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Activision Sued For Unpaid Overtime
In the wake of EA's employee settlement, Activision finds itself in a suit for much the same reason. Next Generation reports: "Activision's Computer Graphics employees, who work many overtime hours to produce Activision's profitable videogames, fully deserve to be paid all the overtime compensation to which they are entitled under the law ... Excessive overtime is endemic in the videogame industry, but we hope that this and other lawsuits will spur major changes in the way employers treat their employees."
In some places it gets even better. Consider folks logging extra hours against projects. Those hours get expensed but who is paid for those hours when you're salaried? Work gets capitalized but what happens when someone logs 41+ hours that are capitalized but you still only get paid for 40...
HMMM...
This is all conjecture of course.
This simply isn't true across the board. In the city I live in, a salaried woman sued her employer for a crapload of unpaid overtime and won. Even though her contract specified she would not get paid for OT, she won the case.
Normally, if you signed such a contract, it would be under the assumption that overtime would be infrequent. Employers then take advantage of you and work you 9 hours a day if they like.
Score one for the working stiff!
In some places it's nearly impossible to work hourly in the tech field. The real problem with unpaid overtime with salaried employees is that it generates abuse. A project sets an arbitrary deadline that can't be met. Tech-worker joe never saw the plan, never could contest the estimates, never sees a proper scope set for the work to be done; scope creaps, estimates are ignored and the plan is thrown out the window. But that's ok, everyone will work 60 hours a day for 2 weeks so a Project Manager can hit his bonus.
It's not fair, it's not right but it is legal and it really sucks for those folks who have an aptitude in this field.
Oh and don't get me started on how this is keeps new jobs from being formed because so many people are getting overworked.
Oops, how did this get here?
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Walmart? Your kidding?
You may want to google them and use the term unethical when your bored. Walmart is also using imminent domain laws and lobbying to create new super centers. That means Walmart is just taking land away from people.
Also their headquarters was upgraded courtesy of our tax dollars of course costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Disgusting isn't it?
http://saveie6.com/
I thoroughly agree. And really, what is overtime anyway if you are expected to do it all the time?
Take your salary for the year/month/week/whatever, divide it by the number of hours you worked over that period, and then adjust for superannuation contributions, fringe benefits, leave, public holidays, etc. That's how much you are effectively being payed per hour. If the figure is acceptable to you then stop complaining. If it isn't then discuss it with your boss and go from there. Certainly don't sulk about it quietly for years and then take your employer to court because you didn't have the balls to ask to be paid what you are worth.
I assume your dad would have been payed a wage that reflected the fact that he worked 10-11 hours a day. If he didn't, then he was being screwed over, but I suspect that if he stuck with his job for 20 years then he either enjoyed it, he was taking a wage that paid him for the hours he worked (even if the word 'overtime' didn't appear on his payslip), or both.
You're totally missing the issue. The workweek is 40 hours. By law. Unless you happen to fall into certain professions. Software programmers do not. And frankly, 6:00am to 5:00pm is laughable compared to the workweeks I worked in the game industry. Try 8am to midnight. (Or if you prefer, 9am till 1-2 in the morning). Try not having a day off (including weekends) for 6 straight months. There are 168 hours in a week. I've worked 112 of them.
We're not talking about a little 'wink wink' 'nudge nudge' "overtime" at the end of the project for two months to get it done. We're talking about the kind of hours that cause game industry employees to have a nearly 70% divorce rate. We're talking about 'gee I haven't seen my kids in 4 years' kind of hours. We're talking about crunches for over a year.
Virtually every project is going to have some kind of push at the end to get all the lose ends tied down. But we're not talking about a little push, we're talking about a jackhammer.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Most jobs I have applied for as an Electrical Engineer make it quite clear that overtime is not given and that you may be required to work 50 or 60 hr weeks
Oh boy. As an EE PCB/EMC/Circuit/system/whatever designer, I have to say that my 40 hours/week job at around $60k/year (Finnish wage in euros so given 1e = $1.22) just started sounding whole a lot more lucrative.
I get to work sane hours and get enough wage to get by.
What the government has said with the new labor laws introduced about 2 years ago it that companies have to too long abused the "salaried" position title, and they have now applied restrictive law to who may be termed "exempt" or "non-exempt." Computer programmers, field engineers, and such (along with plumbers, electricians, and more) have had steadily increasing work weeks with little or no increase in benefit compensation or pay.
The government is basically saying that a companies unwillingness to invest in a properly sized workforce, or poor foresight in project planning can no longer be dumped on the employees. What this does mean is that since they're paying for it, specific performance measurement will start coming into play in companies and when overtime pay increases, people who are at the low end of the productivity curve will be terminated, provided their minimum performance level is not being met.
I work for a computer firm that makes hardware and software. I teach a class. To do this, I anylize our systems, write scripts, perform Q/A duties on beta code and hardware, receive feedback from customers, and meet with planners and developers continuously to work on improving the product as well as the class. I develop our lab environment, write the lesson plans, teach the material, and manage the website content and registration systems. I read log data and perform break/fix duties not only on my own lab equipment, but also provide on-stie and remote end user and developer support.
I am not paid overtime currently. I work 50-60 hours per week (more when I travel). As best I can tell from reading the federal requirements I should be paid overtime. However, my company could easily argue that my position, defined as it is currently, vs. my current rate of pay and how it has increased over 2 years, is a direct correlation to the hours I work. Their opinion would be "this is a 50-60 hour per week position, and overtime has been estimated and included in my pay" I am compensated for travel (in addition to expenses) and am paid significantly more than lvl 1 and 2 support personel. Also, technically I do not have a staff under me (to manage) but I could be considdered an executive of my department since I am the only one in it, and do not report directly to a department manager, but only to a VP team. I have decision power for purchasing and content development. They got a lot of ways of defining my position.
I have no problem with this. I get AMPLE vacation and benefits, and great pay for my part of the country. I work harder than others, but am paid more too. When I ask, I get what I need. I'm in a legal grey area.
My core programming team is also not paid overtime. They work 50+ hours and as far as I can tell, do qualify for it. Not one of them has asked for that compensation because their position defines the time required, and they are paid well and treated well. If we redefined their position in terms of hourly pay vs salary, I'm sure their base salary would simply come down, the company would (on average) pay them the same, but we'd have a nightmare tracking time cards, hours, and pay a lot more in HR and accounts payable to work it out.
Abuse is one thing. My company lets the guys come in late if they worked late and rarely if ever do they have a "programming party" and even those are optional. There is no requirement to work overtime, it's optional, and they all do it without complaint.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.