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EA Reconsiders Overtime Position
bippy writes "An internal memo leaked from EA to its employees says that the company plans to make more employees elgible for overtime. Rusty Rueff, senior vice president of human resources, bemoans the bad press and begs forgiveness: "As much as I don't like what's been said about our company and our industry, I recognize that at the heart of the matter is a core truth." GamesIndustry.biz has commentary on the story as well.
Wheee,
-- RLJ
It wouldn't take a Class Action lawsuit to get management to recognize that their actions is causing their product to suffer through abusing their staff. So much managerial bullshit, all about profit. If they actually have to pay their employees overtime, that would cut into profits. We can't have that!!!
Like EA, Wal-mart took great pains to deny its workers overtime (or promotion, if you happen to be female), and like EA they were eventually called out on it. Unlike EA, they are maintaining that it is necessary to their business model of offering a gallon jar of pickles for $3 that they not deviate from paying minimum wage. And if the employees don't get the store cleaned up in their allotted time slot, well then they better not object to working the overtime for free.
So, really, props to EA for admitting they were wrong. Publicity stunt or no, they've done something not every company is willing to do and should be lauded for that.
actually, that's got me thinking about who leaked the memo:
1. ticked off developer who sees this as nothing but HRspeke for "we feel your pain" and expect this to amount to nothing more than a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
2. happy developer who wants people to know that EA is trying to address some serious problems.
3. EA's PR group.
ed
Translation: "You sit on your ass all day and hardly break a sweat. Why the hell do you need overtime? So what if you never see the light of day or your family?"
Repeat after me, people: "This wouldn't happen if we had a union."
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
It might be that programmers who work their trade out of love of problem solving are to blame for this. I know many people, myself included, have put in voluntary overtime just for the joy of completing a project, or just being naturally engaged in your work. They say if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life. You don't even ask to be compensated in times like this. You just love what you are doing. At various times in the games industry, very creative work was being done, and it just may be that these carefree problem-solvers created an unrealistic expectation for all the others around them.
It's like the woman at the office who's husband sends flowers to every day. All the other women in the office adore this unseen male, but be sure that all the men in the office hate this guy for making them look bad.
Seems that everyone goes about their job (and love, for that matter) in different ways. Over-management and over-regulation do strange things to the human spirit.
The penal system can't hold all the people that do it. Fill in your own blank.
Not entirely correct. In several states, if you are hourly, and are paid more than some arbitrarily selcected rate, say $25 per hour, you do not get 'overtime' in the sense of time and a half for every hour over whatever period is in consideration, (8 per day, 40 per week.)
A significant fraction of games developers are earning more than this rate, so while they may get paid for the hours they work, they don't get 'overtime'.
A possibility is that EA is going to internally classify these jobs as eligable for 'Overtime' rates, of 1.5 times hourly rate per 'overtime' hour. The question then will be where they set the starting point for overtime hours. If they are exempt from state regulations relating to when overtime begins because of the pay rate, they could set the start at 12 hours per day, or 60 hours per week, and discourage developers from exceeding these limits.
-Rusty
You never know...
But I believe that's only when they earn more than $90k a year.
More like a choice between unpaid overtime and unionization. Workers aren't the powerless peons your comment makes them out to be.
Another one bites the dust
On reading this I'm sorely tempted to write to Rusty and outline to him in very precise and specific terms exactly why I think the company he works for gives capitalism a bad name. I wouldn't actually do it for the purposes of being purely vindictive, either. I don't necessarily want EA destroyed, because I really value the work of some of the assimilated companies. (Maxis, Origin)
What I *do* want however is for them to get a clue in a very big way, particularly as far as MMORPGs are concerned. UO is still headed for the gurgler and gaining speed, and The Sims Online has become an online sex pests' paradise, when the game was not originally intended for anything even remotely like that.
Electronic Arts needs radical reform...at the core ideological level. That article on here a few weeks back by the college professor showed me that...when he talked about EA's execs thinking of the company as being simply a vendor of boxes. If they don't get that reform, then they *will* sink. It won't happen overnight perhaps, but it will gradually happen. They need to start innovating again, and they need to prevent the soulless bean-counters from being in charge. There is more to games...and life itself...than *just* money...and if you don't realise that, eventually you'll get to a point where you're not making money either.
So, we can expect in the short term an increase in the cost of EA products maybe. What's this mean for their stock price? I dare not speculate, but those in the know can figure it out. What will the stock holders think of it? Will _THEY_ embrase the shift? Time will tell, but this could be a turning point for some, and perhaps set a trend for others.
On an interesting side-note:
I remember a representitive from EA visiting Carleton University to talk a little bit about game development and EA's corporate culture.
Do you know what the worst sin is when you work for EA?
Not shipping a sequel on time (for Summer/Christmas holidays or when a new season of NHL/NBA/NASCAR starts).
He stressed the fact that EA is not about creating new ideas, but relying on "tried and tested concepts". He said, if you want to work on experimental stuff you better join a independent game company, because EA is all about creating sequels to NBA,NHL,NFS,etc.
So don't expect them to come out with The Next Great Game anytime soon.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Gee, how many times have we (the trench workers) seen stuff like this before. After reading the memo and the ea_spouse posting, there was an all too fimilar 'ping' in my gut.
The EA management team should be paraded around the town square a whipped with wet noodles (or harsher) , pelted with whatever gum can be pried off the sidewalk, and humiliated in what ever manner seen fit. It is completely true that the ones that make the big salaries don't give much of a care about those minions below pumped for the bulk of the grunt work.
True, we (the worker geeks) used to be the cool ones a few years back. But that was then and now, it's back to the same 'ol same 'ol where the execs once again have the spotlight, the workers know their place, and the economy favors mostly those on top.
Frankly, I'm not much of an game player and will make it a point to specifically not buy EA games anymore - for myself or anyone else.
The leaked memo needs to go much further and pretty much include everyone in overtime rules. The fact that some will be looked at leads to a bunch of magic hand waving while the practices continue. EA's made a boat load of cash and should share the wealth with those who are probably most responsible for it.
But alas, the top execs and management need to maintain their pecking order and paychecks so their lifestyles can continue. Such is the way of things.
My advice to EA employees: stage a mass demonstration or walk out - organize! It's no fair that you get crap from all the hard work while others reap the real benefits.
I really hope the class action yields some cash for those who deserve and more bad press for EA and in fact, the rest of the software industry where this happens more than not. This type of work is not sustainable and we Americans need to stand up for better jobs and better working conditions (gee, that sounds historically fimiliar). Otherwise, companies will take everything they can, including your life.
A family member of mine works an "entry level" position as an Investment Banker for the big-name firm in Manhattan. Considering she works 90+ hours per week, she's not really being paid a whole lot, but she's gaining a hell of a lot of experience. Over Thanksgiving, I asked her how she liked working so much. She said that it was stressful, but exciting. Being someone who also works a fair amount (no but-you're-posting-on-/. cracks please) it didn't bother me. A lot of family members said she was being exploited etc. Her response?
"If I complained and didn't work as much, they have 20,000 applicants to fill about 50 positions available."
That's just the reality of the marketplace today. Even if our economy was doing really well, this would still be the case. It's capitalism. If you want less hours and less stress, there's a lot of options for you out there. I support EA in allowing them to work people as much as they want, as long as they are upfront about it. And since I'm not an employee at EA, I cannot say how truth- or untruthful they have been.
What I don't condone are actions of places like Wal-Mart that ask you to stay an extra hour or so "off the clock" to help out clean some aisles.
I don't support mistreating workers, but that doesn't mean I'm opposed to companies having positions where you work 80-hr week jobs.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
That said, I would gladly work 70 hours a week to be in the credits of a video game.
It's people like you who are causing these problems. So many people fought extremely hard for 35-40 hour work weeks, and you're ready to throw it all away so your name is in a list of credits that 3 people will ever read.
at a former employer. Company policy required managers to be present any time their employees were working overtime. As you can guess, we had to get management permission to work overtime, which was granted only when it was really needed. An interesting side effect is that our managers became very good at estimating the time needed for a project, and we were almost never late - with or without overtime.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
We are looking at reclassifying some jobs to overtime eligible in the new Fiscal Year.
We have no concrete plans to do anything at this time, but we do plan to talk among ourselves about it, and we're making sure you know we're planning on talking about it so that your hopes are raised without any actual promises of anybody getting overtime pay.
We have resisted this in the past, not because we don't want to pay overtime,
Government regulators held a gun to our head and told us we couldn't even though we really, really wanted to.
but because we believe that the wage and hour laws have not kept pace with the kind of work done at technology companies
OK, even you won't buy something that stupid. The truth is we knowingly broke the law because we thought it should not apply to us.
the kind of employees those companies attract and the kind of compensation packages their employees prefer
We hire young naive idealists and milk them for all they are worth. When they wise up, well, there's a sucker born every minute.
We consider our artists to be "creative" people and our engineers to be "skilled" professionals who relish flexibility
Clarification: by "flexibility" we don't mean that you will get to choose when to work -- it means that we know you value management's flexibility to choose for you.
but others use the outdated wage and hour laws to argue in favor of a workforce that is paid hourly like more traditional industries and conforming to set schedules.
We haven't figured out how to control project schedules. Learning how to do this is harder than getting the laws changed so we can put the onus for delivering poorly planned projects on you
OK, I'm not a huge fan of unions, but they're looking better every minute.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
For those who don't know - and for those that do, here's a refresher: Marx's Labor Theory of Value, though much critiqued in recent times, purports the value of product is a product of the various types of labor and resources that go into producing it. Typically, if one wants to lower the value of that product to make it more competitive, labor must be "squeezed". For more information, and a bit more lengthy description, click here. In relation to the issues of EA, as if EA were the only tech company with practices like these, it is obvious that programmers are the labor being squeezed. What makes the case interesting however is that as the economy becomes more competitive sections of labor that formerly considered themselves insulated from the squeeze are now feeling it. In many industries, the value of products reflects more the marketing costs than the actual production costs. I'm not sure about the specifics of EA games, but I'm willing to wager that they spend more money on marketing (NFL endorsements, advertising, packaging, etc.) than paying their developers and production staff. In the 1990's, we were warned about this happening. As more kids were guided into technology jobs - being told it's the way of the future - some bright individuals saw that eventually the high demand would bottom out. We still need programmers today, that's for sure, but just not at the incredible rate we did in say 1995. We have too many programmers for them to be a valuable labor commodity any more. Sorry, that's the truth. Next in line though to lose the value of their labor is likely to be the marketing guys. Not the football players or NFL execs, but the guys who decide which football players and what color to use on the damn box. Business schools are booming with students looking to fill these positions. Students enrolling in CS classes fortunately has leveled off, but students enrolling in business classes continues to climb. After all, you can't make much money doing CS, philosophy, psychology, or very many other disciplines. With marketing guys and business guys starting to be squeezed as well, unless something can be done to unite all labor, we will continue to see wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer individuals. In the US, the middle class is shrinking. Not because they are being paid less outright, but because there are fewer positions that pay what they should and the pay rates do not always reflect inflation and the pressing tax burden. Whether we like it or not, unless the labor movement can be revived, the average man will continue to see less value for his toil. EA is just one small example. In the immortal words of Malcolm X and many before him: "It's the chicken coming home to roost." Perhaps if the fortunate and privileged helped labor back in the past, their could it could have been a chickening coming home to roast instead.
EA Games is sure a bunch of nice, and mis-understood people. The president is a great guy, and it has only now come to his attention that there are massive and (possible illegal?) employee exploitation practices going on at his company. But since he is such a great person and he knows about the problem now, he will get to the bottom of things, and remove the evil middle managers that implimented such policies.
While his statements aren't this silly, I really doubt that he was unaware of the problem. This seems like a spin move to disrupt employee solidarity and the possible class action lawsuit that is being organized. It's exactly what I would do to try to drive a pre-emptive wedge in their ranks and avoid a costly lawsuit.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
True, and I tend to side with you on this one. But this is another case of an employer exploiting its workforce to a degree that's arguably criminal. Remember the genesis of labor unions was at a time where ungodly workdays and incredibly cruel punishment was seen as the norm, and often these people didn't have a choice, they were just happy to have a job. You'd think that the talent being hired at EA would be an exception, but the trap seems to be this idealism that game developers have about making games - the sort of rose-colored glasses mentality that comes from playing games all your life and getting to work on the next big one. EA's the big dog on the block, so it's no wonder they're recruiting people that will work themselves to the bone for them.
This is a step that's long overdue, it was a matter of time before some company pushed idealistic people like these game developers (or music industry interns, film students, etc) past their limits and undercompensated them for it. Argue what you want about how you would handle the situation, but I prefer to live in a country whose laws allow me to push back on an employer I feel is treating me badly rather than slink away and declare some kind of moral victory. EA would have continued this nonsense had we not seen the snowball effect from ea_spouse and others airing their grievances. They are well within their rights to do so and we shouldn't criticize them for it.
Maybe it might be beneficial for some of us and/or all of us to give investor relations at EA a call. Maybe ask them how this negative press is going to effect their sales and the current stock prices. and wouldn't you know they have a website. http://investor.ea.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=88189&p=iro l-contact
enjoy,
Lothar
snatch the pebble from my hand grasshopper........
So? Seriously, why should that matter?
It's fine that so many kids just out of college are willing to put in absurd hours because they don't know any better. But by the time they actually figure out how to do their job well (and it will be a few years), they might have pesky distractions like families, hobbies, etc.
The wizened old geezer of thirty is going to have a certain level of comprehension that he lacked when he was twenty-four and fresh out of college. But the management, in its infinite wisdom, only looks at the hours put in, and figures that if they won't put in the same number of hours as the college grad, then it would be inefficient not to replace the geezer with the grad. Hence, the geezer's choice is between massive overwork his entire career, and taking his hard-won knowledge and exiting the industry.
Hell, unionization would be a huge service to the game industry, but they're too focused on crunching out the next Mary Kate and Ashley crapware on an unrealistic deadline to notice.
Okay, that was funnier before Acclaim went under.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You want both a high paying job and no extra hours, don't you? What make you feel you've earned it?
Well it's not the extra hours per se. It's the fact that the workers aren't being paid for those hours.
Yes, the EA workers should quit. Their not working 40 hours for $60k, their working two 40 hour jobs for $30k.
Hmmm...No. I don't suscribe to all that "stay late to look good" crap. If my job is done, or at least on schedule, I'm out of the office.
/. and hitting alt-tab back to an application everytime someone walks by at 9pm just 'cause someone else is on a deadline.
Now, if I'm underutilized in a small group, I will always ask if I can help out, and will gladly pitch in to get things done. But don't expect to see me reading
(I should be speaking in past tense, as I work for myself now. When I'm busy, I work late. When I'm not, I go home and play with my kid.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?