT... Sigh, I'm gonna guess that only by-the-hour employees are covered by this policy, and salaried workers are not.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I work for a company where my boss told my group that would like us to train other members of other groups.. ok fine no problem.. then he wants to do it outside our normal 8 hour shift.. haha that went over real well!! we told him we'd do it during work hours or not at all.. and it worked.
What I've found (and this isn't really a California thing, but more like something I've found regularly at companies) is that overtime isn't mandatory, but if you have a deadline, you need to finish your responsibility by then. If you can do it within the normal work hours, then great! More power to you! But if you can't, it would reflect badly on you if you didn't put in the extra time, despite the fact the company doesn't pay for overtime. It's one of those "you're doing it because you want to, not because we're making you" despite the fact that you are really in a situation where you need to in order not to get a bad review.
yours,
kbs
I doubt it. Not when there are thousands of programmers in countries like India who will gladly code for next to nothing. For every programmer who manages to get overtime pay due to this law, half a dozen will end up unemployeed because their job got shipped to foreign developers.
The situation for people working in the US seems to be quite bad, at least to me. Isn't it time you guys start a proper union and start raising some hell?
And how much paid vacation time I get per year? 6 weeks. How many weeks do you get in the states? And yes, I am only 26.
Complain, make it better, do something (and get free Coca Cola as mandatory).
(and if you happen to run a cool and nice company, with proper benefits, consider hiring me;))
This only applies to hourly workers who get paid less than $41/hr. If you make more, you're exempt. If you're salaried, you're exempt. Unless the laws of CA are different from elsewhere (and I worked for two CA companies).
It's been a LONG time since I've been an hourly employee.
working OT is going to bring your hours up right? and you wage per hour is your salary divided by your hours worked? so if they make you work longer hours (from time to time is how they usually sneak it into your contract) then your wage per hour has to drop, and that might well be a drop from >41 to 41
:)
come on my lovelies!!!
I work as a developer for a defense contractor on the East Coast, and they do indeed give paid overtime, as well as flex time. Of course, they've been trying to get rid of that for years. Then again, if they did that, they'd have to raise salaries, because they're vastly non-competitive on base pay alone. Then there's my manager, who tells me to bring my work home and do it on the weekends, without pay, and without charging my time to the contract, which is actually very illegal. And we're not talking minimum security illegal, we're talking federal pound-me-in-the-ass illegal.
/* Steve */
But yes, as long as we're here sitting at our desks, typing away like good little code monkeys, we do get paid overtime. For now.
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
I'd be quiet if I were you and just be happy that :)
your manager occasionally comes down from on high
to mingle with the commoners. Make sure to kiss
the feet of your corporate masters who see fit to
pay you at all. Remember, you are just a smartass
know it all computer person and people like you are
literally a dime a dozen in India. You'll bend over
if you know what's good for ya.
THANK YOU FOR LOOKING OUT FOR US CORPORATE AMERICA!!
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
It's illegal for kids to smoke too...do you see any going to jail?
Doesn't the California state government realize that just because PDF stands for "Portable Document Format" that it isn't automatically accessible to all taxpayers? That just because the price on Adobe Acrobat Reader is $0 doesn't mean I have the option to run it.
Obviously not.
Who did what now?
As soon as you hit project manager you lose your eligibility for overtime. Oddly enough project managers work more overtime than anyone else.
I like my worker bee status.... salaried but get paid for time over 40.... I suppose I will eventually be assimilated as well.... but that's tha nature of us tech workers right? Once you hit a certain age you better be ready to enter management of some sort.... you don't see a lot of coders after 40...
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
Go ahead, send those jobs to India!
Around here overtime is one thing. That is when you are told specificly to stay longer to work on a specific project. Needs authorization from a manager / project manager in each occasion. That will cause extra money.
But if you are just a little short of time, have been surfing too much etc, then it is not overtime, but extra hours you are expected to give by your own free will. Depending on your salary, you might give 5 minutes, 15 minutes or even 30 minutes per day for free. Above that, and you usually get overtime, or have a job where the contract does not list any weekly number of hours.
Never heard of such a thing.
California law indicates that an employee with a base rate of >$41/hour is non-exempt. This means the employee is entitled to overtime pay, but is required to punch a timecard, docked for not working 40 hours, etc. I believe there are some other stipulations about non-exempt employees as well (lesser benefits at most companies) but I'm not sure what specifically...
here's part of the California Dept of Labor FAQ about Overtime
Here's what I would do if I were you:
1. Call the California Dept of Labor and ask them.
2. With your newfound information, talk to your boss
3. If circumstances warrant, file a wage claim.
Just because the economy is bad does not mean that you lose all of your rights.
I found this article at www.troubleshooter.com
by - Carl Khalil, Esq.
June 05, 2002
If you are like most people, you have been led to believe that if you are an executive, professional or administrative employee, you are doomed to work 60 hours per week and receive no overtime pay for your efforts, just a set salary. However, it's time to think again.
One study has estimated that 39 billion of overtime pay is owed to "salaried" employees in the United States who should actually be paid overtime at time and a half when they work over 40 hours in a week. If you are one of these salaried executives, professionals or administrators, often called white collar employees, you might be interested in knowing how likely it is that you may be entitled to a share of this money.
The Title Game. First, there is the title game. You have a big fancy executive or professional sounding title so your employer does not pay you overtime. Unfortunately for employers, federal overtime laws say that the job title is irrelevant; it is the actual work duties that control. For example, several current and former Waffle House Managers who regularly worked 80-100 hours per week were not paid overtime because they were called "Managers," which is typically an executive position and therefore exempt from overtime pay. However, in reality, the Managers spent most of their time waiting tables, cooking and washing dishes. Hence, they recently won an award of $2.86 million for unpaid overtime when a Tennessee court held they had been misclassified as executives.
The Salary or Fee Basis Rule. Second, even if you truly are a white collar employee under the overtime laws, you must be paid on a salary basis (often called the no docking rule) or the employer loses the exemption from owing overtime pay. For professionals and administrators, employers may also pay you on a fee basis. If you are not paid according to the strict salary or fee basis rules, the employer must pay you for your overtime even if you truly are a white collar employee. These rules are frequently violated leading to enormous potential overtime exposure.
To be on a salary basis means that an employee is paid a set amount each week regardless of the hours they work, with some narrow exceptions. In one recent case, Pharmacists at Wal-Mart, who would normally not receive overtime pay as professionals, were sometimes told to go home early when work was slack, and had their pay reduced as a result. A Colorado court held that the salary basis rule was violated and the Pharmacists were owed overtime. In another case, former Managers at an auto parts store had their pay subject to deductions for cash shortages. Once again, an Ohio court held that the salary basis rule was violated and awarded unpaid overtime to the Managers.
The fee basis rule is rather simple. It means you are paid a flat fee to do a task regardless of how long the task takes. In a recent case, a professional home care nurse, Wendy Elwell, who regularly worked 60 hours per week, won over $50,000 plus her attorney's fees when the court held that her compensation arrangement did not qualify for the fee basis rule because she was paid not only a set fee for home health care visits, but also additional compensation for lengthy visits.
Independent Contractors. Another area where misclassification commonly occurs is with independent contractors. If someone is under the control of the employer and not functioning as a true free lancer in business for herself, it is likely that she is really an employee, not an independent contractor. While contractors are not covered by overtime laws, employees sure are. In one recent case, a chauffeur at Bell Atlantic won an overtime award when the court ruled him to be an employee even though Bell Atlantic treated him like an independent contractor.
Overtime Remedies. Under federal law, an employee or ex-employee has two years to bring an overtime claim, three years for willful violations. Some states extend these times under their own overtime laws, and indeed grant broader overtime rights to employees than under federal law. Moreover, a successful employee will normally receive an award of DOUBLE their unpaid overtime, plus their attorney's fees in pursuing the claim.
In sum, just because you are white collar and paid on a salary does NOT mean that you should not receive overtime pay. Because sometimes you most certainly should.
Carl Khalil is a Virginia Beach, Virginia attorney and the founder of the website www.PayMyOvertime.com, which is devoted to helping employers and employees learn about their overtime rights and duties. Mr. Khalil is also the founder of www.BreakYourNonCompete.com, which has been featured on the NBC Today and in nationally syndicated career columns.
I'd likely be glad I had a job, let alone overtime... ;-)
CC-licensed translations of Japanese fiction: http://tonygonz.blogspot.com/
Laws like this suck. It all evens out in the end. If you're not happy about your overtime situation, consider changing your job. If you feel lucky to have a job at the moment, stop complaining.
I have been in IT for the last 12 years and basically the attitude has always been, we expect you to work out of hours to meet dealines, if it goes over an "unreasonable" amount of hours, then we'll pay up. "unreasonable" is determined by the employer!! Like the man said earlier, be happy you still got a job!! Out of hours callout has always been OT or no call out!!!
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
IT businesses in USA seem to be the western equivalent to Nike sweat shops. Why would you NOT get paid for spending the remaining hours of your already limited time off work? Here in the communist soviet nordic countries, and most civilized EU countries, you get paid 150% or 200% of the hourly wage. And before you start talking about bringing down companies to their knees by them actually paying their workers, last time I checked, the nordic software/tech companies are doing just fine. But here I guess the terrorists have already won or what?
Interesting concept. Most of the soft-e's I know are all full-time salaried employees, and thus exempt from overtime compensation. In fact, I've never seen a full-time position that was eligible for overtime unless it was union (then again, I haven't seen them all). In return, you get stuff like benefits, sick time, insurance, a steady check, etc.
Oh, and the 'be-thankful-you-have-a-job' crowd? Shut up. Just because you're unemployed and bitter doesn't mean that the rest of us who are working our asses off (and believe me, we are) aren't entitled to our employers following the established laws.
(posting as AC since my co-workers read /.)
How many software engineers in California make less than US$41/hr?
I live and work in the midwest (NOT CA), and I make US$37/hr or so. I'd probably make 2x that in California.
That is like saying "I'll pay US$1M a year to any software engineer who is not composed of baryonic matter." - Nice, but meaningless.
This is slightly off-topic, but it's related. A lot of the crap that goes on whether it be screwing employees out of pay, muddled decisions etc - it seems to me that it most often happens to companies that have publically traded stocks.
I work for a fairly large company ($80-100 million), but it is all privately held. They treat their employees with respect (for the most part, though bad managers tend to not be around for too long), have great benefits, pay overtime, heck they even spend a fair chunk of change on the Christmas party.
My theory is that companies like the one I work for, and others of similar size can work a lot better and can afford to treat their employees better if they so choose etc, because they are not tied into the tempests of the public stock exchange. They don't have share holders to constantly report too (well there are share holders, but all within the company). They don't have to worry about losing millions if a bad report comes out. All the money the company has is 'real'. Sure they didn't have the huge inlay of capital at first, but instead a solid business and careful spending, meant that eventually the company became quite profitable and more importantly, remains profitable.
Does this make any sense?
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/mwposte r.htm
n ce/whd/whdfs23.htm
And overtime Specifically..http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/complia
Did you get hired? Did you sign anything when you got hired? If so, I'd suggest reading what you signed, when you got hired. Those employment agreements I signed always made a point of calling me an exempt employee, which meant no OT, since I was salaried.
See here for some more information.
Or, in this case, Read the F***ing Statute.
There are a ton of exemptions which would make it perfectly legal for the employer not to pay you overtime for your work. The
Some of the others...If you do systems analysis and consult with users, If you program an OS (I am NOT making this up).
It really looks like this law is intended to grant overtime not to software engineers (or hardware engineers), but to (say) data entry folks.
Sometimes you guys amaze me. I'm not sure if it's the Gen-X'ers, or the prima-dona IT guys, or the combination.
If you came to me with this concern, I would find a polite way to say "You're fired". I have hundreds of resumes passing through my hands each month, and I am just appalled to hear the ungratefulness of some of the people who HAVE jobs. Try being unemployed for 6 months, as some of these folks have been. Then see if you want to bite the hand that feeds you.
Yes, I agree that employers should be held accountable by the law. But look at this... $41/hour? That's like $80K. You're telling me that if I hire a $75K programmer, I have to pay him overtime? That's an easy decision. I choose not to expand or incur the headcount of a 75K+ overtime programmer. Give me a break. That is a bonehead law which will put downward pressure on hiring. If that's the law, then I choose not to hire.
If he's on staff now, and I have to pay him overtime, he's fired. (Call it a business restructuring.) I KNOW in this economy I can do just fine with 1 less programmer (or fire the whole staff, for that matter... SO many of these people on the street will perform contract services.)
Work for hire laws permit me to let you go without cause.
Your value to the company must exceed your cumulative cost, and by a large factor. Otherwise you are expendable. Bitch, and that adds to the cumulative cost. Bitch some more and you are gone. No questions asked.
I hired a Gen-X-er who had the NERVE to bitch about his cell phone, which is purely a perq - he doesn't need it for the job. Since it wasn't perceived as a perq, and it was costing us money, I said "cancel it". Next he bitched about something else, and I recommended him for immediate termination. Who has time for whiners in this economy? We are trying to make a living - and if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
There's a line outside of people who want your job. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Welcome to globalization.
..just as ASCII, XML, PostScript, HTML, etc is. Alternatives to Acrobat Reader exists, for example GV, KGhostView, and XPDF. As far as I understand, Adobe even follows its own standard entirely, in contrast to other companies (RTF anyone?), so if there's incompabilities, that's likely to be bugs in the implementation.
PDF is "automatically accessible to all taxpayers" just as much as HTML is.
So publishing official documents in PDF is perfectly all right, the way I see it. Or is your problem simply that it was a company who came up with the standard, as opposed to some voluenteer engineering taskforce?
I don't understand the fuzz about this. Work over duty time is only done if it is paid or I can take the time off later. I'd tell my employer bullshit if he asked me to work for nothing!
Kosi
People in the IT business are wimps, this will never change and yet-
..Yes I know spelling and grammer, I just woke up...
Programmers are like carpenters, erecting the structure of a program according to a plan. Carpenters have a Union and don't get abused like this.
System Administrators are like plumbers, installing, upgrading and maintaining infrastructure to keep shit off of the floor and yet plumbers have Unions to prevent such abuses.
Network Administrators are like transit workers and road contruction personelle and they have Unions to prevent abuses.
Almost every position in the IT industry has an equivilent position in the constuction, and that position has a Union to represent them for fair work practices. Even during the dot-com era when demand was high you couldn't get a Union in to a workplace because no-one had made one and no-one wanted to. Funny thing is my Union employed father has always made more than myself, has a retirement, is home at 4:00p.m. everyday and overtime does happen, but is a rareity and he is paid well for it.
You have all brought it on yourself, stop crying and do something about it, if this were to happen in a Union, everyone would be picketing, but where's the intimidation when a scab crosses the line.
I can't work in such conditions, so I don't anymore, and I make more money out of IT and have a fucking LIFE now!!!
The journalist won and the newspaper got stuck paying 3 years of retroactive back overtime to all their employees. The key point in the case was that the "overtime" was mandatory. So that clause in your employment contract that you're a salaried employee might be worthless if your IT company requires overtime constantly. Might be worth consulting a lawyer, if that's the case.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You can give it up by agreeing to salary read the fed law about again..passed during or after WWII..
exmptions are:
Salaried workers..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
It can be reported "anonymously", you know.
Too the proper authorities. Heh.
You guys aren't getting paid overtime? I guess I'll stick with CAD/GIS then....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
There are programmers working in California?
To produce code that is:
a)Undocumentes or commented
b)faulty
c)useless?
Woot lemme in!
That was the most gay post I've read in awhile - easily this week, probably this month. I mean, you took The Gay and ran with it. Congrats! Not only was your comment gay but it was also completely devoid of any meaningful content. I suppose you were trying to make a joke and not actually post the Most Gay Post ever, right? It's okay. You didn't get the most gay post ever. Sorry bud. But you weren't funny either, you dickless ass-goblin.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I knew there was a reason I never wanted to live in California!! It reminds me of unions--except in this case the government is going to legislate you out of a job.
I live in Ontario, Canada...and it's no different here. I'm not sure if there's a law on the books concerning developers, but the company I work at has made us all over-time exempt. We still have to come in at nights and weekends when required, and take the on-call laptop home for a week every three months. Without getting paid over-time for it. Plus out of the people I graduated with who actually have jobs, I'm one of the lowest paid. I know...at least I have a job. But to work this job and make shit wages or work a different job making shit wages but get overtime, or at least not have to work overtime, doesn't seem like much motivation to keep this job.
A lot of high level managers and CEOs have been fired for forgeting "due diligence". I bet the more publicly traded companies have CEOs that remember that too. They try to scrape every cent they can out of each person because of it.
People at that level tend to forget what we peons are like. They think they have bigger things to worry about. I can remember Michael Eisner calling all non management employees at DisneyWorld "Trained Monkeys" not so long ago
I work in an area imidiatly adjoining Disney World. I know a lot of people there. There hourly employees get 1.5X up to 2X OT, but there salaried managers are expected to work 10 or more hours a week overtime. I have never understood this. if an hourly employee worked the same hours that the managers do they will end up getting paid MORE due to there overtime! As an hourly I would like that but the managers dont seam to care. I have always thought that was fucked!!
This is typically a catch 22 situation. Sure, if your employer doesn't pay you overtime even if he is required to by law, you're fucked either way. Or you don't make a point out of it, and get paid less than you deserve. Or, do make a point out of it, sue the guy, get your pay and leave your job. Because, face it, the boss is going to be pissed off about you taking him to court, and you're never going to be able to reestablish a normal working relationship with him. He'll get you in his own way, either buy making your life miserable or by looking for a reason to fire you, which he'll always be able to find.
The only reason to do really pursue the issue is to help your co-workers, because if you win the court case your employer would be crazy to risk other cases with the other employees, and if he has some brains in his head he'll start paying them overtime as he should. So, as some other poster already said, do this when you've found another job anyway, sue the guy for backpay, and leave your ex-co-workers with a nice present.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
At my company (in California), all the programmers were recently forced from salaried to hourly. We are forced to take breaks and lunches and we are only allowed to work eight hours per day. If we work more than that, we are forced to be paid overtime.
Normal people don't understand why we were really upset about this. I'm not sure that we do, either. It took most of last year to get used to the idea of being hourly, and there are still moments where we gripe and complain about our new status.
I asked our Personnel department why this happened, and it has to do with lawyers and lawsuits. I've asked my programmer friends (also in California) and they are not hourly and can't understand why I am. I feel like a second-class programmer now.
I am afraid to ask management when the California law went into effect. I worked a ton of unpaid extra hours in 2001. If I got paid retroactive overtime pay for those hours, that could work into some serious system upgrades!
The part about computer professionals indicates the maximum wage for overtime has been raised to $43.58/hour (who came up with that number?). Here's the section about it:
(h) Except, as provided in subparagraph (i), an employee in the computer software field who is paid on an hourly basis shall be exempt, if all of the following apply:
(i) The employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative and that requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment.
(ii) The employee is primarily engaged in duties that consist of one or more of the following:
- The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
- The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications.
- The documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to the design of software or hardware for computer operating systems.
(iii) The employee is highly skilled and is proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering. A job title shall not be determinative of the applicability of this exemption.
(iv) The employee's hourly rate of pay is not less than forty-three dollars and fifty eight cents ($43.58). The Division of Labor Statistics and Research shall adjust this pay rate on October 1 of each year to be effective on January 1 of the following year by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the California Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.
Jeezes.
... whatever)
Judging by the comments here it would seem that IT professionals don't have much of self-worth.
Okay, I agree, it's "Hard Times", and finding a job is often quite hard. But dammit, we're just as invaluable an asset as all those other people out there that make the world turn (metal-workers, plumbers, management, cleaners, teachers,
Somehow, corporations managed to get it into our collective psyche that we're not worth much, and very easily replacable. I'm sorry, but that's just bull. All corporations, even the ones that aren't really in the IT sector, use IT extensively these days. As for replacability: pulling someone out of a current job, and putting someone else instead is often a big cost to them (retraining, getting up to speed etc) I'm not saying that they can't be replaced if there's a real need, but it's not as easy as management makes you think.
Just because economically we're not doing great, doesn't mean all the work has disappeared - it all still needs to be done by someone, and I don't believe productivity was so bad before (remember the long working hours of the dot-com days, the microserfs, etc) that now one person can do a two-person's job.
I'm sorry. Just because everyone keeps telling us we're worthless doesn't make it so.
Maybe we should get organised and get involved in unions (I'm european, unions don't have a negative connotation here). That's how people got out of similar (well to be fair it was much, much worse) abuse in the beginning of the century in Europe.
I never heard of a IT-workers strike. Maybe it's because we'd do too much damage? We can shut down companies quite effectively.
I say it's about time!
The reason you hear "be glad you have a job" so often is not a surprise: many Slashdotters are OUT OF WORK, and have been for a while. It's also the reason why those currently employed are scared to speak up: they think they'll have a hard time finding a new job, too.
The tech sector has a glut of qualified people; it's the law of supply and demand. Bad news for me, as I'm about to graduate with a degree in CS.
I'm glad you're employed, and I'm glad you won't take any crap from your employers. But you can afford to feel that way. I bet if you did get fired, you'd be able to find another job pretty quickly.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
Dude, this is cool for you. If you were salaried, then you could have to work up to 500 extra (or more depending on your slave driver) without extra pay.
Hourly is the ONLY mo frelling way to go!
This is a long disorganized rant.
.. Are no longer "magical." The magic is gone folks, and they're just jobs now. Sorry to break this to you.
:)
I know what you think. Unions are for trades workers. Not so, ask a school teacher.
Historically in the U.S., unions were created to correct the horrible treatment of workers by large, overpowerful corporations during the robber-baron era circa 1920's and 1930's. The relevance of unions today has been questioned by big business, citing numerous government regulations that work to protect employees from hazards in the workplace, discrimination, work hours, etc. What these government regulations don't protect you from is being treated like shit by companies that cut hours, push for unpaid overtime, cut perks, cut staffing, cut benefits - All while operating profitably.
We live in an age when companies are reclaiming the type of power not seen since the 1920's. Where we have robber-barons. CEO's that cut jobs to improve stock performance while taking $10 million dollar bonus packages.
It works both ways, of course. There are tradeoffs. But I.T. is becomming a basic commoditiy to employers. Don't stroke your ego. While the Slashdot readership may be a clever barrel of monkeys - Inteligent, highly innovative and/or intelligent - The jobs you perform as programmers, sysadmins, network engineers, etc.
I've always been anti-union. But that was before the dot-com bubble burst. I was working at an ISP a few months ago. I had a guy with a Masters' degree and two certifications walk in our door looking for a job. At an ISP.
My fiance' is Swedish. In Europe, almost all jobs are protected by government regulations or unions. You -can- fire someone for poor job performance, but it requires a review process. Not the whim of an asshole manager playing office politics.
Large companies don't like unions. Collective bargaining gives employees power. Review boards investigating alleged employee peformance problems or misconduct puts employees on the same level as management during administrative issues. Employees are no longer drones to be dumped on by management. Peter will in fact NOT work this saturday, Bob.
Did you know that the Teamsters is trying to unionize nursing staff in hospitals across the country? Why? Because hospitals are mistreating nurses. Underpaid, overworked, and being replaced by cheaper H1-B labor.
I'm out of rant for now. Discuss amongst yourselves.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Kidding.
Unfortunately, all the perks are at the consulting office. Since most of the consultants are on client sites all the time, we can't take advantage.
But the secretaries, managers, and salespeople can drink all the soda they want. Fortunately, any consultant on the bench can partake too. Unfortunately, if you are on the bench more than a week, you get laid off.
ah, the perks of being on salary.
I work as an office equipment repairman (copier tech.). We have been told quite clearly that the company will not pay OT. But we are still to meed the call load and be working (call into the the auto-dispatch) by 07:30 and on the job at 17:00.
I have been told that to make my stats (required workload) that I need to do what the other techs do and work through lunch. Or, if hungry, to go through a drive-through and eat in my car in-route. That is an hour that they are TELLING me to give them right there.
On the other end of the day we are to be at a account at 17:00. If any of you have ever watched a copier tech work you would realize the being at work at 17:00 means finishing about 17:30-17:45. That extra time is all unpaid. The theory is that we get comp time but it is pretty clear that requesting comp time would be a bad idea. The companies often reply that summers are slow so we are not logging a full eight hours during those months, as if it is our problem that they cannot come up with a steady workload.
The management answer is real simple, "If you think you can do better somewhere else then go there." All this for $10usd/hour (and don't even get me going on auto reimbursement). No need to say, "go back to school." I have a B.A. (as do about 1/5 of techs. The number of new hires with degrees is increasing (or should that be,without degrees laid off). I am going back to finish my masters, not so much as that I feel it will improve my situation as for something to do.
In general we need unions but the unions will not even talk to us. I was part of an effort that tried to interest the unions in copier techs nd the response was that if we were not members of a union then they could (would) do nothing. Having my minor in H.R. I know that there are too many pitfalls for people who try to unionize on their own.
Basicly it is an exploitive situation that ignores labor law. And yes, I am looking for another job
There are two classifications, exempt and non-exempt employees. Non-exempt employees are subject to all rules of overtime, lunch breaks, etc. Exempt employees are considered to be management/professional positions, who are scheduled and paid by their projects, obligations, deliverables, etc.
There are usually a set of criteria to determine what jobs/positions fall into what category. These may be specific, or a set of questions to determine the predominant characteristics. It appears that CA has a particular definition around $41/hr for coding.
The first thing is to firmly determine whether you fit into the non-exempt category. Do this outside of your employer's oversight. If you are exempt, get back to getting your deliverables in on time.
If you are non-exempt, and getting abused (i.e., working overtime w/o pay, usually including >8h/day OR 40h/week), you now have a decision to make. The first thing to do in any case is to make a DETAILED and ACCURATE LOG (don't inflate it).
With some logged data, you can bring an action. Speak to an attorney specializing in labor law, and who has experience in litigation.
One MAJOR question is WHEN to bring the action. Find out the statute of limitations. You may be able to go over a year and bring action later, i.e., when you find a new job, or are ready to leave. This has the major advantage of not subjecting you to retaliation (e.g., firing, demotion, etc.). Do not take much comfort in the anti-retaliation clauses in the law. Saying it is one thing, proving it is another, especially in these climates when layoffs are common, and they won't be hiring replacements. They can make any excuse, and you will have great difficulty and expense proving otherwise.
So learn your stuff, document everything, plan your tactics, and Good Luck!
Oops. I guess the midnight system change last night has me pretty groggy this morning.
The point I intended to make is that there are so many people in the world, and almost all of them live at subsistence level or die below that - equal redistribution would likely reduce the net worth of everyone in the first and second world.
Redistribution of wealth seems like a good idea until you find out that you are the one whose wealth is being redistributed....
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
and it's those ignorant topics that gets people confused and run to their employees and get their asses fired.
it basically says..
if you're a dumbass and not a "employee (that) is highly skilled and is proficient in the theoretical and practical application of highly specialized information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software engineering. "
get paid less then 41$/hour and acutally spend 15 hours of your day REALLY programming and not sitting there "designing/analyzing" the situation
then you can get paid overtime
I see that the wording is for the employer to prove all the above
but it's not really that difficult to prove.. you'd literally have to find a way to show the courts that you spent alllllllll your time at work doing nothign but coding and not designing or doodling.
I can almost say that if a company does that and still keeps that employee around.... they'd be bankrupt already.
Yep, it is cool. That's what half my brain says... but the other half really liked the unlimited supply of time we had when we were salaried. And there was a thrilling sense of accomplishment when we completed a project after nearly killing ourselves by coming in before 6 am and leaving after 6 pm every day.
And there was a thrilling sense of accomplishment when we completed a project after nearly killing ourselves by coming in before 6 am and leaving after 6 pm every day.
Life's too short to spend all your time coding. The hourly thing is a blessing. If you don't have enough time to finish your stuff, then your company needs to hire more people or stop overcommitting.
I'm a Bank of America employee in Chicago, and we're starting to feel this.
BofA is now paying all programmers & System Administrators in California overtime. This is in accordance to a class action law suit brought against the company by past/present employees. BofA actually had to pay back-pay plus a penalty. This includes compensation for "On Call" time when admins have to carry a pager, or are called in on an emergency.
California's law is kinda screwy also, since overtime is defined as any hours > 8 in a day. So BofA had to cancel all flex time (work 10 hours M-Th, get half day Friday) and has implimented time logging for all of us. Not quite punch cards, but quite possibly soon.
In Chicago, we've been told to not work *any* overtime until we are informed as to our new status. It's looking like Managers will not be getting OT, but everyone else will.
Our biggest concern is what effect this is going to have on our employment situation. BofA is actively using off-shore programing sources, and this is just another reason for the executives to justify sending all the programming work to India.
<Rant On>
This is just another nail in the coffin. Stupid-assed labor laws like this are really going to kill this country.
</Rant On>
The Fair Labor Standards Act, Sec. 13(a)(17), added by the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, specifically exempts certain computer industry professionsals from overtime requirements. The text of this section is as follows:
We recently went through the painful process of re-assigning exemption status at the company for which I work. It was discovered that, though there might be cachet with a salary, an hourly wage can be very lucrative. (I'm salaried; no overtime for me.)
--
bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
Where I work, it's a corporate mandate that we work at least 10% overtime all the time. Doesn't sound that bad next to people working 60-80 hours a week, but the thing is the way they calculate it. Employees must work a certain number of hours in a year, which means that extra week or two of vacation you get for seniority (not to mention sick time, non-billable training, etc.)is just extra overtime that you have to work to make up.
I guess it's understandable since they bill the customer for me by the hour, who doesn't like free money? The thing that kills me though is that it's independent of workload/schedules, so if we're in between emergency deadlines and I finish my stuff early I better damn well surf the net in the office for the rest of my overtime hours....
In reasonable situations, the programmer is given the right and responsibility to estimate the amount of time a piece of work it will take, and that estimate is respected. Sadly, not all companies are reasonable.
-k
yours,
kbs
I work for a company in Texas as a salaried employee. I do not get paid overtime. When I brought this to my management's attention they stated that the size of my salary was calculated with the assumption that I may have to work up to 10 hours over 40 per week. If I don't work over then consider it free money. If I do, I'm being compensated for it already. In the last year I regularly put in 15-20 hours a week over. Since the economy is in the tank I'm not going to
what, you want MORE of the jobs going to India?
MORTAR COMBAT!
How many of you know english? How many of you know how to make a sentence without making a question? How about with one of these: "."?
I work for a company in San Diego. About June of last year I got called into the VP's office and told that I was getting a pay cut (effectivly 4%) and being switched to hourly, which would include overtime. I got a bonus to cover the difference in my new salary and my old salary for the rest of the year.
At first I was a little miffed but 2 things made me change my mind: The occasional check with 10 hours of overtime does wonder at filling the budgetary gaps, and being hourly my time is much more valuable. I don't work 80 hours a week to meet arbitrary deadlines because there is a cost to management for me doing that. The result is when I work OT there is something that needs to be done, and when there's nothing that _needs_ to be done I am a 9-5 kind of guy.
It's fantastic.
If the owners of a company really believe that it's going to do well, there's very little reason to go public. You get a one-time influx of money. Maybe you expand your company a bit there, and then it's gone and you're stuck with drawbacks for the rest of its life.
IPOing a company simply says "I have no faith in this company."
May we never see th
A question for you all -- (please answer! I need to make a decision within a week and didn't want to do an "Ask Slashdot".. thanks!)
Is it normal when switching positions within a huge corporation, to not get a base salary increase, even when the job requires much more technical expertise?
Here are some details.. I am currently in an IT job, due to the market for software engineers and the fact that I just recently graduated with my BS in CS.
I was hired, believe it or not, technically under a "help desk" position, and was transferred within a couple of weeks (as they had told me I would) to deskside support, since they didn't currently have a slot for it.
I'm now in the position of taking an application installer developer position within the company, that also requires some programming. They need someone pretty bad, and I have two years experience and much more education than anyone that's currently on the team now.
My current manager is strongly hinting that I'm just going to transfer with my current salary if I take that position, but that they'll try and "catch me up" in terms of base salary, though also hinted that a rough amount would be 10%/year if I'm lucky. I should be paid about 30-40% more right now, if I took the job (no, really -- remember they started me at the high-end of a help desk salary).
The question is, is this normal? Isn't it the case that the employee I'm replacing was making X, so I should (based on experience, technical knowledge, etc) be possible to be paid up to X amount? How do I confront the new manager on this issue? Thanks a lot for any insight!
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
to not pay someone for time over 40 hours worked, save for certain special occupations (outlined in the fair labor standards act).
If you are a developer, making less than 27.43 an hour, you get 1.5x pay for overtime. if you make more than 27.43, you get straight time, but you still get pay.
if you are 'salaried' you still get paid, you are not exempt from being paid straight time in this occupation.
semantics are everything!
The relevance of unions today has been questioned by big business, citing numerous government regulations that work to protect employees from hazards in the workplace, discrimination, work hours, etc. What these government regulations don't protect you from is being treated like shit by companies that cut hours, push for unpaid overtime, cut perks, cut staffing, cut benefits - All while operating profitably.
The plight of the poor, put-upon IT worker making five times minimum wage with benefits, with his fat ass in a safe office chair instead of a coal mine? Nope, doesn't resonate.
I've always been anti-union. But that was before the dot-com bubble burst. I was working at an ISP a few months ago. I had a guy with a Masters' degree and two certifications walk in our door looking for a job.
And how the *fuck* is unionizing going to keep your dot-com parent company going to keep from going under? The problem today is not companies making shitloads of profit and exploiting their workers more (a la coal magnates). The problem is that the *companies* are doing badly. You can't just squeeze the company and get more money from it, and make everything fine. The people at dot-coms, American Airlines, Enron, WorldCom, AOL, etc, are just going to have a rough time of it. There isn't a nice way to say it.
In Europe, almost all jobs are protected by government regulations or unions. You -can- fire someone for poor job performance, but it requires a review process.
Nothing like red tape to solve problems! Look and see how many people in Sweden would like to live in the US versus how many people in the US would like to live in Sweden.
Not the whim of an asshole manager playing office politics.
Politics will *never* leave the workplace. Even by adding red tape.
Collective bargaining gives employees power.
Unions also tend (unless you have a single-company union, formed of the employees at a single company) to be designed purely to put money in the pocket of *another* large, self-interested organization with a deep love for taking money from those who need it -- AFL/CIO.
Because hospitals are mistreating nurses. Underpaid, overworked, and being replaced by cheaper H1-B labor.
You want to *unionize* to keep companies from replacing workers with foreign workers and moving jobs overseas?
May we never see th
I'm unemployed, you insensitive clod!
i had a job once, working at a theme park as a seasonal employee (that means i dont get overtime).
there was a very easy solution to that problem though, i refused to work more than 40 hours a week unless they paid me overtime, either in tickets or meals. it worked, i rarely worked more than 40 hours a week.
Here is a link to a publication that describes Wisconsin's Law. After reading it, I would say most programmers fall in the exempt category.
/ pd f/ERD-8298-PWEB.pdf
http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/dwd/publications/erd
I looked into what the definitions are in California for "professionals". After consulting with a couple of lawers, I found out that it is poorly defined, but appears to cover "anything that you got a 4 year degree to do" and can be reasonably stretched to cover anyone with a degree who is making more than $24K a year.
Salaried employment is usually an excuse to use and abuse your employees.
We are sorry, the number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try your call again.
Because there are gushers in the middle of France and Germany...
Please. Why do the Europeans worry about Middle East wars? Because it affects their oil imports even more than the US.
Oil exports from the Middle East
There are reasons to live in Europe...and there are not. No place is perfect.
The problem with your pronouncement is that the only means you can be paid for overtime is in $$$. That takes away the ability to pay by other means, like services or (even better) time off.
I worked about 160 hours a week for a few weeks in January. But I'm working some VERY relaxed hours now... I don't even mind that kind of trade as time is much more precious to me than $$$.
Also, I like not having to sit there in order to be paid... if I'm done with my work I like to be able to leave early instead of sitting around so that I'll be paid. Being on salary is not all disadvantage as you make it out to be, it can be taken advantage of the employer but if you look out for yourself you can balance things out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've always felt overtime was factored in to my salaray. If I wanted a 40 hour work week with paid overtime, then I'd expect to make a lot less than I make now as a base salary. That's one reason programmer salaries are so high. You want $100K per year AND overtime pay? Get real.
Let's say you make $40/hour. Thats $80k/year with a 40 hour work week. Instead, let's say you average 50 hours a week. That's $32/hour. So - really you are making $32/hour with a guaranteed 10 hours a week in overtime.
If that doesn't seem like a sweet deal to you, I'm sure the guys working for a lot less than that aren't exactly shedding tears for us.
27.63 is ~57K I looked all over for any other mention of this requirement for exemption, and I could not find it. Can anyone else?
I make less than that, and so do all the other young engineers where I work (we are aerospace folks, not computer folks...). Most of us put in unpaid overtime, I am sure that my pals would like to see this and then show it to the boss...
(it would probably be cheaper to give us all raises to the $27.63 level than to pay us overtime...)
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Under California law, there are only two exemptions to paying overtime:
1. You are a manager of at least two people.
or
2. You are required, by law, to have a license to work in your profession (e.g. doctor or lawyer). A MSCE does not count since it is not a legal requirement.
There are NO other exemptions. How much you make has nothing to do with whether you get paid overtime or not. That particular exemption was revoked years ago. The employee can receive compensated time off (at time and a half) when working overtime, but there are limits to how much.
Oh, and IANAL.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Hmm.. those are mighty big words. You seem fairly sure of yourself.
So if you're so sure of your position, why did you post AC? Aren't you willing to back up your words?
Or is it just you are fully aware that if you did so, the government's worker rights office would be coming around to check up on some things due to a few hundred anonymous tips?
Now, i'll give you, the guy complaining about the cellphone does rather sound like an asshole (but then, you don't exactly sound like the nicest guy to work for either, seeing as you don't appear to value your employees whatsoever). But the discussion at hand is not over minor perks. It is over the issue of employers refusing to pay the overtime they are required to by law. If you, as an employer, are violating some such state law of your own, it is my sincere hope that your employees realize soon that they can cause you to be dropped into court as a result.
Good day.
The above assumes that the post i am replying to is not simply a fiction designed to garner responses and cause the wasting of mod points.
From what I understand, a law in California, passed within the last two years, says that software engineers who make less than $41/hour [PDF version] are required to be paid for overtime?
This makes complete sense? After all, wouldn't you want to be paid overtime!
I'm not sure mine is?
My clients can be fairly tight from time to time, but when I explain how my services have benefitted them, they generally come around? Indeed, don't most people appreciate quality work!
Corporate cynicism aside, I'm just glad that I can get paid to do what I enjoy doing. Sure, I don't get paid as much as a pro athlete, but I do make more than most of the non-engineers that I know with Bachelor degrees (and they don't even like their job).
Call me sheltered, but all of the companies that I've worked for have been too afraid of the cost of finding a qualified replacement and afraid of wrongful dismissal lawsuits to fire me for not working enough overtime (and I don't work much overtime). When I am given an unreasonable timeline, I tell my employer that I can't make it. They, of course, try to force me to agree to it, and I respond, as many times as necessary, by giving them an option - I will have it done by *my* date, or I can have it done by their date if *these* other new features are dropped (when it comes to the features/time/quality equation, I never compromise on quality). Then I actually make my deadline. After a few iterations of this scenario, they appreciate that I actually meet a deadline, even if it isn't theirs (heck, their deadline isn't met by the more "agreeable" engineers anyway).
On another vein, it really dissapoints me that so many /. readers have developed the UAW mentality of "I'm emplyed by you so I'm *entitled* to blah, blah, blah..." Even in this down economy, it is not that difficult - it just takes more time - for truely good workers to find a new employer that treats their employees "better".
I worked (as a contractor) for a large company in Omaha. They didn't pay me overtime but billed the company I was consulting with at 1.5x for anything over 40. I asked the company how they could bill the client and not pay me OT and they didn't have any good answers. Since I didn't see any of that pay I decided to do something about it and called the Nebraska labour board or whatever it's called. Turns out if the company is bigger than x million $$/year they fall under Federal jurisdiction and the Federal labour board says you DO get paid overtime if you make less than some figure. This applies to every state including California of course.
They were VERY helpful and tried to involve as many employees in the investigation as possible (so as to help as many people in one investigation as possible). In the end I got a few grand back. (I remember one timesheet with over 179 hours in a 2 week period, yes thats right 179 in 2 weeks..)
Good luck with it!
If you agree to work hours for which you are not compensated, you are an idiot. Don't listen to the management bullcrap that "you are a professional, yadda, yadda, yadda" and you should work the hours to get the job done. Do you know any other professionals (Doctors, Lawyers) that work free hours? If my bosses want me to work extra hours, they must pay me for them.
Work is NOT your life, it only allows you a comfortable one. You only live once (except in video games, where three lives is standard).
The lazy guy will just sit back and do zip and get the salary, just like he will with the hourly wage. If he does less work, pay him less, or fire him. The Hourly/Salary distinction is irrelevant.
If he's clearly being lazy to gain more overtime, you could always forbid him overtime... but it still seems simpler to just pay him commensurate with what he accomplishes. If he does 50% less work than Mr. Super Productive, then set his salary at the right level. Tell him why. Be willing to adjust when productivity goes up. I'll bet half the time you get more productive workers, and half the time you get people who are content to do less for less. By paying him less of a salary, his overtime pay goes down proportionally.
Hourly keeps employers honest. Salary is a crappy, crappy system that allows them to milk extra hours out of their employees without paying.
Stuart, how the heck are you?
It has been a long time since I've seen a stwing anything in any form of electronic communication.
I'd give you a hint on who this is, but I doubt you would remember.
Let's just say I went by the name JoyDivision on a particular flame group a while ago.
I hope all is well dude.
I'm salaried...so when I stay here until 8pm a couple of nights a week, what do I get? Oh yeah!
NOTHING!!!
Wooohooo....oh wait...no. That's right, I hate that part.
If you're getting that little, you're already a schmuck for agreeing to work for so little. I wouldn't be surprised that people who agree to code for less than $41 hour are the same ones who don't complain when they're not getting overtime. $41/hour or less to write code? That's pretty sad.
Many companies don't know about the law, and most employees certainly don't. As soon as my company discovered the law, they worked to be compliant ASAP. But it was a surprise to us. I have no doubt that there are lots more out there that have no clue, and will continue to live in blissful ignorance.
Please note I'm posting this anonymously as I don't want to be singled out from my old company. (Oh, and of course, IANAL.)
The old company that I worked for required us to work 80 hrs/wk, 7 days/wk for 6 month. I (and most of my co-workers) got pretty fed up with this, so we started looking into California State law.
The law that is being referred to does seem to indicate that MOST IT proffessionals should get paid overtime.
In English, the law says that if you are paid less than 41 dollars per hour, (that is, your weekly salary divided by 40 is less than 41 dollars), than you should be paid overtime (515). However, you are exempt as a computer programmer if you are a senior level engineer. (515.5)
As I and my coworkers were all qualified as junior -mid level programmers, we went and saw a labor attorney. He told us that we had a very strong case, and that we would almost certainly win a dispute against the company. He said that there has been very little case law testing this new statute, and we would be breaking new ground. We're still deciding whether to continue with the case or not. So far, I personally have been duped out of about 25K in overtime.
Hope this clears it up for people.
You are absolutely right on the law you noted. While there are many ways employers can define your position to describe your computer related work as that of a "excempt computer professional" there is one requirement that absolutely must be met if "straight overtime" is to be paid: You must be paid 41.00 an hour to meet the final requirement of being categorized as an except computer professional. If you are not paid at least that amount salary/hourly wise, then the various multipliers kick in after the 8th hour daily, 40 hours weekly, or whatever agree upon 40 work calendar contract is exceeded. =8-) Guess what...alot of employers violate the 41.00 specification...especially those who consider following up work at home or work in response to a pager as not being work... =8-)
(1) [first paragraph snipped] This bill, except as specified, would exempt a professional employee in the computer software field from this overtime compensation requirement if the employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative, the employee's hourly rate of pay is not less than $41.00, and the employee meets other requirements.
(2) Existing law authorizes the Industrial Welfare Commission to establish exemptions from the requirement that an overtime rate of compensation be paid for executive, administrative, and professional employees, provided that the employee is primarily engaged in the duties that meet the test of the exemption and the employee earns a monthly salary equivalent to no less than 2 times the state minimum wage for full-time employment.
So as far as I can interpret it, it does look like programmers are, as a general rule, exempt from the OT requirements.
I do like the typo in the original, tho, which requires paying "ll/2 times" the hourly rate. 5.5 times what I'd normally get? Woohoo, bring on the OT hours!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There should be a law like this in Other states too....but I am not sure how many will follow it!!
In the company I work with, they don't pay us overtime, but they make sure we're not bitter about working extra hours.
First of all, we usually work 9 hours a day. And we don't mind, because the work environment is nice enough to work that we gladly stay the extra hour to get the job done (at least most of the time).
Then there comes that moment where the deadline is near and we have to really work overtime. For example, in the last project I was in, we had to work for 3 weeks for about 65-70 h/week. On the second Saturday we came in, the department manager (yes, she is nice enough to stay with us on those long hours, making sure that we're well feed and giving us moral support - and we appreciate that, even though she doesn't help that much on the tecnical side) sat down with us and made us a nice offer - once the project was done, we'll get 2 days off (one or two developers at a time), plus 1 extra vacation day. This is the second time they've done this, and they really mean it. We all got long weekends after all the hard work.
I think this kind of policy benefits both the employee and the employer. It benefits us because we avoid burnout, and get some recognition for the extra time we put in. Most of us took a Friday and a Monday off, and took off to the beach (we are based in Costa Rica, currently in the middle of summer). And it benefits the employer because he knows he can count on us for those times when an extra effort is needed, and keeps the employees with a nice morale.
-.
I work for A Very Large Game Company and we've encountered this very situation. One engineer discovered this regulation and went to management to request his fair due.
Their response? They flatly denied we were owed it. And since they have way more lawyers (and money) than we do, we basically have to take it, or walk. (The guy in question left, rather than continue to put up with it. I'm still here, but bitter as hell.)
I'm told that a class-action lawsuit could be a possibility, but only if we can get enough people together to form the minimum "class size", and that seems unlikely to happen, since everyone is fearful of losing their jobs (laws forbidding retribution notwithstanding). If anyone knows of a way to gather Screwed Game Developers together to form a class-action group, speak up.
The ironic side note is that, though my stated salary is over the "exempt" limit if you figure it based on 40 hours per week, I'm below that limit if you figure it on *actual* hours worked over the past year. Sigh...
(And yeah, I'm posting anonymously, for fairly obvious reasons.)
So, I coming into work and after spending an hour, I feel lousy. I've been working hard lately and I don't feel bad about going home and sleeping.
Do I get paid for 1 hour or 8?
Right, 8. The flip side of overtime (because I'm except) is that I get undertime, too.
Btw, don't anyone tell me that if I work 8 hours a day for the rest of that pay period I have to take vacation to fill out that 1 hr day. Any time you work in a given day, you are paid. That's the law regarding exempt employees.
I've worked for several large companies and a couple of small ones. I've always left one job on my own for a better one. I've always worked on salary (i.e. 40 hours a week), even when contracting. In all instances I have found that from time to time upper management sets unrealistic goals that cannot be met without overtime. Very seldom do I work more than 40 hours a week so from time to time upper management finds that the deadlines were missed and they learn not to overestimate timelines otherwise *they* risk embarisment. Its usually not a big deal. A Friday deadline may be pushed back to Tuesday or Wednessday of the next week.
If I set a deadline then I will try to meet it by working some extra during the week (never on weekends though) because I feel that since I set the timeline (and unlike upper management am qualified to estimate programming timelines) I am somewhat obligated to meet it. If the schedule is held up by external factors though (usually the case) then the deadline gets pushed back appropriatly.
I always let management know the progress of the project.
Now, this isn't to say I won't work a 10 or 12 hour day. I may indeed do that for various reasons, usually because I am "in the zone" coding wise. But, I always try to make up for it by leaving early or coming in late other days of the week. Sometimes a very long lunch will easily make up for it.
Lastly, I try to keep my time sheets consistant. Always right around 40 hours and always around 8 hours a day. Even if I do put in a 10 hour day one day and a 6 the next I just even it out to 8 and 8.
Now they don't even call it "Human Resources" - they call it HR.
They've removed even the Human part of it. You are just a single letter.
I just wonder how long until they rename it "MeatWare Exploitation"
www.eFax.com are spammers
The bill that was signed does not say that programmers who make less than $41 per hour must be paid overtime. Quite the opposite: the bill specifically creates overtime-exemptions for certain employees who make more than $41. You might think that is the same, however it is not.
The bill creates an exemption for (some) hourly-paid professionals, where previously only salaried employees (those who are not paid by the hour) were exempt. All programmers I know are salaried. If you happen to be a programmer at a company where you need to punch in and out every day, and your hours are counted, then you might be entitled to overtime pay, however this bill has little to do with that (as it is about creating exemptions to the right to paid overtime).
...for helping to accelerate the export all the rest of the programming jobs overseas. Globalization is here, but thanks to short-sighted laws like this, California software professionals are going to feel the bite a little sooner than the rest of us.
At the very least, I think you might see quite a few firms picking up and moving operations to Utah and Nevada in the near future.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
The US doesn't provide military support to anyone other than Israel (our 51st state!) If we didn't do so much to make people hate us, we probably wouldn't need to piss so much away on our military either.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
for every hour I work I get paid. After getting burned several times, I worked OT and sacrificed for 'the team', I cannot see any advantage to working as an employee. I price in and pay my own benefits, both health insurance and IRA's are 100% tax deductgable, I also get tax breaks on software and hardware I buy, journal subscriptions, etc.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
RadioShack lost a multi-million dollar lawsuit brought against it by it's salaried workers(store managers, district managers, etc.) in California for just this sort of thing. It was November/December of last year.
I just took a new job with a place that got unionized by the IBEW about 10 years ago - including all I.T. functions. Yup, union computer programmers.
Look for the union label, just don't GOTO it.
OT (1.5T) for over 40 or over 8. Call-in after shift is OT. Weekends/holidays are 2X. Considering I'd just come off a two year consulting co. gig, it was quite a change...
The funny thing is that the exec mgr here likes to pretend that the union rules don't count: he insisted we all all have lunch together to work on a project (you know, it'll be a fun team-building kind of thing). Big surprise for him: every programmer got 2 hours of OT, as specified by the contract for our little lunch together.
There are downsides: seniority uber alles. Dues & fees. But the retirement, after vesting for five years, is much better and the co. has a 401k plan (no matching, sadly).
When I started, I was surprised to hear I was covered under the Generation contract. What, cool code names for contracts? Shades of star trek.
Nope, programming was lumped into the contract with the technicians that work in the power generation facility.
It's the dramatic, negative reports that get heard.
I'm in the US, I have great working conditions, I get paid for overtime (not time and a half, but then I'm salaried - I get paid for undertime too ;) ).
But I don't have to Ask Slashdot about it - I'm happy. My story is uninteresting, and won't generate lots of comments and page views.
valley or the bay area in california...
My employer just settled a $16 million law suit regarding overtime for technicians. 2/3 of the 20,000 calif employees are now on time sheets, and due overtime. On a side note they've scheduled CLOSURE for 3 of the 5 CA centers already, and are studying the feasibility of moving the rest to KC Misery. Thanks go out to the CA legislature, we really needed the help.NOT
I've lost comp time, my 9x80 alternative work schedule, and now I suffer an additional tax burden because I work overtime, so uncle sam get a bigger slice of my pie...all in all this BLOWS
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Everyone should read the Grapes of Wrath in school. It clearly portrays how you CANNOT accept lower wages than you are worth because in the end you are just making it worse for everyone. They'll decide to lower wages again and if you refuse to work, they'll fire you and hire someone "who's just glad to have a job". It's people who have this "just glad to be working" mentality that make the marketplace worse for employees. Of course, you shouldn't have ridiculous requests, but if people don't stick together on certain basic employee rights then everyone gets screwed. This is why unions are useful. They help people stick together and prevent the "just glad to have a job" people from making it impossible for someone with reasonable pay/overtime/benefits expectations to get a job.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
If you enjoy working 80 hours a day, then by all means keep at it. But document your overtime, and keep copies. At the very least, by documenting your overtime, the company will find out a quantitative measure of just how much extra effort you are putting into the project. When the CEO leaves after a "long day" at 5:45, s/he has no idea how much longer you're staying there. Documenting your overtime delivers the message.
However, if you and your company ever unamicably part ways, bring your overtime documentation to a good employment or labor lawyer, and watch your severance check grow to an almost reasonable amount. As long as your company still has assets, you will be able to collect something. Wage claims take precedence in bankruptcy court. Statutes of limitations on unpaid wage claims vary from state to state. Some states allow claims as long as 5 years after the work was performed. So if you've worked 80 hours a week for 5 years, you may end up receiving 7.5 years' salary in one lump sum.
... that our having a large military is why you don't need one?
5 times the minimum wage. Once you pass that magic number you're exempts from getting time and a half
It's perfectly logical to ask for paid overtime but then again it's also logical to work only 40 hours a week. Personally I would rather put in my due dilligence and work overtime for free. As a reward I expect a higher bonus, a higher raise and more respect around the office. Then there is the fact that this economy has a high unemployement rate. Asking for benefits, even if they are deserved, will make that guy with an application that much more appealing to your supervisor.
I've noticed that some posters have left the impression that if you are an "exempt computer professional" you are working for free beyond 8 hours or a 40 hour week... Not true.... Read carefully... "515.5. (a) Except as provided in subdivision (b), an employee in the computer software field shall be exempt from the requirement that an overtime rate of compensation be paid pursuant to Section 510 if all of the following apply:" Note the keywords - "exempt from the requirement that an overtime rate of compensation be paid pursuant to Section 510..." It doesn't do away with the foundational definition of an 8 hour workday or 40 hour workweek. 510 does not distinquish between hourly or salaried...doesn't matter. All it says is - employers do not have to pay 1.5 or 2.0 times base hourly wage depending on the hours to applicable folks... In my experience, those people who are being slaved at 60-80 hours a week tend to be those who fall into 2 categories: 1. Didn't know their rights... 2. Or failed to exercise them and show some balls when words were floated around from above such as "not a team player" or "not flexible enough in achieving company goals" when reviews are coming up. Do I have a problem with this law? Actually I don't...it is reasonable in my opinion. Those companies that work in fields with high-paid professionals in which overtime is always present do need a break. Pay me a "professional" salary/wage (41.00/hr) and I'll go with straight overtime pay at 41.00/hr. Otherwise, a lot more companies in CA would already be packing their bags to head elsewhere. Those companies that try to have it both ways? Watch my sign language... I've been in this situation in which myself and quite a few others did not budge. In good companies, the manager or director who try's to pull this off often gets tolds to check with the corporate legal department and HR in the future before "trying new cost savings ideas". As to licensed physicians and practitioners - have to admit they are screwed in some ways. Poor folks... =8-)
I agree with the learned AC. When my 8h are up for the day, I leave. Buhbye, seeya, I'm out of here. I like my job, and I have been known to work on it casually outside of work hours ("duty reading" and the like), but I rarely if ever put in any actual "overtime," and, because I'm hourly, I bill for it. All of it. I figure that if my boss wants something done badly enough that I'm in the office from 9AM-7PM and working through my lunch (hypothetically speaking) he can damnwell pay me for it.
That said, I don't get to collect "overtime" per se, because the local jurisdiction's answer to Mussolini just gerrymandered the rules about overtime so if you work greater than an average of 70 hrs a week over a pay period, then you can collect overtime, not before. I usually am in the wind by then...
It's much more important to have a good quality of life than an overweight paycheque, I think. For me, anyway, quality of life !=more money, always. I would rather have time to get extra sleep, time to read, and do my own stuff, than the few extra bucks I could earn by working more than 40 hrs. in a week.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
What about OT laws effecting 'computer professionals' such as myself who have to goto bed each night with our beeper/cellphone attached to our boxers in case an application server goes down at 3am? Do network administrators fall under the Federal exemption?
I work for a software company in a state with no labor laws, so i'm assuming we fall under federal regs. One thing I know for sure is that we are expected to respond to an outage 24/7, though we get zero to little compensation for it.
I worked for a company and got screwed out of a ton of cash because of the way these laws work. What also got me is how this is worded in the handbook we got - which has now been amended online: "Employees who refuse to work overtime when they do not have a valid emergency that prevents its, and when no other qualified employee is available, are subject to disciplinary action, and may forfeit future opportunities to work overtime." What I always found humourous was the last part about forfeitting future opportunities - hell, if I'm not getting paid for them, you can keep 'em. I didn't quite agree with this policy, especially after I wound up working 21+ days straight with over 8 hours a day. Shortly thereafter I quit and since I was the "qualified employee" the OT clause talks about - most of the projects I was involved in still haven't been done. BTW, I've been out of there for 5 months. Back on topic though, the system is in failing. Most of the places I've worked required you to work OT without pay - some would be nice and give you time off (comp / flex time) or get you dinner or some gesture of good will. Most just expect you to work the hours and shrug it off like you did nothing. That makes an employee feel like crap. The problem I see with companies is that they don't want to hire on new people because these laws, most from the FLSA, exempt tech employees. In my case I was a network engineer who drove a company truck. Since I could travel between South Carolina and Georgia, I was exempt since I fell under the Interstate Commerce portion of the act. In some cases you work in a team and you fall under a quasi-supervisor position that they can claim you held.
...the Industrial Revolution (the 72 hr. workweek, sweatshop conditions, etc.) because the rich people who own the businesses are nice, did you? (Come to think of it, many programmers have never really left the Industrial Revolution.) Unions were one of the major ways people got important occupational well-being, health, and safety regulations passed.
Just because we work with futuristic technology doesn't mean we must be completely ignorant of the past. Look up some labour history sometime, why don't you? Here is a link to a local IWW chapter dealing almost exclusively with IT workers. Granted, the IWW is the most left-leaning and fanatically political union around, but they have a fascinating history, and might be worth a look for interest's sake, if nothing else. Here is a link to the union which represents unionized programmers in Canada, the CEP/SCEP. So apparently not all programmers think unions are a bad thing.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
No matter whether you get paid overtime or not. You'll never get the shaft as bad as those who work retail management. Your often forced to work 60 to 80 hours a week for a lousy $30k a year. And if the flu is going around don't be suprised if you work 100 hours a week. The whole philosophy in retail is if something needs done and there is no pay for staff to do it just make the manager work more. You think I'm wrong but I'm an expert on it, my dad has worked in retail for over 35 years and I worked it for 8 years before going back to school. You can never work so hard for so little until you work retail.
If your not cheating your not trying. If your not trying your not winning and if your not winning why play?
...spoken like someone who hasn't looked for a job in the last 2 years. When was the last time you found a new job? Me, I looked for 18 months while I was subjected to 7x18 hour support of a pathetically performing national news website. Now that the huge multi-national conglomerate that owned my previous employer outsourced our division to save even more money I still haven't found a new position at even 60% my previous salary. In this job market employers will treat employees as shittily as they want.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
As a Swede and an exempt California software engineer, I have to respond to this, even though it will kill two of my moderator points.
The exact same thing happens in Sweden. Once you get above a certain level, you do not get paid overtime. I remember a friend of mine at Ericsson who routinely worked 80 hour weeks, and then he got promoted and suddenly found his pay checks to be cut in half.
And also, what you hear in the Swedish media aboput the hell of living in the US is mostly made up and distorted. I used to believe it, but then I moved here.
Also again, I get paid three times as much here, so if the Swedish tech companies do fine, maybe it's because they pay "slave wages"?
I claim typo... I really was at work until 3am most nights, getting in at 9am, and that includes most of the weekends. I'm still catching up on sleep as you can tell by my math!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you do this action as a group, or at least include in your communication to your boss that you are doing this because it is a concern of other employees as well, then you are also protected by federal labor laws. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives you protection to "engage in other concerted activities" and we aren't talking musical instruments. If they retaliate against you, you can bring a federal unfair labor practice against them.
Also there is safety in numbers. Your boss will feel less able to intimidate you if you aren't alone.
But that is my only addition to what is otherwise very good advice.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
In Washington, the magic cut-off was $27.63/hour, so that is what my last job paid.
What to do about it? We've gone to the state legislature in Olympia, but so far haven't _yet_ mobilized enough people to oppose the Washington Software Alliance lobbying. Heh - employers say that employees don't need a union but then they join things like the WSA and the Chamber of Commerce to have more power collectively. What is good for the goose is good for the gander I say.
I've read my history and know that the '40 hour work week' only came about because enough employees demanded it. Companies that reduced their work week below that often have seen increases in productivity (Kelloggs found this out - page 3 of this pdf.
But then now the work week is increasing as companies try to squeeze blood from a stone. I know that if I refuse to do overtime by myself, I will be replaced. What else to do but to demand better conditions as a group?
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
You're kidding, right? The CEO's of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, etc, etc, "just squeezed the company" to the tune of billions of dollars! These companies aren't unprofitable because the WORKERS were making too much money, or even because the economy is bad... it's because they were raped by their management. And this story has been repeated all across corporate America.
Sean
If you were a non-professional worker or just entering the labor force, living in Europe would be much better - guaranteed health care, good schools, decent holidays, great pension system.
If, on the other hand, you are a professional worker or otherwise successful, living in America would probably be preferrable - you've most likely got health care anyway, the ability to "take flight" towards decent schools, and most importantly: taxes are likely much lower for you and your fellow upper and upper-middle class citizens.
As for me, I'm rather poor at the moment, (recent college grad) but I certainly don't plan to stay that way so its hard to say which system I would prefer.
This article sums up the experiences of a lot of the posters here so far...
http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/jobsucks.htm
I rescued it off of the original Shift.com website.
There is a lot of talk in this thread about legally calling employers on their compensation bluffs.
Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought that prior employee references is critical factor in getting a new job, especially for less experienced developers with less than a handful of work history entries. If I buck the system, I won't be able to get a good reference, right? Won't that hurt my ability to get a new job?
Can less experienced developers afford to fight back against exploitation, or are we just stuck?
but where's the intimidation when a scab crosses the line.
Hey Jimmy! Go call the boys. Scabs? Forget'a bout it!
It's true.
Same is true for work.
Work needs to be finished and due in certian amounts of time. Work is work and thats life. The employer pays your bills and has a right to expect you to work the same hours like everyone else. Yes most white collar employers do expect there employees to work more then 40 a week. You did it in college and blue collar workers typically work more then one job and have to take care of family at home. This is life.
If you complain about working 70/hrs a week, you have to ask yourself why are you working 70 hrs ?
Are you too slow to finish it? Or is your manager incapable of estimating time or decides its a good idea to change the project requirements a week before the project is due?
If the problem is with the manager you and several other co-workers need a chat with his boss or HR. In this day and age a good manager is easy to find. Keep track of your hours. If you work alot of hours and results suck because of changes in requirments then your boss and not yourself will look bad. If the demands are not reasonable then the manager will get fired since no employee could ever finish it.
If the problem is you and your co-workers can not finish projects during a regular 40-60 week then it sounds like someone needs to get fired. Most blue collar jobs not only pay shit but if employees can not finish in less then 40 hrs a week they get fired. It doesnt matter how good the job is. Time = money.
Many white collar employers do not care as long as something is done. I oppose this law but if it is enforced then the employer has a right to make sure you finish in 40-50 hrs a week or else. I would fire anyone who filed a complaint agaisnt me if they worked more then 60 hrs a week on average. Under 60 I would pay you a time and a half but if you take this much time then your not good and wasting both your time as well as mine. I can find an experienced programmer for 35k a year now thanks to the economy.
THis is a double edged sword and the Chinese have a saying...be carefull what you wish for. If this is enforced you will be working like mad men.
http://saveie6.com/
Remember, it is my *right* to negotiate a contract with someone else and if we agree to pay me a certain way, then so be it.
After the Patriot Act II passes, you won't have any rights to do anything. Now shut up and show me your papers.
The problem with forming a Union is that it makes an antagonistic attitude between workers and management and essentially makes it permanent. If you have problems with how you're being paid, the first person you should talk to is your employer. Not your lawyer, not your co-workers. Talk to the person who can make something happen.
If that fails, then contact a lawyer.
Forming a union is an absolute last step -- something to do only when problems become epidemic among all employers.
I haven't seen that happen -- in fact, nothing even close to it -- here in the USA. With the exception of my current job, everywhere I've worked has bent over backwards to be fair and treat us well.
If I have a problem with how I'm paid and treated here, I'll deal with it in a friendly and professional manner with my employer. I will only start calling the lawyers later on, when an honest effort to make things work has failed.
And I won't consider Unionizing until I see these problems everywhere I go. And in four companies I've worked for, only one of them has had problems, so I don't think we're anywhere near that point.
I'll ask the H-1B who took my job
that was my employer's response, and I'm going with it.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/11040.html
When you use object oriented Perl 5, everything takes four times as long.
A few years back we had to deal with Philips in Europe (aka Maggotbox, I mean Magnavox here in the U.S.) Even with shipping deadlines on hardware, their programmers left at 5:00PM sharp. While we worked round the clock to meet deadlines, planned features simply got left out of hardware because the European coders didn't give a shit. Try that in the U.S.
Exempt status is one of the absolute worst things ever invented. Especially in Arizona, where the labor laws are a joke.
Until about a month ago, I worked for an international technology provider for the hotel industry. ALL of their salaried employees are exempt, and their salaries started at about $20,000 a year. My job as a Business Support Analyst frequently required me to work overtime, sometimes working 80 hours in a week. In the month before I left, I was expected to work several 24 hour shifts, due to contracts we had made that we could not keep.
Exempt status seems to be a license for slavery. It's the reason I left the company. $24,000 a year is a laughable sum of money for the expectations that were placed upon us. Unfortunately, I'm now one of the masses of people scrambling to find work.
i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
I can't stand it! So many posts and not ONE that seems to address the specific issue at hand -- California's employment laws! All this discussion of generic definitions of overtime etc are great but not the point.
I have had a running battle with my employer about this ever since it took effect, so let me try to illuminate this all..
BACKGROUND
There is a federal law called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that defines which employees can be treated as "exempt" (from overtime pay) by employers. In 1992, the US Dept of Labor expanded the definition to include highly-skilled IT personnel. Basically, anyone working in IT in a "highly skilled" position OR earning at least $27/hr could be exempt. Highly-skilled was defined to include managers and anyone employing creativity and/or decision-making power.
Labor unions in California fought this definition and a new state law (AB60) took effect on Jan. 2000 which changed much of the standard ... in California! Specific to IT, it raised the minimum allowable full-time wage to over $40/hr. Effectively, all but the most highly-paid programmers etc wouldn't be paid enough to be exempt from overtime.
THE PROBLEM
I've been arguing with my employer ever since this took effect. At first they agreed to pay me overtime but then reversed their stance when they realized how much overtime I worked. We then merged into another company and this new company is insisting I have "managerial" responsibility and thus exempt regardless of wages; in the new company I have MUCH less responsibility than before...
You can search the internet for "california overtime" and find lots of analysis, e.g. from consultants and lawyers.
I'm doing a contract to perm gig now, and only saving grace is I get overtime. But needless to say the permement employees don't get overtime and they want to move contractor over as soon as the contract permits.
The industry is abusing people like crazy and getting worse with the bad economy. Something needs to be done. We used to joke about CPU the Computer Professional Union, but maybe it is time. Of most companies will just continue to outsource work to India and other low wage countries.
The bill says over $41 an hour not under $41
515.5. (a) Except as provided in subdivision (b), an employee in
the computer software field shall be exempt from the requirement that
an overtime rate of compensation be paid pursuant to Section 510 if
all of the following apply:
(1) The employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual
or creative and that requires the exercise of discretion and
independent judgment, and the employee is primarily engaged in duties
that consist of one or more of the following:
(A) The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures,
including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or
system functional specifications.
(B) The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation,
testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including
prototypes, based on and related to, user or system design
specifications.
(C) The documentation, testing, creation, or modification of
computer programs related to the design of software or hardware for
computer operating systems.
(2) The employee is highly skilled and is proficient in the
theoretical and practical application of highly specialized
information to computer systems analysis, programming, and software
engineering. A job title shall not be determinative of the
applicability of this exemption.
(3) The employee's hourly rate of pay is not less than forty-one
dollars ($41.00). The Division of Labor Statistics and Research
shall adjust this pay rate on October 1 of each year to be effective
on January 1 of the following year by an amount equal to the
percentage increase in the California Consumer Price Index for Urban
Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.
(b) The exemption provided in subdivision (a) does not apply to an
employee if any of the following apply:
(1) The employee is a trainee or employee in an entry-level
position who is learning to become proficient in the theoretical and
practical application of highly specialized information to computer
systems analysis, programming, and software engineering.
(2) The employee is in a computer-related occupation but has not
attained the level of skill and expertise necessary to work
independently and without close supervision.
(3) The employee is engaged in the operation of computers or in
the manufacture, repair, or maintenance of computer hardware and
related equipment.
(4) The employee is an engineer, drafter, machinist, or other
professional whose work is highly dependent upon or facilitated by
the use of computers and computer software programs and who is
skilled in computer-aided design software, including CAD/CAM, but who
is not in a computer systems analysis or programming occupation.
(5) The employee is a writer engaged in writing material,
including box labels, product descriptions, documentation,
promotional material, setup and installation instructions, and other
similar written information, either for print or for onscreen media
or who writes or provides content material intended to be read by
customers, subscribers, or visitors to computer-related media such as
the World Wide Web or CD-Roms.
(6) The employee is engaged in any of the activities set forth in
subdivision (a) for the purpose of creating imagery for effects used
in the motion picture, television, or theatrical industry.
Just pack up and move! What if I want a good job, and I want to stay near my family, my friends, and the place I grew up? What if I actually love the country I live in? I guess in your world, I'm screwed, and should just start learning French.
I find it laughable that you claim that in a "global economy" anyone could just pack up and move anywhere in the world they want to to find a job. Capital and goods may be free to move about the world, but people still have to jump some very high hurdles to move to other countries.
I'm also guessing that, while you evidently feel it should be your right to live in any coutry you choose, you wouldn't want your country to open up its borders to all immigrants.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The upside to this is that you do not have to work 40 hours a week. I first heard of this because the last time i was in crunch time at my company, my father told me about a law that if your employer requires you to work certain hours and keeps track of those hours, you can sue to be counted as a non-salaried employee and get paid overtime. Since my company had a time sheet that we were supposed to sign in and out of and required us to be there during certain hours, i could theoretically have gone that route. However i didn't think it was worth losing my job for :)
If you work hard and finish up all your tasks and they can't come up with anything else for you to do, you can head home at noon. You don't even have to show up for that matter if you know for sure you've got nothing to do. The downside is if you have to stay late to finish up the stuff they want you to do, too bad. And realistically, how often are you going to tell them you've finished what you had on your plate and they don't have anything else ready to give you?
Theoretically you could tell them that you were going to come in from 5pm to 5am, and some companies would let you get away with that. However others will claim that being available to assist the other employees is one of your tasks, and if all the other employees are in from 9 to 5 (or any other relatively set time frame,) it's not the _company's_ fault, is it?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
involved in a lawsuit against my prior company for forcing 50+ hour workweeks (We were required to be in at least 8-7, it wasn't because we were just trying to get something done). There is also a 3 year statute of limitations so do it soon if you have a case.
California has it's own minimum exemption wage.
Read the link. That's "11/2" overtime pay, or 5.5X normal pay. Not bad!
It's not 11/2 times it's one-and-a-half times. That's 1.5X. Too bad!
Both California and federal law allow "highly compensated computer professionals" to be exempt. Under fed law, highly compensated is 6.5 times the minimum wage (=$27.63), and in California, it is $41 per hour. Under both laws, you qualify if you are paid the standard for every hour worked, not just 40 a week. There is more on this here http://www.fairmeasures.com/asklawyer/questions/as k310.html
Even if you make *more than* the standard, you still may be entitled to overtime if you are not a computer "professional." To be so considered, you must spend at least 50% of your time working independently performing one or more of the following duties:
"the application of systems analysis skills to determine hardware, software or system function specifications;
the design, analysis, testing or modification of systems or programs based on system design specs; or
the design, testing or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems."
If you think you don't meet this definition, start keeping track of your hours, excluding lunch and other extended breaks.
Trust me, I am currently suing my prior employer with several coworkers for requiring OT. Federal law says you must make at least $27.xx an hour to be excepmt, california law says $41 (43 this year). And these excemptions are all &&. It is not a || b || c, it is a && b && c.
Real coders don't need overtime, or sleep for that matter.
Be a real coder, and stop slacking off...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
In Germany (and quite possibly France) you pay close to 2/3 of your income in taxes (even if it isn't directly income tax). Germany is moving more and more towards a welfare state since the end of the Cold War. This is party why there is such a rift between the US and Germany on Iraq. The cultures are different, the priorities are different, and the choices have been different. I don't consider paying 2/3 of my income into taxes a "workers paradise," but then again I'm an American.
Dress up like a BSD Daemonette, and carry a *real* pitchfork.
Yarrrrrr.
This is completely untrue. You convince the interviewer you can do the job by actually doing the job.
Run, do not walk, to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of Nick Corcodilos' stellar Ask The Headhunter. Also be sure to visit his website at asktheheadhunter.com.
Change your way of thinking about the interview. Control it by showing the interviewer who you are. This doesn't mean the aforementioned thoughtful "mmmm" and "yeah" to BS the interviwer into thinking you're listening.
Get Nick's book. You will not be sorry.
Sure, what you say sounds good on paper -- but in a depressed economy, it's not very practical.
Many employers know the deck is stacked in their favor right now, so the demands for extra hours without extra pay aren't just coincidence.
I know right now, in my own situation, I'm putting in a lot of unpaid extra time at my job. Does my wife like it? No, not at all. I constantly get lectured on how I can't keep doing this, etc. etc.
Fact is though, I'm just thankful I finally found another job in my field (computer support/consulting/service) that gives me some challenges to solve each day, and something new to learn here and there. If I thought I had other, similar employment options readily available right now, I'd get up and leave in a heartbeat. The pay is about half what I used to make, unpaid overtime not factored in.
Still, I'm scraping by now with just enough pay to keep the important bills paid up - and that sure beats unemployment pay that doesn't begin to cover them all, or some dead-end temp. job that's not even in my field.
Anyone who values their family is also acutely aware that their child's welfare depends on them bringing home that paycheck every week or two. If a condition of my continued employment is "going above and beyond the average work-week" right now, then that's how I guess it has to be.
Seriously. I've heard of way too many people going into "consulting" or "contracting" with not the slightest idea how to get themselves affordable health care or life insurance nor how to handle their self-employed income taxes. Some have been surprisingly naïve about taxes, and it sounds like there are lots of small operations openly suggesting that being paid as a contractor allows one to skip paying taxes.
You said,
Before one would even think of hanging out their own shingle, one must remember that roughly half of the money coming in will be going right back out again for taxes and insurance. Skip those, and you could end up in a lot more trouble than the money you "saved" can compensate for. It's difficult to support anyone while sick, jobless, jailed or dead.
-Rick