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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.'"
Ok, I'm a salaried network admin/systems technician. When I applied for my job as a systems tech, I was assured it would be an 8-5 job. Well, about 2 weeks in I am asked to handle a week of after hours calls. This is fine, except my company is in the Medical/PACS industry. If radiologists can't get their images, people could die. Some nights I will get 10+ calls. Do I get comped? No. Do I get anything for this? No. I applied to build servers and be a backup for fielding calls and was assured a certain set of hours. I did my time on helpdesk and would like to think I'd finally graduated past it. I would just like to see some sort of gratuity from the company for me having to literally go 2-3 days without sleep sometimes because of late night calls. Its bad enough when I work from 8 until 10 at night, but then to get calls most of the night after, I think I deserve something.
I'm a medical student who will be graduating soon and entering residency. I hope any progress from this affects us, too - currently the AAMC (which regulates the medical residency programs) limits interns and residents to an 80 hour work week. Yes, these are the people charged with learning to save lives WHILE saving lives. 80 hours per week. Most of us will sign some utterly unfair, incomprehensible, thick as a dictionary employment agreement with our hospital that basically signs our life over to them for the next 3 to 7 years. Choice tidbits of "policy" included in these contracts mention that we may be expected to be on call for anywhere from 18 to 36 hours - on hospital grounds - multiple times per week. The 80 hours limit, while "technically" weekly is only calculated on a monthly basis. Fun times.
It's great that such important people as those who maintain our information technology infrastructure are about to get a financial boost... what about those of us earning $55,000 a year or less with 8 years+ of college and post-graduate education and charged with taking care of you and your family? Everyone envisions doctors as Corvette-driving, boat-owning, million-dollar mansion homestead people. I assure you that in today's marketplace, NOBODY goes into medicine for the money - unless they're making drugs for a big-pharm company or doing boob jobs.