Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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 :).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
See here for some more information.
That's right. If you're salaried, you're an "exempt" employee. I've been both salaried and hourly. Salaried works best for me as a department employee with long term commitments, bennies, and a MOL standard work week. Hourly works best when I've been a hired gun and working extreme hours. It also means that when the gig is done, you're gone.
The law exists to protect exployers from over working their employees. So why should a person making a high salary not have that protection? Personally I'd vote for the hourly limit to be 35 hours before overtime kicked in. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many unemployed people and people would get more time off (and less money of couse).
If you have need to work overtime then make sure it is logged and you claim for it.
If you are working overtime because the project needs to be finished, rather than because it needs to be done out-of-hours, log every hour you work, otherwise the situation deteriates into a vicious circle.
If a project is assigned 5 hours work and it takes 7 hours to finish, say it took 7 hours. If you say it took 5 hours and the client is billed for 5 hours it shows an unrealistic idea of how much work that can be done in a set time. Next time the client will want 14 hours worth of work done in 10 hours. And then the problem gets worse and worse. Eventually the programmers will be working 20 hours a day but only get paid for 8.
I've seen this happen at a company I used to work with. When I started everyone enjoyed working there and we used to go out for drinks every night. Six months later the programmers never came out anymore as they were working long hours for no overtime. Eventually a lot of them quit.
Check your contract. If it says you work 9-5 then work 9-5. Anything else they can pay for.
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?
I posted this below under 'Go On Strike!', but it seems more appropriate here:
Move to Europe!
I'm an American currently working in Germany which is supposed to be a worker's paradise. I moved here 6 months ago to work for an accounting firm just because I thought it would be fun to live in Europe for a little while.
My work experience has been much less kind then I expected. The company is great, and the people are nice, but the conditions are definitely not 'pro-worker.' My contract has a minimum 40 hour work week, I pay my own insurance, and my salary is less than half what it was in the States. My co-workers are literallly awed by the pay and benefits that I got in the US.
And the job market is just as bad here as it is in the US. In fact, unemployment is even higher here.
Anyone who claims that Europe is a better place to work isn't telling the whole story.
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."
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!
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.
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!
This is slightly off-topic, as I am a technician, not a programmer.
Well, I made over $41/hour working for my last employer (quite a bit more, actually, all things considered, viewed from a 40 hour work week perspective). At my last job, my title was "Vice President of Technical Services". But, I can say that overtime *should* be paid, regardless, and here is why:
My last job (2 years ago): In return for a great salary, plus a company vehicle for my work and personal use and full health insurance benefits, I worked anywhere from 60 - 80 hours per week, 7 days a week, and holidays.
At the time, I thought it was worth it: I was the "star" employee, first technician hired, bright, motivated - all the other techs came to me for help, and as a result, they could successfully complete their service calls with my assistance, thereby benefitting the customers and the company. My customers loved me, and I was happy doing what I loved to do.
For awhile, I enjoyed being "it", and thought that the time I spent working was the natural result of my skills and experience, and the need for my company to make money to offset my salary and benefits.
Now, I realize that I was wrong. I almost always billed enough time, directly or indirectly, during a normal business week, to justify my remuneration. The late nights, weekends and holidays were just "gravy" for my employer, since I was never paid for any of that time.
Weekend server migrations/upgrades (to save downtime for the customer, of course!): Billed at full rates by my employer ($95/hour at the time). LAN/WAN infrastructure improvements, the same.
Was I being compensated well? Absolutely. Was it worth the time spent? In my opinion, in retrospect, no.
At any given point, ALL of the time I spent beyond a standard work week was at my personal expense, just extra money generated for my employer. Over time, it became expected of me, and I bought into it, for years, as the price for employment, for being "good" at what I do. To my shame, I demanded the same from all of my technicans as well.
Training? Forget about it! My last boss wouldn't authorize training during business hours. If I wanted to learn, I did it on my own time. He would graciously pay for certification tests, but God forbid I should fail the first time.
Sadly, it has been my experience over the past 15+ years that this is the paradigm for all small-medium sized service companies, especially those owned privately. The technicians are merely cash cows to be milked. Technicians around here (Upstate New York) are salaried, not because they are being paid higher than normal, generally, but to save on overtime.
When I was fired from my last job (officially for "having been late for no compelling reason after having been previously warned" - tell me that a VP that sets his own hours can be late?!?), I set off on my own. I've done well over the past 2 years, and, when I needed additional help, I hired good technicians as subcontractors, and paid them the lion's share of their billable time (85/15 split - they get the 85 percent, after all, they are doing the work). I'm not getting rich by so doing, but I sleep well at night.
Over time, what I've come to realize is this: Money is a good thing, but money earned to the detriment of others ("greed") is not. The vast majority of managers, executives, etc. that have never been in the trenches, possess no technical skills to any great degree, view we geeks as chattel. The phrase "human capital" has been mentioned in the IT trade mags of late (notably in InfoWorld) - it underscores the problem, the perception that we geeks are merely plug-in components of a company's technical prowess, to be used, discarded and replaced at whim.
So, to wrap this up - Sure, $41/hour is a lot of money, but at what cost to the person earning it? If that person works 60 hours per week, salaried, what was once $41/hour becomes about $27/hour, and lessens with every additional hour worked, to the employee's detriment, NOT to the employer's.
So, I think that overtime, generally, is a good thing: It uses the motivation of management to generate revenue as a brake: The more we geeks work, the more the employer has to pay. It is a perfect example of negative feedback in its truest sense, and removes the incentive on the part of the greedy to exploit us egregiously.
Just my opinion.
dj
"But here I guess the terrorists have already won or what?"
...I should move.
You guys have a better sense of humor than we U.S. folk as well. Perhaps that's the product of less restrictive work conditions...
Regardless of that argument though, an American can always choose to move to Europe, or Europeans can always choose to move to America. You don't want to work more than 40 hours a week, but you feel that you have no other options in America? That's cool, move to Europe. It's a global economy, my friend. There's no reason to argue about this, just go wherever you're happy.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
But for the rest of us, you have to be as agressive as you can without being annoying. The first thing to keep in mind is to ignore job postings. In order for a company to actually post an open position, these things have to happen first:
- The person ultimately in charge of hiring has no friends he knows that can do the job, no one he owes a favor, and no relatives that have children or aunts or parents that could do it
- He asks his employees if they do, and none of them do either
- He asks his friends if they have any friends that could do it, and they say no
- He now goes to HR and tells them to just give him a very narrow slice of the resumes they get, maybe the first 50 resumes each day that have so-and-so experience, etc. There are already thousands upon thousands of resumes that HR has to go through, so this is the quickest. Only if HR feels it needs more resumes than it already has, and believe me it has a lot, will it post it to a job board. This costs HR money and time.
So now that you've given up on job postings, here are some recommendations:- Network: Make friends online that either do what you like to do, or even better, hire people that do what you like to do. I've gotten two leads this way. You can do this on IRC, AOL (managers hang out here), newsgroups, or open source projects.
- Research: Find the companies you really want to work for. Companies right now can afford to only hire people who were born hoping to work for them doing exactly the job they're looking to fill. So you might as well focus your energy on getting an interview with them. These companies' web sites will not list your position, but you will need to find the phone number of the secretary of the guy who is going to end up hiring you. Don't ask me how, but a friend of mine did this and now lives a lot more comfortably than I do.
- Have a backup plan: Things will not go smoothly. You need to stay focused but know where you'll live and eat while you job hunt. I personally believe that in these times, it's alright to live wherever you can, including with relatives that understand how hard times are right now.
Good luck!Disclaimer: I've been looking unsuccessfully for two years, and just got accepted to grad school for this summer.
Hmm, I guess you didn't read my entire post. I was fired - and I now make quite a bit more money working on my own than I did while working for someone else.
But, my point was this (and perhaps it was lost in the whole "$41/hour" idea):
Regardless of how much an employer pays a person per hour, or flat rate, there comes a point when they should pay overtime, whether that person is salaried or not.
Salaries should not used by employers to allow them to exploit employees, regardless of the salary, within reason. If an employee is worth, for example, $41/hour, to the employer,on a salaried basis (which is based upon a 40 hour work week) then why should they not be worth more when the employee is working past standard business hours? After all - they deemed his/her time/skill/experience/expertise sufficient to pay them that amount in the first place. Refusing overtime beyond a standard work week or a bit more (generally 10-15 hours/week) (or commensurate perks in the form of personal time, etc.) simply on the basis of "we pay you enough already" is tantamount to slavery: It indicates an attitude on the part of management that the employee's personal time has no value.
And that, IMHO, is one the things that is wrong with corporate America - the view that a salaried employee should be bound to work as long as is deemed necessary for no additional money, simply because they are salaried, and so, by "definition", are already being paid "more than enough" in their estimation.
Somewhere along the line - salaried has come to mean "enslaved" - a salaried employee feels obligated to work far beyond reasonable hours, simply because of their status as a salaried employee. In so doing, they give up their personal time to the company, to its benefit and to their detriment.
I am not against salaries, when working for employers that appreciate their salaried employees, and understand that it is, and should be, a balanced relationship.
I was a salaried employee for nearly 20 years, despite the fact that my jobs (field tech, etc.), aren't generally deemed to be salaried positions. Generally, I thought my remuneration worth the extra time I spent working, and was happy to do so, knowing that I was helping my company by billing extra time.
At my last job, I realized that it was being used to exploit my skills solely to benefit my employer.
And that is what I am against, most especially in a service industry: If an employer charges hourly for a service person, then they should not be allowed to pay that person a flat rate salary. That invites abuse.
Never having been a professional programmer, I cannot say whether or not the latter should apply. But, I can say this, in general: Salary is not an excuse to require people to work far beyond a standard work week to their detriment.
Just my opinion.
dl
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.
I worked as a programmer in the game industry for a few years. I was part of the Vivendi/Cendant/Sierra/Dynamix beast in Eugene Oregon. It really sucked. I loved the job itself and my co-workers but you can pretty much forget about having a wife, girlfriend, or meaningful relationships of any kind outside of work. Hell, finding time to shower, eat, or do laundry was a serious concern. The place I worked at had futons in each "team area" for "naps" and we had locker rooms with showers so we didn't really "need" to go home. There was just too much work and not enough time or people.
If you took my salary and divided it by the hours I actually spent there, I wasn't making much more than minimum wage.
The thing that sickens me is what they did to the QA staff. They worked ruthless hours, often sleeping under their desks between shifts for pay that wasn't much better than one would get at a fast food joint.
They tried to lure us to work later hours with perks like pizza (Oregon pizza is definitely not a treat), beer, and free pinball.
If I had it to do over again, I'd just put in my 40 hours a week and make them fire me if they didn't like it.
"What the market will bear" is an academic fantasy.
Not entirely.
It's gotten to the point now where Doctors are reduced to employees of Insurance companies who engage in restraint of trade and squeeze doctors from both sides with high malpractice premiums and less than break even re-imbursements for services rendered.
Very true. One of the businesses (independent medical practice) I am associated with is fighting very hard with the local HMO/insurance provider integrated monopoly (intermountain health care) just to survive.
The only problem with the Invisible hand is the damage caused to the economy while people are driven from the professions. Medical residency programs are already beginning to see less applicants than openings.
My folks saw this coming years ago and pleaded with my sister and I not to go into medicine. Hrmmm. Already there are physicians leaving the profession by retiring early or simply leaving the field for another and there are communities where finding someone to deliver your baby is almost impossible. For instance, my mother used to love to deliver babies, however the insurance premiums she was having to pay for this privilege actually were costing her money to deliver those children. Therefore she stopped providing that service in her practice, but here is the kicker....she has to maintain an insurance trailer from the time of the last child she delivered until that child turns 21!. And people wonder why folks are leaving medicine? The irony of this is that if you go into the parking lots of HMO's and "providers", the nice automobiles you see do not typically belong to the physicians. Rather they belong to the management. All managed care has done is move money previously being paid to nurses, technicians, and physicians to a new middle management. It is a farce foisted on the American public.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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 was a member of the IWW tech workers union in San Francisco. The IWW was founded as a response to the evils of trade unionism. Back in the early 1900s, people realized that corrupt unions were worse than no unions. In the IWW, there is only one paid position, the elected head of the union. Everyone else is volunteer. Dues are paid directly to the union, never taken directly from your check.
The IWW was the second union in the world with a web presence, second only to the Isreali Teacher's Union. I helped the IWW with the first cyber picket of Border's Books, when crackers we assume were hired by Border's attempted to take down our servers. Better than the old days, when companies hired the Pinkertons to kill union organizers...
Today, many unions are large beauracracies whose sole apparant purpose is to fatten beauracrats pockets. Union organizers cut deals with management to the detriment of the workers. Big unions sometimes ignore the plight of workers at smaller companies because there isn't much publicity in fighting those small battles.
But the idea of unions, that is, a bunch of little guys getting together to stand up to the big guy, that still makes sense. On a truely level playing field, in a true free market, maybe unions would be irrelevant. As long as business owners have all the power, while the working people who create the actual wealth in the world have very little, unions will be an important way to keep things a little more even.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton