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New Overtime Rules Have Short Shelf Life
rwiedower writes "So the House just voted to scrap the new overtime rules that went into effect August 23. The vote was 223-193. Were the new rules designed to shaft IT workers from getting overtime? Or were they merely designed to streamline outdated rules?"
It happened in Ontario in 2002, they took away IT professionals ability to get overtime and other exceptions and nobody seemed to have cared :(
If anyone is in Ontario, is a geek, and in IT we must repeal the 2002 regulations putting IT into slave labour jobs!
Everyone wants a Tux in their life.
I usually hate unions, but tech workers are one of those places where push has gone way past coming to shove. IT workers have been abused terribly for a very long time and we can only take so much abuse before we get fed up. So long as the membership isn't compulsory, the union sticks to JUST negotiating labor contracts and the workers keep a sharp eye on both the company AND the union, it just might work.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
I think most technology workers (myself included) are much too individualistic to ever see much benefit it unionizing. Most of us would rather negotiate on our own terms without letting a middle man in on the deal. Many of us have witnessed the other downsides of unions as well.
Pricing themselves out of jobs.
Promoting mediocrity.
Antagonising non-union workers / coercing people into joing.
Attracting organised crime.
(waiting for the pro-union flames)
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
All of the recent court cases I've read have indicated that the courts are sympathetic to salaried workers that have to put in overtime, and they often find in favor of those employees. Still, IANAL.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
What benefits would employer-hostile unions provide when our jobs can be easily shipped over seas? Manufacturing plants are much harder to move than IT call-centers and programming teams.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
Do you think there would be an increase in skill level or a decrease in skill level because of "union protection" ?
-Randy
The 223-193 vote in favor of blocking the rules defied the White House. A threatened veto applied to veto a massive spending bill, now on the House floor, if it contains any language tampering with the rules that took effect Aug. 23.
am i the only one who thinks this is worded very strangely....cant really understand what it is saying. bush is threatening to veto a veto? they are vetoing a veto? or there is only one veto?
real confused on that one.
Depends on the union.
Unions are all about politics like anything else. My father has served as a district president for his union as well as grievance officer, both for several years.
He is one of those kinda of people that want to do the right thing and fuck everything else...before he was grievance officer, folks would just fight to keep *ANYONE* on board. Guys have a drug problem, well thats not their fault they showed up fucked up...we'll go on strike if you fire him. After, he made sure the slackers got fired because folks like that only made his job harder.
It got to the point, several of the idiots actually tried to organize against him, but they were already out of the union as they were no longer employees...and the others were such slack asses they couldn't get their act together. He was reelected several times to this postion even though it was not what he wanted to do (and was in fact campaigning for the guy running against him in his last position) before he finally had to tell them if they put him on the ballot again, he'd resign if elected.
Unfortunately, many others want the big votes. They go about it by trying to win too many friends. Those are the ones that get elected nationally. I don't think the nationals do shit for unions...most of it is organized crime, IMHO. But at the lower end, there are unions that actually do some good and help folks out that need it, and help get rid of the idiots that don't need to be there. I know there were a few cases he did support the case of the idiot, begrudgingly, but that was because the supervisors didn't have paperwork...and that was just prudent common sense to keep everyone else protected.
Professionals and unions in the same sentence? I don't know. I never liked the idea of unions, but as a tech worked continually fucked over in my day job simply because I'm working for the gov't -- making less that some janitors because they put in the time and organized -- I am starting to rethink this. Why not. As professionals, we could do it fairly and not have to organize ourselves like say the steelworkers so where the union is set up as if everyone was fucking morons...they aren't, but the union wants to control them and pretends they are just as the management does. Us being pros mean we might be able to come up with ways not to let organized crime get involved and to streamline it where it has secure and honest voting while protecting only our interests and nothing else...
So what is the solution for the 21st century? Can you give us a way to fight back against the corporatists that are trying to steal middle class pay and middle class values away from us? What's the option? Violent Revolution? Sitting back and watching ourselves have a lower standard of living than our retired parents? Working for Chinese minimum wage at 24 cents an hour? Do you have a solution, or just more problems?
I know a lot of anti-union folks don't believe in class warfare- but face facts, the corporations have gotten together and unionized in the form of the WTO, and have fired the first shot across our bow. Are we going to let them get away with it?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Most IT workers I know are salaried workers. Meaning you got paid $X per year, divided up into weekly or biweekly payments. They could overwork you 80 hours a week or more, and you couldn't complain or else they'd use that At-Will Employment law to let you go. All other IT shops I knew about were the same.
That is, unless you were an entry level IT staffer on an hourly basis, and then overtime had to be approved by management before you could work it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Exactly. It was all designed as an incentive to hire more workers, instead of to work your existing workers harder. Since it's not working that way anymore (because the cost of benefits make it more expensive to hire new workers than it used to be), obviously we need to *raise* the overtime rate to rebalance the equation. Like to 175% of base pay.
I *think* I'm being facetious...but I can never tell for sure.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
Yeah, you said it. This is all nonsense. I thought this kind of thing was what unions are for (at least in theory *cough* *cough*). It's just like minimum wage laws. People think you can crank up the minimum wage and the money just materializes out of thin air. Somehow the idea of people losing jobs because of it, as well as paying higher prices (which hurts most those very people the law is supposed to help) doesn't seem to cross their minds. Meanwhile, laws make it harder and harder to get rid of employees without risking legal action, so the employees you are paying more for go down in quality, because there's less incentive to be productive and/or compete. Our communist friends took this to its logical conclusion but apparently could never see that its failure was inevitable.
I can appreciate that low income employees don't have much leverage, but I'm so sick of hearing the endless litany of regulations being passed. How long will it be until the rules are so complex that no one can understand them all and law enforcement can prosecute people at random because everyone's guilty of something if you look hard enough?
Oh, wait, that's already happened.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
This is not true. Safty concerns cause governments to regulate working hours. You want bigrig truck drivers on the road 16-20 hours at a time, falling asleep and causing accidents? You want to work with a 12 hour shift forklift operator who's getting tired making mistakes handling heavy skids?
IT is not immune either, the more time at the keyboard the quicker your wrists will degrade. You don't want the state to have to pay more for your, and everyone elses, medicare just because you worked 2 hours more a shift for 25 years, do you?
Safty First.
For the first time in 16 years in the field I find myself in a union (IBEW).
Unbelievable:
Since I have to be paid for overtime (call outs are double time) I'm out of here at 5pm, sharp.
I've worked 55-75 hour weeks for so long I don't know what to do with myself.. Started working out, dating my spouse, developing non-work software again (shades of college).
Guess what? As much seems to get done at this job, just as effectively, as the other work-till-you-drop places.
Extra benefit: pointy hair boss' tantrums have limits. Distinct ones.
Downside: No recognition for achievement, in bonuses/promotions from boss - but the Corp. actually does give special recognition/awards to poeple who make a difference..
Having worked both ways, I'd really recommend everyone strongly consider what they think they know about unionization.
In theory the salaried employee should be averaging 40 hours week too. The idea is that keeping track of overtime and undertime is more work than it is worth for certain kinds of jobs. It is illegal for an employer to consistently expect more than 40 hours per week from an "exempt" employee.
However, in practice these salaried employees are often unaware of their rights, and in fact most of their management is unaware of the legalities of mandatory unpaid/uncompensated overtime. So, the effect is not just an ass-ramming but a group ass-ramming by all involved because none know any better.
That's one reason I enjoy working contracts at a set hourly rate. My ass remains strictly one-way and if somebody starts thinking about doing a little construction to make it two-way, I can just take off with no feelings of guilt or remorse.
Work once, paid once. Nice and simple.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Do you mean the people I have to deal with on a regular basis that make my job more difficult because they don't do theirs? Your own job depends on theirs and your attempts to educate them and their supervisor about about their refusal to work are ignored. Real nice.
Perhaps you should consider that the devil you know is not as bad the devil you don't know. Before this country's organized labor movement, working conditions REALLY SUCKED. How would you like to go 9 hours without a meal, water or even a bathroom break for 7 days a week?
Maybe putting up with a bunch of deadwood is the price you pay for not being physically tortured by your employer, just because he can.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Nobody want to be seen alienating plumbers (or whores), because they never know when they'll really, really need them.
During the recent democratic national convention in Boston there was a small, haphazardly organized attempt by the local sex industry to convince their clients during that week (i.e. a bunch of convention delegates) to support legalization of prostitution.
The plan was to wait until their clients were, "thorougly commited" to their current activities and then stop and say that they just couldn't go on because of the moral dilemma the current situation presented -- here they were participating in a clearly illegal activity with one of the people responsible for making it, or at least keeping it, illegal
Well, I haven't heard of any new bills to legalize the sex industry since the DNC ended, so I suspect the clients end up promising anything to keep the girls in bed, but then 'forgot' all about it afterwards.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Um, what if your boss, and all the other bosses, say, "work overtime for free." Or, what if, companies like walmart LOCK THEIR EMPLOYEES IN to get them to work overtime for free?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Well in a Libertarian society you actually have property rights. So having an industrial age job isn't necessary to feed and cloth your family. As long as you can have a little plot of land, some rain and some sunshine. Obviously we don't want to go to an agricultural society with a barter system, but it does give you leverage. Nobody should feel like they have to take a job or starve.
But with property tax, business licenses, sales tax, etc the way they are. It's basically impossible for an impoverished person to set up a tent and start a business selling home grown eggplants and cucumbers using the few dollars in capital they got from panhandling.
If you obviously are unable to work, then you can fall on the safety net of one of the many providers of aid (churchs, benefit groups, individuals, etc).
I'm not so sure Libertarianism can be easily reguarded as "crap", when it wasn't the reason for the collapse of the socioeconomic system in chile during the industrial revolution.
If you're wondering what the parent is refering to. Try this article on Anarchism in Chile. Or possibly he was refering to the book After Worlds Collide. Which is either socialist tripe or a fair warning of libertarianism and capitialism.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"If you think your employer is being unfair THEN LEAVE!"
That only works if there is a labor shortage. With outsourcing dramatically expanding the labor pool and a never ending tide of illegal immigrants cratering wages for manual labor in the U.S. there is a near inevitability that there is going to be a huge labor surplus in the U.S. There probably already is though the government cleverly drops the long term unemployed out of the unemployment rate and labor statistics.
Employers are astute enough to know when there is surplus labor. They dream of it and pay their politicians to make it happen (which is why politician look the other way and allow massive illegal immigration and promote out sourcing). When the labor surplus arrives most greedy businessmen cut benefits and salaries, and praise be their profit margins go up. There are a few smart businessmen that value and nurture good employees but they are few and getting fewer.
American workers are going to really suffer in the near future, more than they already are. It is good you praised unions from the early 20th century. If it hadn't been for them everyone would be working 7 days a week 12 hours a day for poverty wages. It took violence to break greedy businessmen who thought thats all workers deserved. Without unions and with a labor surplus workers may well start marching back to the dark ages.
Unions did turn corrupt for the most part, it was to bad, but all big institutions corrupt, government and political parties included. But its also true business and the Republicans, starting with Reagan in particular, have worked hard to destroy them.
The disappearance of unions and the pressures of outsourceing, globalization and illegal immigrants are going to destroy the middle class in America. The U.S. is going to end up 95% poor and 5% filthy rich like most 3rd world countries. In the news today, Los Angeles is already there. The majority of people in LA are now functionally illiterate.
If your in the lucky 5% you wont care either. You will drive in to a gated community next to the golf course and just not care.
You might think you are just going to retrain and be immune I think you are wrong. Unless you have skills that can't be outsourced, or you have the benefit of being born affluent so you land in the 5% you simply wont be able to compete with workers and wage rates in China and India.
When manufacturing cratered they said retrain for IT. When IT got outsourced they said retrain for biotech. When biotech moved to India they said....
@de_machina
That is very true. However, employment laws are written in the spirit of ensuring that that contract is followed by the employer. An employer will almost always have more leverage than the employee and is more able to bend the contract.
I agree a government should not set the terms of the contract. A government gives such a contract the force of law.
-phantom of the opearting system
The employers have their heads together figuring out how to screw over IT workers, I think IT workers getting together to protect our interests is a good idea as well. You can take your pick of which group, Washtech, Techs United, the Programmers Guild and so forth. The CWA in New York has meetings were people come together and discuss things. The important thing is programmers and admins get together with each other and find a way to protect our interests, just as the owners do in the ITAA and such organizations. These organizations are already out there so check them out.
Many many people at the top of these professions can clear 100K at fortune 500 companies even though the base pay top out only $25-30/ hour. Note: these are people that WORK all day...walking the beat, tending patients, drawing prints, building machine tools or installing computer hardware...these aren't "office" jobs...the companies are billing by the hour here!!! [the corps just don't want to PAY by the hour!] They work THAT much OT...routinely in these professions OT can be 50%+ of ones take home pay!!! But that's earned...but trying to make kids and mariage happen while working 60-70 hour weeks... [7 day weeks for 6 months straight, skipping vacations for 2-3 years...] Many of these people work longer hours than most 3rd world'rs do!
it's the middle class ...hard work and long hours for good pay and a nice life...it's what AMERICA is all about!!!
From IT Managers Journal
"Efstathiou agreed that while most IT workers would not be eligible for OT under the new rules, employers are likely to make up for any potential losses in salary or higher hourly pay."
I don't know about the rest of you but, I've never worked for a corp that decided to raise my pay because I worked a lot of "unpaid" hours. Hell most corps think compensation is something they have to hide from the IRS or its something the employees must give for the privlage of working.
"Efstathiou said some workers, such as sysadmins providing 24/7 datacenter support, may be hurt by the new rules, but added the biggest impact may be for employers when economic conditions improve."
"The law itself will serve to accelerate and exacerbate turnover and will impact employers more than employees," Efstathiou predicted. "That costs a fortune."
How is it going to affect the employer when most techs are unable to leave their jobs because there aren't any jobs to go to. Oh, my bad, he said "In the future, when the economy is better". Sorry, before the bubble burst it was possible to jump jobs with a reasonable expectation that there was another job waiting. That is not common in the IT world today nor will it be again simply because of the amount of IT workers competing for that same job.
Exclusions for high technology professionals
(effective October 24, 2003)
1. Meal Breaks. (You can't eat)
2. Split Shifts (completes the shift within 12 hours of starting work)
3. Minimum daily hours (0 Hours)
4. Maximum hours of work before overtime applies (Unlimited, No Overtime)
5. Hours free from work (0 Hours)
6. Entitlement to statutory holiday (No Holidays)
7. Statutory holiday pay (No extra pay)
I think that you are still allow to go to the washroom, although it doesn't explicity say that you still can.
I had a similar, happy arrangement with the company for which I used to work a few years back. I was part of a two-man administrative team, with a support team of up to five people. I also single-handedly built up the on-site consulting arm of the business. I was almost completely autonomous in my work, so long as I produced and things continued to work, everyone was happy. Being a some-what supervisory position, I had pretty flexible hours, and reasonable access to our servers and Internet resources.
In exchange for practically unlimited run of the place, I was expected to be available in the event of emergencies. Which in many cases I was right on top of right before or immediately after something happened, mostly because I had a lot of personal investment (time, reputation, curiousity) in the setup anyway.
And it was a fun symbiotic relationship between myself, technology, and my managers.
Until one day the insufferable prick, micro-managing shyt-head supposedly VP of the company took exception to my sometimes showing up a couple of hours past business open, or leaving on a half day. Mind you, this might be after having spent 20 hours of the previous day at the office, or on a several days project, and NEVER leaving the office unoccupied or without coverage.
He insisted that I begin to log my hours to make sure I was conforming to a proper work day. I told him right then and there that if I did so, he would wind up paying me a LOT more money, and HR warned of potential problems from labor department over the question of over-time and no lunches. His insistance persisted, and I decided that it was time for me to go on salary.
Why? Simple. I went on salary and began working standard work days. I arrived at 9:00am, and left promptly at 6:00pm. Sometimes 8-5 instead. If a project needed to be completed the same day and 6:00 rolled around, I left whether done or not. I felt that my prior investments in the company had gone unappreciated and for naught, and without further reciprocation; if my bosses were so conerned about me abusing the company, why allow the company to abuse me?
And that was that. A happy IT worker who, on meager pay, ensured that a business was always functioning, even using his own spare time to help grow the business by adding personal experience and knowledge to become used by the company to expand services -- no more.
There were a lot more thing involved in this than JUST the surface things here... there were the constant abuses and unreasonable requirements of employees as well. Once this insufferable prick left, things got a lot better, but never fully recovered.
A number of people in upper-management will (and have) looked at this situation and called me a spoiled primadonna. So be it -- but my shit worked, and whenever it broke, it got fixed. In return I accepted very minimal pay relative to my peers in the industry, and only requested unobtrusive uses of server and network resources. It was never about the money until this jack ass made it that way.
As my own business grows, I look forward to being able to provide a open environment like that to my employees. Like at the old place, certain employees are well-suited to a strict 8-5/9-6 job, so I will have those roles filled nicely. But behind the scenes, the thinkers, tinkerers, and fanatical workers who maintain the framework will be happily accomodated in manners best fitting their investments.
just like the losers that cry that they cant find any competent employees yet refuse to pay more than $8.50 an hour.
guess what... you pay very little then you get very little.
Unfortunately a requirement of being management or even a business owner does not include being smart in any way.
Here's a relevation for all of you. If you pay your people more, threy do better work for you and stick around. I know it's a CRAZY concept to pay someone what they are worth instead of trying to screw your employees so you can make an extra 1% on your cash-flow this year...
remember without your employees, you are absolutely NOTHING. get THAT through your head.
posting anonomous so my idiot boss does not know it is me.
From the Confederation of British Industry - from accountancyage.com
"The organisation for business leaders has indicated that the minimum wage is working and would be happy to see it increased if the economic environment is right.
The CBI's director general, Digby Jones, said: 'The minimum wage has so far been a success and it should not wither on the vine, so business supports modest rises if economic circumstances allow.'"
The "ridiculous practices" you refer to in such a vague way are worse than any modern wannabe-conservative-think-tanker cares to even consider when she's speaking glowingly of the private compact between worker and company. You mention specific business responses to Union activity -- the national guard and so on -- but you fail to characterize the terms of employment ordinary people lived with back then. They were striking for decent, human working conditions. Lining up around a business trying to shut it down doesn't come close to what they were subjected to in the ordinary course of their jobs. The business magnates of the day made the same arguments that they make today when they face any economic concession: if we have to give people working conditions that aren't appalling, that'll destroy our business. To describe them as not having the "moral high ground" is a ludicrous understatement. I mean:
That's about the "match girls' strike" of 1888 in Great Britain.
Like it or not, the U.S. isn't a pure laissez-faire economy. And you wouldn't trade your life now for one in such an economy, unless you're a Rockefeller posting as an AC out of shyness.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.