Slashdot Mirror
Law Firm Fighting For White Collar (IT) Overtime
Maximum Prophet writes "Programmers and System Administrators typically don't get overtime. A law firm based in Nevada is looking to stand up for white-collar workers around the country, trying to reverse decades-old (and incorrect) thinking about what it means to work in an office. 'Computer workers of various stripes, for example, have commonly not been paid for their extra hours ... But under California law, the exemption applies only for workers whose primary function involves "the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." In numerous lawsuits, Thierman and other plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged that legions of systems engineers, help desk staff, and customer service personnel do no such thing. Of programmers, Thierman says, "Yes, they get to pick whatever code they want to write, but they don't tell you what the program does ... All they do is implement someone else's desires.'"
Not a troll. MOD UP.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Sure, Americans work crazily hard but the United States is the world's strongest economy. Without Americans working so hard to create products for the rest of the world, and thereby making money to spend on the stuff the rest of the world makes, the global economy would be a very different place.
Alright, you can score this as flamebait. But IBM, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Sun, and Google dominate the global IT infrastructure, and they're all American companies staffed with the same insanely hard-working SOBs we're talking about. It's entirely possible that the same results can be had without the long work week, but that's how it's being done in America and no other country with their stronger labor laws has been able to compete on a meaningful basis with these companies. (Antitrust explains Microsoft, but name a non-American company that makes a consumer microprocessor worth a damn.)
And all the financial Wall Street whizzes who occasionally collapse our economy (what? we shouldn't have lent money to bad credit risks?!) make billions for the economy. Our insanely overworked lawyers and bankers revolve around the large "real" companies staffed by the insanely-overworked. Bonuses paid by one bank in New York City totaled $16 billion last year. All that money is spent on the global marketplace and makes the world go around.
You can hate the United States--many of you do--but you can't say no to our products or our money. It's great. We're laughing all the way to the bank.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Didn't it ever crossed your brilliant mind that the real problem lied with you and your class never fighting for your own best interests and therefore being forced to earn less and having a crappy life?
See, what this is ultimately is, is fear mongering. There's not a spit of difference between guys selling the Union or the guys selling USA PATRIOT ACT. Both depend on this idea that we are completely powerless, so we need to get some goons to protect us, and furthermore, we should just give these jerks, in the form of dues or taxes, protection money. You know what a union is? It's a steward who just got a nice deck for his house, a president's kid's baseball team that got new uniforms, and any manner of theft.
The simple matter of the truth is, unions don't work. Unions don't work because, every time you give them what they claim to get, they either drive the parent company bankrupt, like GM and a cast of thousands, or the work goes overseas. The promise is a lie, and all a union really does is just place a tax based on a fear.
Really, all of these "workers" advocates are just in the business of helping themselves. A bunch of crooks, trying to frighten people into giving them money for promises that they can't keep, and have no intention of keeping. It's just like the "people's lawyer", the guy that sues some company for a billion dollars - he gets millions, while his plaintiffs get coupons. Workers rights is a slogan for an industry based on extortion, and fear.
This is my sig.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock