What Tech Workers Need To Know About Overtime

onehitwonder writes "The class-action lawsuit that current and former Apple employees have filed against the company raises questions about what kinds of workers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — and thus, what kinds of workers are eligible for overtime pay. Some tech workers are covered under it; some are not though perhaps they should be. The lawyer who got IBM workers a $65M settlement from Big Blue for violating labor laws explains why employers often deny tech workers overtime pay and the circumstances under which certain tech workers may or may not be covered under the FLSA. From the article: 'It's not uncommon for employers to err on the side of classifying employees as exempt [from the FLSA], says Sagafi... In fact, the dirty little secret among employers and HR departments is that classifying employees as exempt — even if it means breaking the law — is in their best interest[,] provided... that they don't get caught... "In a sense, they may see it as economically viable for them to skirt the law and wait to see if they get sued because the exposure is not that huge [if they don't get sued]," Sagafi says. "If they can settle [a complaint] for less than 100 percent of what they owe people [for overtime], they've gotten away with a good deal."'"

Comments

One solution

[Tablizer]

Some government entities I know have simplified the exempt issue: only managers can be classified as exempt. All non-managers go by the clock. This removes most ambiguities and abuses. General labor law may also want to consider this (except in rare and well-documented circumstances).

Re:One solution

[compro01]

Is there an actual codified definition of what constitutes a "manager"? If not, what would stop them from defining whoever they want (or everyone for that matter) as a "manager"?

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

Gotta love people who think that what they'd like is what everyone else wants. I prefer being salaried; I hate having to deal with time-cards and I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next). I like not having to deal with an ever changing income flow depending on how much overtime I took that particular month.

If I thought I was being paid too little then I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job. If I thought I was working too long I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job. And before you ask I can do this because I'm not an idiot and I put saving for a rainy day above everything else.

Re:One solution

[supertjx]

The whole point of the law is to protect peons from being exploited by their bosses. Peons are usually lowly paid. So the criteria to be classified as exempt should be based on their salary. I.e. those paid below a certain amount go by the clock. You could be designated a "manager", but be doing lowly paid peon work, in which case you should be protected by the law.

Re:One solution

[jcr]

Damn right. This guy didn't like the job, fine. He can go and work somewhere else (which he did.) When I had more than I could do at Apple, I quit and joined a start-up.

Seems to me that litigation is pretty lousy substitute for negotiating skills.

-jcr

Re:One solution

[jcr]

The whole point of the law is to protect peons from being exploited by their bosses.

The job this guy was doing at Apple was probably paying him between 70 and 80 grand. IT at Apple isn't a coal mine or a garment factory.

-jcr

Re:One solution

[supertjx]

My point exactly. You are getting paid 70 to 80 grand. If you don't like the unofficial OT, then look for better offers, no need to whine to everyone on how unfair the world is.

Re:One solution

[jcr]

It's worse than him just whining about his own situation, his lawsuit is trying to force everyone else to an arrangement that his colleagues didn't ask for.

-jcr

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA - it answers your question

Re:One solution

[Urkki]

Seems to me that litigation is pretty lousy substitute for negotiating skills.

But isn't it so that the "negotiations" have already been done, and the result was made into laws and indsutry-wide agreements. Now Apple is breaking the agreements (or at least somebody believes they are, if they are going to court over it), and therefore litigation is the way to go.

If one side wants to change the laws and wants the old agreements discarded, then it's their responsibility to initiate the negotiation/lobbying/bribing process to make it happen. Until then, stick to the law or face litigation.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand a manager is someone who has employees that report directly to them.

In an unrelated note on my own experiences.... At the small non-profit which I work at, they started off with only managers (typically directors and above) being exempt. In the past year some departments within the company have moved to having all of their employees exempt. Some of our departments exist because of government contracts, so I guess it makes things easier from a budget perspective to have fixed costs for each employee. But on the other hand, when I see this excess amount of money they have at the end of the fiscal year, I think about how they should give low-level employees a bonus for working overtime (or better yet, keep them at non-exempt!) rather than buying miscellaneous crap because they "need to spend the money".

I am in the IT department at the company, so I am fortunate to not be exempt yet. This is nice because there are times where I have to work until midnight, or come in for 6 hours on the weekend to do planned or (eek) unplanned maintenance. To work all this time knowing I am not making overtime will anger me. So it all comes down to this: The day they make me exempt - which I know is coming soon - what are they going to give ME at the expense of me sacrificing my extra time to help the company? Probably nothing more than what I make now. I just have this crazy and unrealistic idea that if you are exempt then you deserve more money, perks, etc. compared to someone who performs the same job functions in a non-exempt role.

Maybe someone else can chime in on their experiences of transferring from a non-exempt to exempt position in their workplace?

Re:One solution

[Martin Blank]

I wish I didn't have to deal with time sheets. Even when we were exempt, we had to fill them out for billing purposes (large contractor at a local government). I often long for the days when I don't have to fill one out, not so much because of the tracking but because our time sheet application works about as well as one would expect from Microsoft web application development principles of 1998.

In retrospect, our reaction when HR notified us that we were (mostly) being changed from exempt to hourly was not what one might expect. There was much indignation because for many, reaching exempt status in IT is a sort of badge of honor, a sign that one has made it out of the trenches. We felt like we were being downgraded.

Up until that point, we'd worked whatever was required to get the job done, and if that meant an hour or two (or sometimes three or more) over, then we usually did it. It generally wasn't from any pressure from management. It was just easier for us to get it done that night than to have to pick up again in the morning, when it would compete with whatever else was going on.

When we were changed to hourly, though, we got ominous warnings about overtime and how it was going to be strictly limited and subject to pre-approval and unauthorized overtime was grounds for disciplinary measures up to and including termination. Suddenly, the ability to go home with a clean checklist was in serious danger. However, reality hit management soon after, OT was regularly approved (and almost never actually required pre-approval), and our paychecks...

Well, let's just say that no matter how disappointed we were, the difference between a 60-hour paycheck and a 40-hour paycheck, especially under California overtime laws, was more than enough to chase away our depression. :)

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawd, this reminds me of a place I used to work. 90% of the people there had "manager" in their job title. Except me, and I was the only person directly in charge of more than one person (I reported to all these "managers" and then the people below me got me to liaise with the managers). Never again.

Re:One solution

[jesterzog]

Seems to me that litigation is pretty lousy substitute for negotiating skills.

So you're saying that Apple should be allowed to break the law? These laws are supposed to apply to everyone, and if you're claiming that it should be ethically okay for Apple to break the law as long as it doesn't get caught, you're giving Apple an unfair advantage over its competitors who go to greater lengths to pay their employees properly because they know they're legally required to.

If Apple doesn't like the law they should convince people and lawmakers that it should be changed. Until then they should follow it as far as I'm concerned. I'm often skeptical about the excessive use of litigation to solve problems, but in this case I think it makes sense, particularly if Apple is clearly and intentionally breaking the law at the expense of people who aren't.

Re:One solution

[loraksus]

Problem is... shit like
11 layers of management happens

I've heard the statistic that for every 2 employees that actually worked, 3 managers oversaw them.
Bell (Canada) is a great example of a company that embodies fail in basically everything that they do.

Re:One solution

[Baricom]

Is there an actual codified definition of what constitutes a "manager"?

Yes. It'd be better if you RTFA, but since you didn't, all of the following must be true:

1. The employee makes at least $455 per week.
2. The employee's primary job must be managing the business or a divison of the business.
3. The employee supervises at least two or more other full-time employees.
4. The employee has authority to hire or fire other employees.

Re:One solution

[gilgongo]

I hate having to deal with time-cards and I hate being told I can't do something

Speaking as somebody who has never been in a job that offered overtime - I agree. Seems a major PITA to claim for extra hours worked, then try to work out how much your salary is lower because of it (I assume employers factor in overtime claims when calculating the base salary). Also seems to make it pretty hard to compare jobs at different employers.

Re:One solution

[professionalfurryele]

The solution is actually just two words.

Punitive Damages

And they have to be really punitive. They have to be high enough that Apple shareholders eyes bleed. Businesses of this size almost always act in a manner to forward their best interest without consideration of morals.

All Apple have done is what any large business will do when there is a law. If the PR implications and the impact on employee moral plus the risk of a court case times the cost of it are less than the cost of sticking to the law, they break the law. The only two variables we can change are how often they go to court and how much is extracted when they get there.

Everything else is just loopholes.

Re:One solution

[UnderCoverPenguin]

4. The employee has authority to hire or fire other employees.

"hire or fire" or "hire and fire" - there is a big difference.

From my observations, at most of my clients, any one "supervisor" or above can fire some one below them, but hiring requires approvals at every level up to the "vice president" level, any of which can veto the hiring decision.

Re:One solution

[timmarhy]

actually coal miners are better paid than the people at apple.

Re:One solution

[UnderCoverPenguin]

I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next).

Lucky you. Even though they are salaried, no one I know is allowed to work less than 40 hours per week with out it being charged against their vacation balance (or deducted from their paycheck) - no matter how many hours they worked the week before.

Re:One solution

[KGIII]

Let's play Devil's Advocate, not for the intent of trolling nor for flaming...

How about if this was a law in China but not here?

Re:One solution

[jcr]

So you're saying that Apple should be allowed to break the law?

I said nothing of the kind. BTW, when did you stop beating your wife?

-jcr

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, so 'I'm all-right Jack' then. Love the solidarity and understanding you have with your fellow workers. Unfortunately not everyone is so good at being able to raise issues with their employer, not everyone is in a work place that encourages such issues as yours obviously does.

Surely legislation that protects workers from the worst excesses of the corporate world is good. If you're able to negotiate better conditions for yourself then brilliant, but ultimately companies need to realise they have a obligation to treat their workers fairly. Large swathes workers are unable to stand up for themselves, in this situation knowing that you have the law on your side is a good thing.

Working unpaid hours is not on, the company profits from this unpaid labour, they physically make more money because people end up working for nothing because they feel obliged to. I fail to see the different in a workplace that forces you to work unpaid hours and indentured labour.

Yes, I understand there is a need for flexibility in the workplace BUT not when that extra time becomes a de-facto standard. If it's expected you work extra hours then the company MUST pay for this or renegotiate your terms, if they are unwilling to or make your working situation that much more difficult because you wish to renegotiate then this is surely where the law must support you.

Otherwise everyone is simply left to fend for themselves which in modern western society is anathema.

Re:One solution

[Sparohok]

All non-managers go by the clock.

Screw that. I don't want overtime. I'm a contract software engineer and I always request to be exempt from overtime. Overtime is a curse.

I want to be able to work when I want to. I want to be able to work 12 hours today and 4 hours tomorrow. I want to be able to work 60 hours this week and 20 hours next week. My boss generally wants exactly the same thing. Flexibility benefits us both. In return for providing that flexibility, I get paid more every hour of every day than other employees.

If I am paid overtime, I will most likely be restricted in my ability to adjust my hours to the work load and to my own schedule. This harms both myself and my employer, and dilutes the value that I bring as a contract employee. Ultimately I get paid less, not more.

Broadly speaking, highly trained, highly valued professionals are in a sellers market and have no need for overtime. Purely commoditized and unskilled labor are the ones who need overtime laws to protect themselves.

Martin

Re:One solution

[dsglkdpse]

Lucky you. Even though they are salaried, no one I know is allowed to work less than 40 hours per week with out it being charged against their vacation balance (or deducted from their paycheck) - no matter how many hours they worked the week before.

That's normally company policy. Everywhere I have worked, managers typically have an unofficial comping system. If people put in a lot of overtime to meet a deadline, they often can take a freebie day or two when things are slow. Likewise, if someone has some personal business to take care of, they can make up the hours another time. The general rule of thumb is "get your shit done on time". That's an advantage to being salaried -- you can add some flexibility to your schedule (if you have a good manager). Hourly workers don't have that so much as it leads to overtime pay. Laws make accounting for hours much more stringent for hourly workers. People should know what they're in for when taking a salaried IT job. Ask during the interview what typical hours are. Take that in to account when the salary is offered.

Re:One solution

[Cramer]

"that's classified, sir." :-)

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can do this because I'm not an idiot and I put saving for a rainy day above everything else." ...You're living the dream mate, carpe diem...

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in france it's easy, everyone is a manager ( at worse of themself ), so yes, we supposely work 35h a week but on average it's closer to 42...

Re:One solution

[krkosska]

As tech workers in the US, we have a pretty sweet deal. Would you rather work long tech hours or regular hours doing ANYTHING else?
Let's remember the lesson of the union workers for the steel industry, auto workers, etc, and let's take a moment to reflect on outsourcing...then let's make sure this gun isn't pointed at our collective foot.

Re:One solution

[Jellybob]

Ask during the interview what typical hours are.

And then add 5%.

Re:One solution

[pla]

I hate having to deal with time-cards

"Professional" hourly workers (and I mean outside the IT world) generally don't bother with time cards, except as a once-a-week formality ("You worked 40hrs?" "Yup" "okay").


I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next).

Well, can't help you with that one, except to say that it depends on the averaging period for what your employer calls "full time". If they strictly insist you must work 40/wk for full-time status, then yeah, you just need to use some of your PTO. More often, they average that biweekly or monthly, so yes, you can still do exactly what you describe.


I like not having to deal with an ever changing income flow depending on how much overtime I took that particular month.

Um, hello? It only varies upward as a result of OT. I'd take that in a heartbeat over having my effective hourly rate start slowly dropping after I hit 40 hours for the week, since my pay won't change no matter how long I stay... But wow does my motivation level start dropping at that point.


If I thought I was being paid too little then I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job.

Managers and HR departments have learned the fine art of pushing "just barely okay". I agree with you, if I worked 60hrs a week every week, I'd find a new job. But, liking my job otherwise, will I quit because I find myself pushing 45 hours more often than not? Unlikely.


And before you ask I can do this because I'm not an idiot and I put saving for a rainy day above everything else.

Totally different topic. This doesn't involve hourly wage-slaves working for $8/hr at Wallyworld. Whether salaried or hourly, IT professionals generally make decent money. Most of us have the option of finding a new job relatively quickly; The uncertaintly, hassle, vesting schedules, and the fact that most companies pull the same BS, make looking for a new job not all that appealing except in the worst cases.

Re:One solution

[nauvillain]

If I thought I was being paid too little then I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job. If I thought I was working too long I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job.

There are general dynamics involved here: if it is common practice for most companies of a certain sector to ask employees to work overtime, you can change jobs all you want, you will still be underpaid and/or overworked. Then you can indeed sue your company, but that requires taking a risk, investing time & money, and later on no one will hire you because you are 'that troublemaker'. Sometimes - and I hate to say it since indeed I'm also inclined to say 'nobody's forcing you to work there' - organizations with as much power as existing businesses can help.

Re:One solution

[CastrTroy]

That depends if you're talking about supervisors or canaries.

On a more serious note, I grew up in a mining town. Those guys were paid pretty well considering a lot of them only had a highschool diploma, if that. 60 grand back in the early 90's was pretty good cash, especially when a house could be bought for $40 grand.

Re:One solution

[Saint Gerbil]

Right so our DBA's become DBM's and Software Developers become Software Managers, etc, etc. And we are right back where we are now.

Re:One solution

[Tuoqui]

Having input/influence on a hiring decision is not the same as having the AUTHORITY to do the hiring and/or firing. Basically if you want a litmus test just see if Joe can unilaterally hire Bob on his own. If he cant then he doesn't have the authority.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

result was made into laws and indsutry-wide agreements.

Now, that is a serious problem in it self. There never should be an industry-wide agreement. Such a monstrosity hampers competition, decreases the flexibility of the (labour and investment) markets and leads to irrational wage policies therefore increasing inflation and creating increasing economic inequality.

The US Deparment of Labour has a clear classification on the required compensations on any possible case concerning Apple's workforce. The overtime exemptions are not limiting the duration of work but are setting the minimum compensation for any required overtime.

Re:One solution

[mcvos]

Having input/influence on a hiring decision is not the same as having the AUTHORITY to do the hiring and/or firing. Basically if you want a litmus test just see if Joe can unilaterally hire Bob on his own. If he cant then he doesn't have the authority.

There are plenty of organisations where nobody can hire anyone on his own. Hiring is a joint decision, and several people need to approve of the new hire.

Re:One solution

[mcvos]

Let's play Devil's Advocate, not for the intent of trolling nor for flaming...

How about if this was a law in China but not here?

Well, I for one think it would be great if China had a law that required workers to be paid for the work they do. But what's so Devil's Advocate about that?

Re:One solution

[Urkki]

result was made into laws and indsutry-wide agreements.

Now, that is a serious problem in it self. There never should be an industry-wide agreement. Such a monstrosity hampers competition, decreases the flexibility of the (labour and investment) markets and leads to irrational wage policies therefore increasing inflation and creating increasing economic inequality.

With this I can mostly agree with, at least to the extent that such industry-wide agreements should never be explicitly supported by laws, but neither should they be explicitly prevented.

In some industries, wide agreements will probably rise automatically, and be a good thing too for all parties involved. They give stability to the job market, at the expense of flexibility, and stability supports investments too. But they should never become a permanent institution, never something where stability vs. flexibility is not flexible itself.

Re:One solution

[JAlexoi]

I think it should be even simpler....
If an employee can cause serious damages, by the nature of his responsibilities(such as signing a harmful contract or hiring and overpiced employee or selling something with 0% margin), he should be exempt.
A salesman should be exempt, but not all salesmen actually manage anyone, nor do they have authority to hire people.
Ordinary managers that manage funds and are allowed hire people, with those legal action can cause serious damages to a company.

So it boils down to:
- A person that has limited or unlimited authority of a part or whole of the company, revenue streams or obligations.

This definition would disqualify ANY of the IT workers, but IT managers would qualify definitelly.

Re:One solution

[Lumpy]

I'm with you, they should have found a job somewhere else than the silly idea of expecting the company to obey the LAW.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you conisdered that when a law is being broken that it might be an indication that the law should be repealed?

I feel very empowered to find another job when I don't like the one I'm at. Requiring Apple (or any other company) to follow a law like this only make sense if there is a law that requires me to work for Apple. Surely if that law existed people would be quick to repeal that.

Liberty means responsibilty - that's why men fear it

- George Bernard Shaw (a socialist that understands why men want to create laws to give up their freedoms)

Do you fear that there simply aren't any other jobs out there and that you won't be able to obtain one? Increase your ability or move to a communist country where a job will be provided to you.

Re:One solution

[thopkins]

Exactly. Even a VP usually can't hire or fire someone without HR approving the decision.

Re:One solution

[jcr]

So, you believe in guilt by accusation, I take it?

-jcr

Re:One solution

[SQLGuru]

You posted anonomously, so you might not ever see this, but: when they do switch you to exempt, it's your chance to negotiate your rate. Go back several years and calculate how much you made in overtime vs regular time. Do market research on your job function and find out the salary range in your area as well as nationally. Do an honest evaluation of how you stack up to your co-workers.

If your regular time pay is about $35/hr (around $70k per year) but you received overtime pay (at time and a half, I assume - $52.5/hr) and worked about 10% more hours as overtime on average, you should target a salary in the 80k range. If your job function gets between 60k and 80k in your region, then expecting 80k might be unreasonable, so you'd have to target more like 75k. If you are better than every one of your peers, maybe that 80k isn't that unreasonable.

Regardless, what you negotiate now will actually affect you long term. Raises and bonuses are usually designated in percentages. You want as high a base as possible because most people only see a 3% raise annually. It will take 5 years worth of 3% raises to make up the 10k difference in my example numbers.

Layne

Re:One solution

[Lonewolf666]

How about if this was a law in China but not here?

Then it would apply to workers Apple employees in China, and those Chinese employees could sue Apple in China (assuming China has similar legal procedures).
But according to TFA this is happening in California so US law applies.

Re:One solution

[SQLGuru]

I beat my wife all the time because she sucks at video games and most things athletic. If I ever stop beating her, then I will likely give up that hobby, but I don't really see that happening until I'm old and senile (and even then.....would I even know).

Layne

Re:One solution

[Ihlosi]

Exactly. Even a VP usually can't hire or fire someone without HR approving the decision.

But what if he wants to fire HR ... ?

Re:One solution

[SQLGuru]

I've always held an exempt job and it's always been for internal IT. And believe it or not, I've still had to submit my time. They call it "project tracking". I call it "lying", but I've never hidden that fact. If they don't give me a bucket to log certain tasks, they'll get lumped in to whatever task I feel like padding that week. I don't really see how they can track projects at the level they want and get any sort of meaningful results.

But the point is, being exempt and not having billable hours, I still have to submit a timesheet. It just doesn't affect my paycheck.

Layne

Re:One solution

[JAlexoi]

What has flexibility to do with overtime?
Unless you don't trust your employer or client...
And I really don't think that contract people are even eligible to get overtime pay... Even in the socialist Europe, contract workers get payed for the hours they work, unless it's more than 24 per day....

Re:One solution

[encoderer]

It's not really an either/or.

You can be a salaried employee who is paid for OT.

And really, I don't need the government telling me how I can work. I'm a grown man. If I want to work for salary w/o OT, that's my call.

Re:One solution

[encoderer]

I'm not sure what kind of family you come from, but $60k TODAY is pretty good cash if you're not living on a coast.

Re:One solution

[hmar]

A manager needs to have people who report to him/her.

Re:One solution

[ShannaraFan]

Amen!!!! I'm salaried, and have the flexibility to work when/where I want to. I do 24x7 production database support, and also get involved in some development projects. If get called at 3:00am to deal with a busted server, I usually don't come in to the office the next day, instead I'll work from home for a few hours, after I roll out of bed. One of the development projects I was on was with a new project manager, who had this grand scheme requiring all participants to track their hours and submit weekly time reports. I flat out told the guy that I don't track my hours, for him or anybody else, period - you tell me what you need done and when you need it, I'll get it to you by that time.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... you faithful one...

Re:One solution

[cayenne8]

"You posted anonomously, so you might not ever see this, but: when they do switch you to exempt, it's your chance to negotiate your rate. Go back several years and calculate how much you made in overtime vs regular time. Do market research on your job function and find out the salary range in your area as well as nationally. Do an honest evaluation of how you stack up to your co-workers."

Or, if they will not negotiate...leave for a new job. Unless you like your present job SO much that you will take a pay cut (as you described to the GP based on OT calculations), find another job. I prefer to work through my own company which is a "S" corp...on a corp to corp 1099 basis. However, if I do have to work W2, I require that I am paid hourly...and I get paid for all OT. Depending on the bill rate, well, sometimes it is straight time for OT rather than 1.5 rate. But, I learned years ago, I do NOT work for free.

My time is much to valuable. I generally prefer time off to OT...but, sometimes you gotta do it. Don't get me wrong, when they really need me for emergency down time, or if in dev. a deadline is looming, I'm there as long as it takes to get things done. I just refuse to do it for free. If they have to pay you for every hour you are there, they will think twice before making requests that you do so, and only do it when it is required.

Something to think about. How valuable is YOUR time?

Re:One solution

[cayenne8]

"The employee makes at least $455 per week."

That's only $1820/mo??!?!

Seriously...that is manager pay? Hell, that is kinda low for worker bee pay...assuming this is pre-tax especially.

Re:One solution

[Urkki]

Have you conisdered that when a law is being broken that it might be an indication that the law should be repealed?

Yes. After consideration, I think this law should not be repelled.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind, being non-exempted doesn't necessarily mean non salaried. Many non exempt employees are salaried. However, a time card is kept simply stating the number of hours worked in a week and of course reporting (and getting compensated)overtime hours.

Its great that you can just jump and get a new job, but not every tech worker has that flexibility.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I quit and joined a start-up.

Ha that'll surely lighten the load

Re:One solution

[salemnic]

Ask during the interview what typical hours are.

And then add 5%.

And then double it for deadline crunches.

Re:One solution

[CastrTroy]

Exactly my point. $60k back then was amazing. Miners get paid pretty well, at least in Canada/US.

Re:One solution

[cayenne8]

"That's normally company policy. Everywhere I have worked, managers typically have an unofficial comping system. If people put in a lot of overtime to meet a deadline, they often can take a freebie day or two when things are slow. Likewise, if someone has some personal business to take care of, they can make up the hours another time. The general rule of thumb is "get your shit done on time". That's an advantage to being salaried -- you can add some flexibility to your schedule (if you have a good manager). Hourly workers don't have that so much as it leads to overtime pay. Laws make accounting for hours much more stringent for hourly workers. People should know what they're in for when taking a salaried IT job. Ask during the interview what typical hours are. Take that in to account when the salary is offered."

The trouble is the IF you had in your statement. If you have a good manager, etc. Sure, salaried is supposed to mean get your shit done...and it should work where on slow weeks, take off work less than 40 hours. But, that isn't how it works 99% of the time. You are expected to be there working 40 hours a week, and more when crunch time hits. The give and take is not there.

And...what if you start working with a good mgr....and he gets promoted, and you get the other kind that doesn't work with you?

Personally...I hope I never have to work salaried again. Even on W2 jobs, I negotiate that I work hourly..and I get paid OT even if it is straight time. Get it put in the employment contract. That way, everyone knows the deal. They think twice about asking me to work...so then I know it is important for me to be there. No one is waisting anyone's time.

Re:One solution

[NeoSkandranon]

"Um, hello? It only varies upward as a result of OT."

It can only vary upwards as a result of *adding* OT. What about taking it away--plenty of hourly places use a few consistent hours of OT to balance out the fact that the base pay rate is marginal. Suppose that company has just realized that they can't find their asses with both hands and a map, and are hemorrhaging money.

First thing to go is overtime, as much of it as possible, which means your paycheck is probably going down and staying there. I don't think that sort of scenario is all that uncommon (but I could be wrong)

Having to deal with crap like that is why I am truly glad to be salaried. Getting paid for working past 40 would be great, but it goes both ways.

Re:One solution

[cayenne8]

"I want to be able to work when I want to. I want to be able to work 12 hours today and 4 hours tomorrow. I want to be able to work 60 hours this week and 20 hours next week. My boss generally wants exactly the same thing. Flexibility benefits us both. In return for providing that flexibility, I get paid more every hour of every day than other employees.

If I am paid overtime, I will most likely be restricted in my ability to adjust my hours to the work load and to my own schedule. This harms both myself and my employer, and dilutes the value that I bring as a contract employee. Ultimately I get paid less, not more."

I'm not sure how this restricts you...it just keeps you from getting paid for every hour you work if you go over 80 hours in a two week period.

I insist on being paid hours...either 1099 or even when on W2. Most places do timesheets on bi-weekly (monthly is even better)...but, I often shift hours depending on what is going on. I do just like you said, maybe 80 one week....20 the next.

However, what if it is required to have 60 hours for 2 weeks? Now..out of the 120 hours...I get paid for every 120 of those hours, in your position, you get paid only for 100 of them. You prefer that?

As I've posted before...my OT may not always be 1.5...some times it is straight time, but, still...I refuse to work for free. I've been in situations where I was termed 'salaried'...yet, I still got paid straight time for every hour I worked over the scheduled hours. Yes, this was a job with benefits and all too.

You just gotta be able to negotiate....

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

5%, you must be in the US, if you were in India, its more like add 30%.

And no there is no exaggeration there, 15 hr days are quite regular and not even considered overtime.

Re:One solution

[blacknblu]

Now - for the inevitable Office Space quote:

Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

Re:One solution

[Pig Hogger]

In retrospect, our reaction when HR notified us that we were (mostly) being changed from exempt to hourly was not what one might expect. There was much indignation because for many, reaching exempt status in IT is a sort of badge of honor, a sign that one has made it out of the trenches. We felt like we were being downgraded.

Snob. You don't have to broadcast that you have been "downgraded". What counts is nothing else than the change you carry home.

Re:One solution

[Sancho]

workers get payed for the hours they work, unless it's more than 24 per day....

That must be a neat trick.

In America, the overtime pay rate is more than the normal pay rate. It's not uncommon for you to get 1.5x your normal wage for overtime work, calculated (usually) by the week. So if you work 50 hours a week at $10/hr, you'll get:
40*$10 + 10*$15 for the week. Even if you only work 30 hours the next week, they have to pay overtime for the week that you worked more. They don't want to do that, so they probably won't allow it. There's the loss of flexibility.

Re:One solution

[compro01]

Just on that last part, that 5 years of 3% raises still won't make up for it, as in all likelihood, inflation will be eating most or all of that yearly raise. In the past year, the (Canadian) CPI has gone up by 3.13%, and that's undershooting the increase in the cost of living as it doesn't factor in "volatile" things like the price of gas.

Re:One solution

[Pig Hogger]

And really, I don't need the government telling me how I can work. I'm a grown man. If I want to work for salary w/o OT, that's my call.

Likewise if you want to sell yourself into slavery?

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

WIN!

Re:One solution

[jcdick1]

I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next).

Where I work, being able to work 80 hours a week and then take 20 off the next is referred to as "Comp time" and would be part of an overtime compensation package. If I put in 80 hours a week one week, my management still expects 40 hours from me the next. That's why its called "exempt".

Re:One solution

[TheCarp]

Agreed. Its really sad how easy we go on corporations.

remember Exxon-Valdeze (sp?)? I was reading that around 20 years after the fact, Exxon-Mobile has been still fighting, and finnaly recently won their case, they wont have to pay a dime in punative damages over the oil spill.

Of course there is an even better solution: institute a review process.

Its been shown time and time again that peoples decisions tend to be based more on the likelyhood of being caught than on the punishment if they do get caught. Take the example of Lo-Jack.

"It turns out that a 1 percent increase in LoJack sales can reduce auto theft rates by 20 percent or more ...although it costs only $100 a year to have a LoJack, Ayres and Levitt estimate that each individual LoJack prevents about $1,500 a year in losses due to theft." -- Steven E Landsburg "More Sex is Safer Sex" p. 112

Thats all without increasing the penalties for stealing cars at all, just turning up the likelyhood of getting caught!

SO... clearly companies have been abusing the fact that there is no oversight. Its time to institute oversight.

-Steve

Re:One solution

[Thundermace]

Actually, according to the FLSA (http://www.resource4flsalaw.com/fairlaborstandardsactemployeeclassifications.html )

"The Fair Labor Standards Act provides for a âoeprofessional exemptionâ for such jobs as:

One that requires advanced education or knowledge
Work in an original and creative artistic field
Teaching
Computer systems analyst, programmer, engineer, or similar field
Those who perform work which is intellectual and varied in character, the accomplishment of which cannot be standardized as to time
Those who regularly exercise discretion and judgment
These classifications have frustrated many workers, such as computer and information system workers, who have a great deal of specialized knowledge but no professional training. These changes to the law allow many companies to reclassify these workers as âoeprofessionalsâ and thus not pay them overtime.

Your employer must establish precisely why your position qualifies for a professional exemption through a number of wage and duty tests. Salaried positions are generally immediately exempt from overtime, but other positions must meet specific requirements in order to be exempt. If you believe you were not properly compensated for your work, you may be entitled to take legal action. Contact an experienced labor law attorney today."

As far as the litmus tests an employer needs to go through it does not take a rocket scientist to manipulate that system. So I would say based on this "amendent to clarify the FLSA in 2004" a large number of people were bent over and forced to take it.

Of course posting this tidbit as well as a reference doesnt mean those on /. will read it ;)

Re:One solution

[Ugot2BkidNme]

Oh great that's all I need now they will make me a manager. Manager of Development team D but I have no one under me or they will put some freaking web-master under me and all the other developers.

Re:One solution

[vertinox]

If I thought I was being paid too little then I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job. If I thought I was working too long I'd talk to my manager and/or find another job.

No, its the law and if you don't like it then you can talk with your government representative or find another country to live in. ;)

Re:One solution

[spxero]

I beat my wife all the time because she sucks at video games ...

Are you sure this is the way you want to phrase this one?

Re:One solution

[TheCarp]

Stop beating his wife? Shit, if I stopped beating my girlfriend she would be rather unhappy about it. I mean, she bought that really nice flogger and hung it by the bed, I assumed that means she meant for me to use it. Certainly shes never complained. Why stop?

-Steve

Re:One solution

[TheCarp]

Thats funny, I prefer to beat my girl squarely with the palm of my hand. Though occasionally a nice leather strapped flogger... and better than beating her at video games, its a beating we can both enjoy.

-Steve

Re:One solution

[encoderer]

i. your comment is a textbook strawman. But..

ii. it couldn't really be slavery if I'm selling MYSELF (and thus getting the proceeds myself). It's more like contract labor. Besides..

iii. That isn't a labor law, which is clearly the meaning behind "I don't need the government telling me how I can work".

Re:One solution

[hrld1,kon]

Great explaination! That is exactly how businesses examine situations. It is also how criminals decide whether to commit a crime... (Will I get caught | no | Do it | Yes | Will I be punished? | no | do it | Yes | Is it worth it? | yes | do it | No | Don't do it.) {My background is criminal justice, and I currently teach it @ college level...}

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why, at my Fortune 50 company. ALL engineers are in the system as "Management". It doesn't matter if you are an entry level salary grade. You are "Management."

Re:One solution

[Horus1664]

I would basically agree with this sentiment. I was a highly skilled contract worker for 15 years. However in some markets the 'high skill' being paid for by the employer is something that isn't 'development' as the poster's skills obviously are. Someone who can swan about doing basically what they like providing they supply a usable product in a certain timeframe. It might be technical support or problem solving which the employer might genuinely need at odd times, therefore introducing the idea of 'overtime'.

Re:One solution

[MightyYar]

they wont have to pay a dime in punative damages over the oil spill.

That's not true. They were reduced from $2.5 billion to $500 million by the Supreme Court.

Re:One solution

[Arthur B.]

Morals ? How dare you speak of morality when you are defending what is basically a law telling employer what kind of contract they can or cannot sign with their employees. Apple has all the right in the world to ask for unpaid overtime, if employees don't like it, let them work somewhere else.

You are defending people using the government to steal from an honest corporation. THAT is immoral.

Re:One solution

[tweek]

I agree. I'm one of those people who has the common sense to understand the tradeoff of salary vs. hourly.

EVERY salaried job I've ever had, came with "perks". It could be the understanding that, if I had a long night at the datacenter, I didn't have to come in the next day or two. It's been "let's do this crunch and then everyone gets time off for a few days".

If I didn't like it, I left. I've done it before and I'll do it again.

I can't think of anything MORE immoral than someone telling you that you don't have the freedom to negotiate a contract on your own terms with another adult.

Re:One solution

[jriding]

Where is the article with the "more sex is safer sex"??????? forget this lojack stuff... ;-)

Re:One solution

[decep]

I was part of a company's recent reclassification exercise so I made myself familiar with the FLSA. IFAIK, punitive damages are not even a possibility with the FLSA. If it is found that you are supposed to be classified as non-exempt, you are entitled to two years of overtime back pay, three years for willful infringement on the part of the employer.

Re:One solution

[Your.Master]

They can perform that trick one day a year if they have a typical daylight-savings switchover where they are.

Re:One solution

[Sancho]

Sure, but from the sound of it, they don't get paid for that hour.

Re:One solution

[hiryuu]

These laws are supposed to apply to everyone, and if you're claiming that it should be ethically okay for Apple to break the law as long as it doesn't get caught, you're giving Apple an unfair advantage over its competitors who go to greater lengths to pay their employees properly because they know they're legally required to.

Something similar happens in the chemical industry, with regards to regulatory compliance - smaller companies often don't bother to hire (or don't have the resources to hire) dedicated personnel for reviewing various industrial, health, and safety regulations. The laws are complex, and are not necessarily common knowledge even amongst chemists and engineers in the applicable industries.

What often happens is that a large company will have a long, thorough, and complete MSDS that says lots of scary-sounding things because they know what the laws say they must disclose, and they know what to review and look for in their compliances. The small company's product, though, will have a very short, basic, and practically bare MSDS that doesn't say anything frightening (or even all that informative), because they didn't employ the proper resources to make sure they were in compliance with the law. That has an effect where the information disclosure is a gatekeeper to a market or region (I'm looking at you, California Proposition 65) where the large players (who have done their due diligence) are kept out because of what they have made sure they know and disclose, while the small players are often selling non-compliant goods but haven't done their homework to be able to disclose it.

Bear in mind that this is not a complaint against the regulations, as I believe they should be there. What sucks is when the large players have to obey the law (due to visibility as well as just having done the required work to know the law) while the "small fish" get away with selling stuff that anyone experienced knows can't be in compliance.

Re:One solution

[TheCarp]

Its not an article, its a book on economics. A rather neat one. The premise os the book is basically that looking at problems as market issues leads to conclusions which are counterintuitive.

The example which lead to the title is of the economics of sexually transmitted disease. The basic gist is that if an uninfected and responsible person enters the pool of available sexual partners, then when he or she takes a partner, they are diverting that person away from potentially infected partners. Also if they themselves pick an infected partner, as they are responsible they take precautions to prevent catching the disease, and if they catch it, then the disease will die with them, as they are again, responsible people.

He then took the opposite case of a mostly monogamous society where less people are out having promiscuous sex. That severely reduces the number of potential sexual partners outside of monogamous relationships, thus infecting one of those potential partners, has a more signifigant effect as the pool isn't very diluted.

I wont spoil the whole chapter, but he has quite a neat idea. How do you give an incentive to responsible people to be more promiscuous, without rewarding the less responsible people?

-Steve

Re:One solution

[jhfry]

According to the Employment Standards Administration, in order to be considered exempt you must be paid on a "salary basis" (fixed amount per year), or a "fee basis" (fixed amount per job). In addition, it says that you cannot have your pay reduced for working partial days.

So if your a salaried exempt employee and your employer makes a deduction from your pay if you leave an hour or two early, they can no longer consider you an exempt employee and must follow the FLSA laws reguarding overtime. Not to mention that they might get hit with other penalties.

It seems to me that there are few employers that actually follow the FLSA at all.

(a) General rule. An employee will be considered to be paid on a
``salary basis'' within the meaning of these regulations if the
employee regularly receives each pay period on a weekly, or less
frequent basis, a predetermined amount constituting all or part of the
employee's compensation, which amount is not subject to reduction
because of variations in the quality or quantity of the work performed.
Subject to the exceptions provided in paragraph (b) of this section, an
exempt employee must receive the full salary for any week in which the
employee performs any work without regard to the number of days or
hours worked.

To qualify as an exempt executive, administrative or
professional employee under section 13(a)(1) of the Act, an employee
must be compensated on a salary basis at a rate of not less than $455
per week...

It says something similar with reguards to computer exemptions too.

Re:One solution

[SuperQ]

Yea, I also had a number of co-workers converted from exempt to non-exempt. Most of them were happy because it gave them a 10-20% salary bonus. Some of them are nervous about being promoted to exempt because it might make their salary go down.

Re:One solution

[KGIII]

That's sort of what I was going for - I blame beer.

My thought process is still missing a bit but, at the time, I was thinking that we'd rant and rave if a company were operating in China and wasn't breaking the local laws. (Such as Google blocking sites at the whim of the Chinese government.)

Having read the article I'd say that (personal preference really) I don't think I'd want that law to apply to me as either an employee or an employer.

So, well, at the time it seemed like a good idea to see what sort of discussion came up. I'm thinking epic fail and blaming beer.

Re:One solution

[swiftcoder]

And then add 50%.

There, fixed.

Re:One solution

[Kelbear]

Punitive damages are defined differently. It's essentially additional payment beyond compensating for repair, it's meant to punish and deter the offender.

500 million is more like the cost to fix their damage, punitive damages start after the 500 mil, and apparently Exxon didn't receive any punishment.

Sort of like torching a guy's 200k home and then paying the guy just 200k after 20 years of court battle.

Re:One solution

[Baricom]

But this comment thread is not talking about the professional exemption; it's talking about the executive exemption (PDF), which applies to managers. Here's the original comment again:

Is there an actual codified definition of what constitutes a "manager"? If not, what would stop them from defining whoever they want (or everyone for that matter) as a "manager"?

Re:One solution

[Scudsucker]

As tech workers in the US, we have a pretty sweet deal.

Being expected to work huge amounts of overtime without compensation is sweet how, exactly?

Let's remember the lesson of the union workers for the steel industry, auto workers, etc, and let's take a moment to reflect on outsourcing...then let's make sure this gun isn't pointed at our collective foot.

Uh, no. Like most offshoring, the steel industry moved out because of executive greed, not because workers wanted too much money. In the auto industry, executives are rewarded with millions of dollars in compensation and have their severance packages secured regardless of performance. GM has lost almost $70 billion in the last few years, yet their board of directors keeps the CEO who presided over all that loss.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

Re:One solution

[MightyYar]

Again, that's not true. They paid out compensatory damages and were assessed the same amount again by the Supreme Court in punitive damages. So total payout is about a billion.

Re:One solution

[Scudsucker]

I hate having to deal with time-cards and I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next)

And if your job is actually like that, more power to you. But generally "salaried" means "put in more than 40 hours a week without getting more pay".

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

Unfortunately not everyone is so good at being able to raise issues with their employer

Their problem, should we now be paying the mentally retarded $100k a year to make up for the fact that they're not able to do that on their own?

not everyone is in a work place that encourages such issues as yours obviously does.

Then change jobs.

Surely legislation that protects workers from the worst excesses of the corporate world is good. If you're able to negotiate better conditions for yourself then brilliant, but ultimately companies need to realise they have a obligation to treat their workers fairly. Large swathes workers are unable to stand up for themselves, in this situation knowing that you have the law on your side is a good thing.

Currently exempt status applies only to upper tier workers and not to the bottom of the rung employees. I never said anything about that part since I was only replying to someone who wanted to extend the scheme. If you're making $100k a year and being "creative" then you're very likely not an idiot who can't ass 2 and 2.

Working unpaid hours is not on, the company profits from this unpaid labour, they physically make more money because people end up working for nothing because they feel obliged to. I fail to see the different in a workplace that forces you to work unpaid hours and indentured labour.

They're not unpaid hours. They're factored into your base salary and if you're not an idiot you should have asked before starting how much you're expected to work. If this changes then talk to your manager or find another job.

Yes, I understand there is a need for flexibility in the workplace BUT not when that extra time becomes a de-facto standard. If it's expected you work extra hours then the company MUST pay for this or renegotiate your terms, if they are unwilling to or make your working situation that much more difficult because you wish to renegotiate then this is surely where the law must support you.

It's called your salary. In some industries it's quite high because it's expected that you will work 80 hours a week. In other places it's quite a bit lower because you're not expected to work 80 hours a week.

Otherwise everyone is simply left to fend for themselves which in modern western society is anathema.

Everyone fends for themselves. Those who don't realize this stay in the shit pile because in fact very few people care about helping you. I don't believe in shackling everyone for the sake of a few people.

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

Having managers only be exempt is not the law, I was replying to someone with my post for a bloody reason.

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

I never said anything about Apple (note how I was replyign to someone who wanted to expand non-exempt) although I will now.

These are well paid employees and most likely Apple is not exploiting them. In other words if they were hourly then they'd probably be paid exactly the same amount on average. That is to say if Apple hired someone now they'd give them a lower hourly rate than if they were salaried since overtime is not part of it (salaries should be based on the hours worked).

Re:One solution

[smack.addict]

The laws are actually very unclear on the issue of IT workers.

If it was important to the workers, they should have negotiated for the status prior to being hired.

You can't take advantage of being an exempt employee for years and then come back and say, "By the way, I want the benefits of being non-exempt as well."

Re:One solution

[TooMuchToDo]

Thanks for mentioning the book. Just bought it on Amazon. Looking forward to reading it =)

Re:One solution

[TooMuchToDo]

Some use rulers other than pay to measure their career success.

Re:One solution

[professionalfurryele]

You are aware that the employment market has many of the characteristics of a monopsony right? It is all well and good to say that government shouldn't interfere but how do you correct the ensuing and inevitable market failure?
If we are going to allow very large employers to form as a result of granting them limited liability status or by creating natural monopolies through copyright laws and patents then we should find a way to ensure that they do not abuse any monopsony power they might have in the employment market.
Now if you are a true libertarian and you want to do away with limited liability status and government mandated monopolies entirely then that is another story, but don't harp on about government interference in the market when it was government interference that created many of the problems that these laws try to fix.
Personally I don't mind a bit of government interference myself so I'm happy to have some version of the framework we have now.

Re:One solution

[Thundermace]

Yes but the codified definition is in your own referenced material as to what constitutes an 'Executive Exemption - Management' - "Generally, "management" includes, but is not limited to, activities such as interviewing, selecting, and training of employees; setting and adjusting their rates of pay and hours of work; directing the work of employees; maintaining production or sales records for use in supervision or control; appraising employees' productivity and efficiency for the purpose of recommending promotions or other changes in status; handling employee complaints and grievances; disciplining employees; planning the work; determining the techniques to be used; apportioning the work among the employees; determining the type of materials, supplies, machinery, equipment or tools to be used or merchandise to be bought, stocked and sold; controlling the flow and distribution of materials or merchandise and supplies; providing for the safety and security of the employees or the property; planning and controlling the budget; and monitoring or implementing legal compliance measures."

However, the original article stems from the apple employees lawsuit ((taken directly FTA (http://www.cio.com/article/print/443113)- "are networking professionals - network engineers, network administrators and network support staff -covered by the FLSA? The plaintiffs contend that Apple misclassified them as exempt from the FLSA so that the company would not have to pay them for overtime. Apple will have to prove that these workers are in fact exempt by demonstrating that their jobs require independent judgment and discretion, and that they're not simply carrying out repeatable tasks")).

In which my post speaks directly to that claim, in which, those individuals (read networking professionals) are generally bent over by the amendments to the FLSA in 2004.

So I wasnt ignoring, the OP, I was just moving the discussion back towards the real issue that was presented in the first place and stating very plainly, that if your classified a "professional" under the "professional exemptions" -

Grab your ankles and prepare to be violated. Dont expect a kiss afterward, unless of course you have a politician in your pocket.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I am salaried but still have to fill-in electronic time cards - one for salary and one for productivity measurement.

Re:One solution

[CowTipperGore]

Um, hello? It only varies upward as a result of OT. I'd take that in a heartbeat over having my effective hourly rate start slowly dropping after I hit 40 hours for the week, since my pay won't change no matter how long I stay...

Any HR manager with half a brain takes that into account when determining pay rates. The one hourly guy in my IT department will be going to salaried at the end of this year and his pay rate will increase to compensate for the lost overtime. If you are working salaried for the same pay rate as you would get as an hourly employee, then you certainly have a point.

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

That's probably a quirk of moving people around and trying to not visibly cut their salaries. If anyone else got hired for their positions the hourly pay would be 10-20% less. Likewise if you got hired for salaried the base pay would be 10-20% higher than hourly.

Re:One solution

[chasm!killer]

So I only imagined that pretty much everywhere you look (union or not, exempt or not) jobs are moving to India and China.

Personally I have decided not to move to one of the low pay regions of the world so I can work longer tech hours for less pay....

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

"Professional" hourly workers (and I mean outside the IT world) generally don't bother with time cards, except as a once-a-week formality ("You worked 40hrs?" "Yup" "okay").

I don't even know how many hours a week I work, not with any accuracy at least. I mean does the time on the craper when I think over a problem and come up with a brilliant solution count?

Well, can't help you with that one, except to say that it depends on the averaging period for what your employer calls "full time". If they strictly insist you must work 40/wk for full-time status, then yeah, you just need to use some of your PTO. More often, they average that biweekly or monthly, so yes, you can still do exactly what you describe.

Good point.

Um, hello? It only varies upward as a result of OT. I'd take that in a heartbeat over having my effective hourly rate start slowly dropping after I hit 40 hours for the week, since my pay won't change no matter how long I stay... But wow does my motivation level start dropping at that point.

It varies upwards from a lower baseline and that's assuming your base hours don't vary. Salaries of course take this into account and are higher to make up for any extra hours that are worked on average.

I effectively get paid more to solve problems more efficiently and in less time. In other words the better I work the more I get paid which is a great incentive to get stuff done.

Managers and HR departments have learned the fine art of pushing "just barely okay". I agree with you, if I worked 60hrs a week every week, I'd find a new job. But, liking my job otherwise, will I quit because I find myself pushing 45 hours more often than not? Unlikely.

I wouldn't quit a 60 hours job over money necessarily because likely my salary will be higher to take the extra hours into account. I'd quit if they changed the hours expected or if I didn't want to spend that much time at work (I don't).

Re:One solution

[Lonewolf666]

Actually the question is not stupid at all, if a company is spread over several countries. You just failed to design a scenario in which multiple legislations might apply.

If you rephrase it as "what if Apple had a factory in china, did something that is illegal in both countries, and the workers there try to sue in the US", we get all sorts of interesting questions:

- Can the workers pick the venue, or is that regulated by some law?
- If they can sue in the US, do they get compensated by US standards? ...and so on. Stuff like that can get madly complicated.

Re:One solution

[jesser]

Michael Scott, is that you?

Re:One solution

[zerocool^]

This is pretty much the reason I left my last job. I didn't want to do anything so extreme as come in for 12 hours one day and 4 the next, but I did want to work a more flexible schedule. It was much easier to get everything done after 5pm when most people had gone home, or on the weekend when there wasn't an administrator or faculty member in sight.

Then, they had to start cutting the budget. They didn't ever come out and tell me "we need you to find a different job, we can't afford to pay you anymore". They just started doing little things that annoy me, and I took a stand on principle and left (which played into their hands, but whatever, it's what I had to do to sleep at night).

My schedule was supposed to be 8a-5p. I regularly worked till 5:30 or so, and two out of three weekends during the school year (I was a sysadmin for a department at a university, it's not hard to figure out which one if you read my post history), I was in for an hour or three doing odds and ends. I also worked from home at night and answered emails from home regularly. So, I'd usually stroll into work at about 9am. I don't function well in the morning; add this to the fact that none of the faculty or administration did either (if they worked at all...), and the 8am - 9am hour is really just a waste.

Then, all of a sudden, all that they cared about was when I showed up. I say "they", but it's really ambiguous who cared, since my boss worked 5 hours a week 9 months a year (for $120,000/yr). And yet, they'd make me call in downstairs to the secretaries to report when I showed up every morning. If I wasn't there by 8am, they got on my case. Never cared how much else I worked.

I told the Department head that I'm an exempt employee, and if you're going to make me punch a timeclock (which is what calling down to verify your arrival time is), then I wanted to be paid for all the hours I worked, including overtime for anything 40+. He said "that's not how it works, you're exempt, you don't get overtime". I said "you can't have it both ways; you can't have me punch a timeclock, AND not pay me overtime". He said that they could, I told him that he could find a new sysadmin and quit.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, something about timeclocks and overtime. It's fine to be Exempt or Non-Exempt, but for the love of god, don't let someone rape you both directions. Make sure you're getting something out of either scenario in exchange for what you're giving, and make sure the employer is giving something in exchange for what they're giving.

~Wx

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I am under the impression---although it has been a half-decade since my run-in with the FLSA---that "pre-approval" and "disciplinary" actions for overtime are thoroughly illegal.

My own story was that I was just out of college, in a small town with no friends and no social life. I was working 80-hour weeks on average (60--100). I was perfectly fine with this---I was building a resume in developing scientific software to go back to school, and I got to publish all the papers & keep the patents. Anyways, some jokers elsewhere in the department were abusing their exempt status, so the (new) department head retracted exempt status for all of us and made us begin logging our hours.

I logged an 80-hour week and then a 100-hour week (I lived 5-minutes from the office, so I would stumble home...); the department head came down on my boss who said that I should just log a 40-hour week and not cause trouble. Fine. I was salaried anyways. The problem came two weeks later when I accidentally logged only 38-hours (the phone-logging system was only accurate to 30-minutes---using an FLSA-infracting rounding system). I got my paycheck the next month, and boy I was furious.

I looked up the FLSA code, identified myself as non-exempt and marched down to the department head's time-secretary (no clue what her function was) office with my lawyer on the phone and demanded my 1500-hours of past-due overtime---some of it well passed the penalty-clause phase which carries a x9 punitive cost to it. (I didn't bank; the DA keeps this in that state.) Needless to say, once I explained "de minutiae" and some of the finer points of the FLSA, including the fact that the secretary, herself, was financially responsible for 1/2 of punitive damages, her bluster-and-bullshit routine shattered and she began blubbering about how "unfair it all was." I told her that she had to have a written memo from the department head authorizing her, and she should just turn over a copy of the memo, and we could get a notary to sign it. (There was a notary on hand.)

Needless to say, within a few hours all of my exempt colleagues had done the same, and my employer rolled over that afternoon on exemption status when faced with several-millions-of-dollars fine. A few weeks down the road the department head was terminated without review.

Re:One solution

[swillden]

I think a similar effect is at work with respect to violent crime rates and the issuance of permits allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Even though the number of citizens who get permits hasn't risen above 5% of the adult population in any state, and even those the vast majority of those with permits rarely bother to carry, the possibility that an apparently defenseless victim may pull a gun seems to have a significant deterrent effect on crime.

A little random enforcement can go a long way. Numerous psychological studies have demonstrated the powerful effect of random reinforcement on behavior. Casinos make billions by exploiting this effect. The IRS audits a tiny fraction of tax returns, but most of us try to be scrupulously careful with our filings because we know that if we're not, and we get audited, we can expect to be slapped HARD.

Random audits of employment policy, coupled with serious penalties for violations, would absolutely keep companies in line.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer being salaried; I hate having to deal with time-cards...

Um, if you read into the labor laws and how it pertains to overtime pay, non-exempt employees must be paid overtime regardless of whether your hourly, salary or commissioned. The overtime pay is based on the equivalent hourly rate for salary or commissioned rate.

A lot of people assume they are not eligible for overtime because they are salaried or commissioned, which is incorrect according to the labor laws.

Also, I hate the fact that in the labor laws it states something to the effect of employees having a direct impact on the earnings of a company are exempt. This can litterally be applied to any employee of a company because of its vagueness.

A company I used to work for, which will remain nameless---Sprint, uses the vagueness to exempt their IT workers that make under $24 and some odd cents per hour (or whatever the current rate listed in the labor laws).

Re:One solution

[jp10558]

Well, what are the benefits of being exempt? As far as I can tell, you can be salaried and non-exempt... So what does the individual gain from being exempt?

Re:One solution

[511pf]

Thank you for the end of that post. It really seemed like you were building to the argument that filling out a timesheet is somehow worse than working 60 hours and getting paid for 40.

The problem with "exempt" work is that most companies expect you to work 50-60 hours per week, be on call AND be in the office at 8:00 AM every day "in case something comes up." If the "solution" is "get another job" try picking your head up out of the IT jobs paradise that is the Bay Area and look at Craigslist jobs in places like Cleveland or Sacramento. Other IT jobs don't exist.

The simple solution is that if you work, you should get paid. Period. Exemptions are an excuse to make you work for free.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a software engineer. You are exempt from overtime anyway through the "Computer Professionals" clause in the law.

Re:One solution

[511pf]

Mod parent up. The whole problem is being expected to work 40 hours per week while not being paid a penny extra for overtime or on call work. In 12 years in IT, I have known precisely ONE salaried employee who was allowed to work less than 40 hours per week without time being deducted from her pay. ONE.

Re:One solution

[511pf]

And $70 to $80 grand is shit money for a Network Engineer in Silicon Valley. Try finding a decent place to live for less than $750,000 within 30 miles of Cupertino.

Just because they pay what *you* think is a decent amount of money doesn't give an employer the right to withhold pay for extra work. A lot of cities don't actually, you know, HAVE any other jobs. Is your position that we should let companies screw employees out of pay because the economy is bad?

Re:One solution

[511pf]

It's funny - I've never known a company who *didn't* do it the way you describe. In other words, almost every place I've ever worked, salaried employees were expected a regular, 40 hour per week schedule, plus overtime. Any time off at all was deducted from PTO - period. EVERY company has it both ways with salaried employees.

Re:One solution

[511pf]

What? Your insinuation seems to be that unions led to the outsourcing of the steel and auto industries. There are no IT unions. Now go call Dell/HP/Microsoft/Symantec tech support. I'll wait. Outsourcing has nothing to do with unions.

Re:One solution

[KGIII]

That's about what I was going for but, well, I blame beer. Errr... And being dumb 'cause I don't eat enough.

Re:One solution

[Arthur B.]

You are aware that the employment market has many of the characteristics of a monopsony right?

Even if true it's quite irrelevant to the ethical question.

It is all well and good to say that government shouldn't interfere but how do you correct the ensuing and inevitable market failure?

"Market failure" is just a description in certain frameworks of economic theory of situations which are judged bad by some criterion. The simple answer is : you don't, the world is imperfect, too bard but that does not grant anyone the right coerce other people.

If we are going to allow very large employers to form as a result of granting them limited liability status or by creating natural monopolies through copyright laws and patents then we should find a way to ensure that they do not abuse any monopsony power they might have in the employment market.

Two wrongs don't make a right. End copyright, end patents.

Limited liability is a different beast as it is most often contractual... generally speaking, limited liability refers to the liability of shareholders to the creditors. As long as creditors agree to shield the personal wealth of shareholder from the debt of the company, there's nothing wrong going on.

don't harp on about government interference in the market when it was government interference that created many of the problems that these laws try to fix.

Do you seriously believe that? Do you seriously believe when people are hired they are really paid "by the hour"?

What happens has nothing to do with the size of corporation and everything to do with the most natural form of contract in this case.

When you see cleaning ladies doing unpaid overtime, wake me up.

Personally I don't mind a bit of government interference myself

Then you're part of the problem.

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Your employer sounds great - don't ever leave that job. I've been an exempt (salaried) employee through three different employers (over 15 years) and none of them offered the flexibility you mentioned.

As an example, my current employer requires me to "clock in/out" via an intranet app. - not literally a time-card but serves the same purpose. There's also NO flex-time ie: 80 hours one week, 20 hours the next. We're expected to put in AT LEAST 40 hours per week, every week. If I come up short one week, it comes out of my vacation time. Similarly, if I come into work for a few hours but go home due to illness at 11:00a, a deduction is made from my sick time, in four-hour increments - despite that fact that I may have already put in 40 hours that week.

How can this be legal you ask? We'll I've looked into it, it's a matter of policy. Employers can require employees to clock in/out as long as it's in the employee handbook. Likewise, they can deduct from your sick/vacation time if you're not working during pre-defined business hours. They can take all of your sick/vacation time away, they just can't dock your salary.

BTW, I'm considered a manager by my present employer.

Posting as AC for obvious reasons.

Re:One solution

[Pig Hogger]

And some rulers use other things than pay to motivate their troops... :)

Re:One solution

[HTH NE1]

But what if [VP] wants to fire HR ... ?

Then he gets out the other special rubber stamp that says, "Treat As Authorized."

Re:One solution

[AK Marc]

i. your comment is a textbook strawman. But..

No, it's a testing of your theory by examining the limits. He never said you said that you should be able to sell yourself into slavery, then showed how that was wrong. That's what a strawman is. Since it doesn't fit the definition of a strawman at all, I hardly see how that could be a "textbook" example of it. At best, if you wanted to insult it for it's rhetorical value, it could be a reducto ad absurdum (no, I can't spell latin).

ii. it couldn't really be slavery if I'm selling MYSELF

Why not? How does it matter where the money goes for someone being sold into slavery? Does that change what slavery is? If you gave someone $10 to become a slave, then wouldn't let them buy themselves back at any price, are they somehow more free because you initially gave them $10?

iii. That isn't a labor law, which is clearly the meaning behind "I don't need the government telling me how I can work".

Are you honestly stating that laws regarding slavery are not laws regarding labor? I thought the whole point of slavery was "free" labor. If slavery is unrelated to labor, why does it seem that labor, wages, costs, manpower, and such things were always the core concerns of slave owners? When business/government rights trump personal rights, we always get slavery (or serfdom, or huge prison populations where few are there for violent crimes), whether it's the business of cotton production in the American south, or construction of the pyramids.

Re:One solution

[zerocool^]

Right.

It's the timeclock that makes the difference.

Re:One solution

[mrchaotica]

Remember, that definition has to work for managers at McDonald's too.

Re:One solution

[Sparohok]

Not necessarily. First, laws differ from state to state. Second, even in states that permit computer professionals to be exempt from overtime, we are not automatically exempt from overtime. Your employer can choose to classify you however they want. Often they will classify you as non-exempt by default, and additional paperwork is required to reclassify you as exempt.

Sometimes this comes about because staffing agencies that handle contract employees have an incentive to pay overtime. The staffing agency is paid as a percentage of payroll, so their financial incentive is aligned with the employee, not the client. Employers who use contract agencies need to watch carefully to make sure their contract employees aren't unnecessarily classified as exempt.

Re:One solution

[professionalfurryele]

No thats fine then, you have a clear and well thought out position that while different from my own is based on what is important to you. If you are happy to remove any government assistance to corporate entities and turn limited liability into a contractual agreement creditors sign up for then I cant argue with you.
I don't value my economic freedom as much as you and I'm prepared to make sacrifices in this area in an effort to increase equality and prevent abuse of power. I also believe that some government interference in the market can protect other rights that are important to me, especially when we are talking about the resources of the commons.
I also believe that by and large if monopsonies or monopolies form, especially monopsonies in the employment market, society as a whole suffers. I believe that society suffers less if those monopolies or monopsonies are nationalised or heavily regulated. Sometimes social welfare can be improved by government intervention. Monopsonies in the labour market grant so much power to one group that they can amount to an abusive de facto government, they border on serfdom.
 

Re:One solution

[TheCarp]

Which is strange, because I clearly remember the ruling being that punative damages were not appropriate because Exxon didn't profit from the spill.

Guess I will have to go ind it and re-read.

-Steve

Re:One solution

[naris]

Well, the FSLA has a specific non-management specification that applied to a large percentage of slashdot readers (such as myself):
The computer professionals exemption mainly applies to computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers and software developers whose primary duties consist of some combination of design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing or modification of computer systems and programs, and who earn at least $455 per week on a salaried basis. It does not pertain to help desk workers or to employees involved in the manufacture or repair of computer hardware.

Re:One solution

[smack.addict]

Why would any employer actually opt to offer you salary as a non-exempt employee?

Re:One solution

[stubob]

Can anyone explain if this situation is legal (or at least ethical)? I work for a government contracting company, and am classified as an exempt worker. The company may pay overtime at their discretion, and has changed the policy repeatedly over the years.

It started as "paid overtime", then to "paid overtime up to a limit (20 hours per week)", now "paid overtime minus the first 5 hours up to 20 hours a week." The reason they are doing this is because there's so much management/other people who don't charge directly to a program, they need more time to offset the "overhead" rates.

I see it as I'm exempt, but I'm not, since they pay overtime, but they choose not to pay overtime.

Re:One solution

[ps2os2]

That might work in their case. Let me tell you how the bank I worked for really pulled it off. Mind you I am not suggesting it be done this way. The Technical Support Group were all classified as exempt as we were not on any clock (per se). We basically were told to work as many hours a week to get the project done. If that meant coming in at 1AM and staying for 24 hours go for it. We routinely were expected to come in at odd hours to accomplish what ever task we were needed to be doing. Installing software for the majority of the time could be done ahead of time and then if needed to. The off hours came in to implement the software if it meant rebooting (IPLing) the system we had to ask the DC manager at least a week ahead of time for permission. Nobody got paid OT we were spied on by certain people in the group as to when we came and went. The boss knew the next day. During staff meetings the boss specifically named names if the person took off early or arrived late. This was done to ridicule the person. Some of the staff on the team were AVP's and besides getting over 100K salaries they also worked about the same as the rest of us (maybe a little more but not much). These people were extremely secretive about being officers. It was hush hush.
At another job I put in typically 100 hour work weeks and then was laid off because I made the management look bad.

There is no good solution IMO. I have seen abuses by lazy people and workers that put in 200 percent. I have yet to see any solution that works well.

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

Why do you assume that hourly pay will magically make this better? You'll still get paid $x per year however now your official hourly pay will be lower (since it's computed based on worked hours not a 40 hour week). So no I wouldn't be underpaid but instead I would be paid exactly as much as I deserve given how much I work (ie: less than I may at another company). Like I said if I'm working too much or being paid too little for how much I work I will find another job. If the industry has changed so that my position is now worth less than I'll notice this in job offers and adjust my expectations accordingly (or change the types of jobs I apply to).

Re:One solution

[Rakishi]

You're not getting paid for 40 hours, you're getting paid for 60 hours that are listed as 40 hours (ie: your hourly rate should be higher than if you actually got paid via overtime). These are all things that you should have looked into before accepting a job and you should be aware of what you're actually getting paid for (ie: it's NOT 40 hours of work). If you want to get paid 30+% less (not linear due to constant costs of benefits irrespective of salary) and work 40 hours that's a separate issue and there probably are employers like that. Of course then you'd get paid less because you work less which seems like a concept that you're not able to understand.

That said there are edge cases such as minimum wage, perception of salary issues and general human stupidity (ie: they don't realize that the non-exempt job with a lower hourly rate may in fact pay more). In other words these laws are there to protect idiots and they assume the generally higher-end exempt positions don't get filled by idiots (ie: they require creativity or some such).

Re:One solution

[Anonymous Coward]

> I prefer being salaried; I hate having to deal with time-cards

I've been an exampt employee for 5 companies over 20 years. There hasn't been any job I have that didn't require me to fill out a time sheet in half hour increments. I have never worked for a government contractor or a small company...every company I've worked for has been international. But in every case, I've had to prove that my time is billable to a specific project, even if it was internal.

> and I hate being told I can't do something (ie: work 80 hours this week then work 20 the next).

In that 20+ year span, I've never had a company let me work less than 40, and sure, I can work as much as I want next week, but I had better expect to work that much the week after, too. You have a job that let's you do less hours? You're unbelievably lucky. My current job requires "8 hour" days from 9-6 (yes, there is an hour discrepancy) with no lunch. Just saying.

Re:One solution

[Martin Blank]

We still get paid for OT when we work it. The employer isn't that dumb. But if we don't get approval for it, we can get written up for it as the customer doesn't have unlimited funds. It's almost never blocked, and to be honest, I don't know how well things would stand up if anyone ever were disciplined for working OT, as they don't enforce things especially well. But I've always been told that I needed permission to work OT, going back to my first job 16 years ago.

not getting caught

[Iamthecheese]

OH! I get it! like the horrible economic reality that its in my best interests to steal cars as long as I don't get caught

Re:not getting caught

[Asic Eng]

OH! I get it! like the horrible economic reality that its in my best interests to steal cars as long as I don't get caught

It would only be like that, if the punishment for stealing a car was less than the purchase price of that car.

Re:not getting caught

[Urkki]

Well, depending on your local laws and criminal penalties, your connections to the people already working in the car-stealing industry, and your current wealth and income, it may actually be in your best financial interests to start stealing cars until you get caught...

I hear fuel-efficient cars are in pretty high demand (compared to the supply) in some parts of the USA right now, so I think stealing those is a growing "business". Get in now, while it's a new trend!

Or not, if you don't like the idea of being a crook.

Re:not getting caught

[RAMMS EIN]

Actually, no. There is probably something you could do that would net you more. I.e., there is a better use for your time.

Not paying overtime doesn't cost you time, but saves you money. There is no more efficient way to spend your time, even if there are things that will net you more money.

Re:not getting caught

[Ihlosi]

It would only be like that, if the punishment for stealing a car was less than the purchase price of that car.

If you don't get caught, there's no punishment.

Re:not getting caught

[novakyu]

If you don't get caught, there's no punishment.

You should factor that into your calculation:

(Value of car) - (Probability of getting caught) * (penalty converted to monetary value) = Expected net profit (or loss).

It probably won't work for cars, as probability is probably greater than 1/2, and if you count lost wages while being incarcerated (not to mention the cost of being an ex-felon for life), expected net loss would be too great---you might as well buy lottery tickets or go to a casino, at that point.

But, for things as small as parking tickets, this could work as what some people call "reverse lottery". i.e. if you pay less in fines than you would have if you paid parking fees every time, then it's more economically viable to park without permits. Just make sure your probability estimates and other values are reasonable.

Re:not getting caught

[jimicus]

If you don't get caught, there's no punishment.

You should factor that into your calculation:

(Value of car) - (Probability of getting caught) * (penalty converted to monetary value) = Expected net profit (or loss).

It probably won't work for cars, as probability is probably greater than 1/2, and if you count lost wages while being incarcerated (not to mention the cost of being an ex-felon for life), expected net loss would be too great---you might as well buy lottery tickets or go to a casino, at that point.

It's already happening for car insurance here in the UK.

You're legally obliged to have third party insurance cover. However, young drivers and drivers who are deemed "high risk" (though no insurance company will tell you exactly what they class as "high risk" so to a certain extent you have to guess) are routinely quoted well over £1,000 for cover.

Reading through court cases in my local newspaper, it seems that driving without insurance generally attracts a fine no greater than £750. (It also attracts a criminal record and is something you'd have to tell your insurance company about - who would then increase the premium still further - but if you weren't prepared to chance that in the first place you probably would have paid for insurance)

Guess what? More and more people are taking the risk and driving without insurance.

Re:not getting caught

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"It would only be like that, if the punishment for stealing a car was less than the purchase price of that car."

Which it would probably be if you organised it as a corporation ...

Re:not getting caught

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent should be moderated Insightful.

Re:not getting caught

[kadehje]

The big difference between the labor laws and car theft is that law enforcement actively investigates car thefts as they are reported and will make a good-faith effort to arrest someone. And good luck capitalizing on your gains; unless you know all the nooks and crannies of your local black market, trying to sell your stolen car or its parts is liable to drawing further attention by the cops.

As suggested by TFA, employers are often able to settle FLSA cases for less than the amount of back pay in question. This means that it's apparently difficult for an individual employee to win his or her case in court. Also, violating the FLSA will rarely cause someone to end up in jail or cause a Fortune 500 company to wince in pain.

Re:not getting caught

[quizzicus]

OH! I get it! like the horrible economic reality that its in my best interests to steal cars as long as I don't get caught

It would only be like that, if the punishment for stealing a car was less than the purchase price of that car.

... and you got to keep the car after getting caught.

Re:not getting caught

[mcvos]

It's already happening for car insurance here in the UK.

You're legally obliged to have third party insurance cover. However, young drivers and drivers who are deemed "high risk" (though no insurance company will tell you exactly what they class as "high risk" so to a certain extent you have to guess) are routinely quoted well over £1,000 for cover.

Reading through court cases in my local newspaper, it seems that driving without insurance generally attracts a fine no greater than £750. (It also attracts a criminal record and is something you'd have to tell your insurance company about - who would then increase the premium still further - but if you weren't prepared to chance that in the first place you probably would have paid for insurance)

Guess what? More and more people are taking the risk and driving without insurance.

The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.

Re:not getting caught

[jimicus]

Guess what? More and more people are taking the risk and driving without insurance.

The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.

What financial ruin?

There are three possible scenarios:

1. Both parties in an accident are insured. It's the insurance companies financial problem.
2. Neither party is insured. One is not likely to sue the other because it might mean admitting that they didn't have insurance either.
3. One party is insured. In this case, it would be quicker and easier for them to claim through MIB than it would be to sue the uninsured driver, and have a rather higher chance of actually recovering any losses.

Re:not getting caught

[mcvos]

The real risk isn't the fine, but the financial ruin you're facing if you ever end up in a real car accident.

What financial ruin?

There are three possible scenarios:

1. Both parties in an accident are insured. It's the insurance companies financial problem.
2. Neither party is insured. One is not likely to sue the other because it might mean admitting that they didn't have insurance either.
3. One party is insured. In this case, it would be quicker and easier for them to claim through MIB than it would be to sue the uninsured driver, and have a rather higher chance of actually recovering any losses.

I admit I don't know the differences between Dutch and British law on this, but in Netherland, as far as I know, you do risk financially ruining yourself and someone else if you hit someone with your car.

Especially when you hit a pedestrian or bicyclist.

Re:not getting caught

[jimicus]

I hadn't considered hitting a pedestrian or cyclist, to be honest.

I suspect even with legal minimum car insurance there's no guarantee you'd be OK because the person you hit would be patched up as far as possible by the NHS. Sure they could sue you for damages, but I suspect that basic insurance cover wouldn't cover this - you'd need legal expenses cover.

Re:not getting caught

[nuttycom]

(2) seems patently stupid to me. If you have to admit to a misdemeanor that carries a minor fine to to win, say, the cost of some massive medical bills, it seems like a no-brainer to admit that you didn't have insurance.

Re:not getting caught

[jimicus]

(2) seems patently stupid to me. If you have to admit to a misdemeanor that carries a minor fine to to win, say, the cost of some massive medical bills, it seems like a no-brainer to admit that you didn't have insurance.

What medical bills?

Re:not getting caught

[rjstanford]

Only assuming that you got to keep the car.

Wow..

[mrbcs]

Big surprise.. workers getting screwed by their employers. /sarcasm
When I was salaried, if I worked overtime, I took time off in lieu.
I also documented my time and funny enough, at the end of the year I was within a couple hours.

I hate day jobs.. much more fun being self-employed.

Re:Wow..

[Tablizer]

One could take the libertarian view that says, "if you don't like the work conditions, go elsewhere". Of course, during recessions that's often not a viable choice.

But libertarians tend to be social darwinists in that regard: "let the harsh markets weed out the weak". However, it may lead to the "ugly capitalism" found in 1800's Britain that inspired tons of novels and discourses bashing capitalism.

These issues are still not settled in the US: the progressives and conservatives (semi-libertarians[1]) fight over these views endlessly.

(It's ironic how conservatives tend to reject darwinism in biology, but embrace it in economics and distribution.)

[1] Conservatives tend to be economic libertarians but regulation-oriented when it comes to sex. This is the main thing that distinguishes them from libertarians in my opinion.
         

Re:Wow..

[jcr]

the "ugly capitalism" found in 1800's

First of all, what we had in the 1800s was mercantilism, more than capitalism. There was an awful lot of trading in government favors, tariffs, interference with competitors, etc. Secondly, even with those distortions in the market, the industrial revolution is what made our current standard of living possible. There weren't any gangs rounding people up off the farms and forcing them to go work in factories in England or the United States (it was Lenin who came up with that particular crime, and Stalin and Mao scaled it up tremendously.)

-jcr

Re:Wow..

[Hal_Porter]

I've always thought that Communism was actually a trick. It was described as socialism, i.e. moving power from bosses to workers, but actually it was about rolling back progress in workers rights.

E.g. in the Soviet Union it essentially ended up essentially reinstating Serfdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#The_Alleged_Return_of_Serfdom

Some economic and political thinkers have argued that centrally-planned economies, especially the Soviet collective farm system and other systems based on Soviet-style Communist economics, amount to a return to government-owned serfdom. This view was put most powerfully by Friedrich Hayek in The Road to Serfdom as early as 1944 and has since been adopted by others including Mikhael Gorbachev. In certain Communist countries, farmers were tied to their farms, either kolkhoz which were theoretically collectives, or sovkhoz which were state-owned, through a system of internal passports and household registration. They had to plant crops according to instructions from the central authorities, especially if they were on state-run farms. These authorities would then "buy" their agricultural produce at vastly reduced prices and use the surplus to invest in heavy industry.

This de facto serfdom persisted in Russia till as late as 1974 (with a brief break during the Civil War), when the Soviet Government Decree #667 was put in effect. This decree granted peasants identification documents, with an unrestricted right to move within the country â" thus detaching them from the piece of land where they had worked for generations, for the first time in Russian history.

Re:Wow..

[Tablizer]

I've always thought that Communism was actually a trick. It was described as socialism, i.e. moving power from bosses to workers, but actually it was about rolling back progress in workers rights.

"Communism" became a euphemism for totalitarianism. True communism has yet to be made to work in practice for any long period of time.

Re:Wow..

[Hal_Porter]

That was true communism. All the stuff about violent revolutions and dictatorships of the proletariat came directly from Marx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat#Lenin

Marx: "...When the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by their revolutionary dictatorship ... to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie ... the workers invest the state with a revolutionary and transitional form ...
Engels: "...And the victorious party" (in a revolution) "must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority?...
Engels: "As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one's adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a 'free people's state'; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist ....

Re:Wow..

[bar-agent]

When I was salaried, if I worked overtime, I took time off in lieu.

You can't just "take time off." You have to get manager approval. And sometimes they say "no."

Re:Wow..

[Yokaze]

> That was true communism.

No. It was not. It was Leninism, later either Stalinism or Maoism. A certain "interpretation" of communism. Note, how your quotes comes directly from the section, which shows Lenins position.

> All the stuff about violent revolutions and dictatorships of the proletariat came directly from Marx.

Yes. That is true. You have, however, read it more carefully. It is a text from almost a hundred years ago, and even in that time, they used a peculiar vocabulary. That is why there is a special page in Wikipedia for the term "Dictatorship of the proletariat" (from which you quoted).

First, note how Marx calls the current government as "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Germany was at that time a parliamentary democracy. Similar to Anarchists (which at that time were a bit more common than they are today), they argue, that since a state has a military and a police to enforce its rules on the people, is repressive, a "dictatorship",("maintain its rule by means of the terror").

They simply argue, that for a translational phase, communists are in need of such a state, which can defend itself, the same way the current one can.

To quote Karl Kautsky (also from the very same page):

The term, `dictatorship of the proletariat', hence not the dictatorship of a single individual, but of a class, ipso facto precludes the possibility that Marx in this connection had in mind a dictatorship in the literal sense of the term

Re:Wow..

[jcr]

E.g. in the Soviet Union it essentially ended up essentially reinstating Serfdom

The soviet model was very close to feudalism in several other ways as well. Under feudalism, all property belonged to the king, who let his vassals hold subdivisions of it. Under Soviet communism, all property nominally belonged to the state, and in practice it was a hierarchy from the top thugs in moscow to the local zampolit who decided who got to use what property, regardless of who'd produced it.

-jcr

Re:Wow..

[PCM2]

Under Soviet communism, all property nominally belonged to the state, and in practice it was a hierarchy from the top thugs in moscow to the local zampolit who decided who got to use what property, regardless of who'd produced it.

Damn. You could almost say that in Soviet Russia, property owned you. (But obviously that would be a gross exaggeration.)

Re:Wow..

[Aladrin]

It depends on where you work, doesn't it? He obviously works somewhere that they value their employees enough to recognize that working overtime is doing them a HUGE favor, and give him time off when he wants it in return.

Overtime work isn't regular work... It's harder, and it's generally an 'emergency' situation that has to be completed on a timeframe. Trading overtime for regular time is a really, really good deal for a company and they should appreciate it.

The company I work for, if you end up working an extra day's worth in a week, they offer to let you take a day off the next week. (Or even that same week, if it works out that way.) Yes, they offer... You don't have to ask. Less than a day's worth, and you generally have to ask if you want the time off another day, but unless the 'emergency' is still on, they answer is usually 'Yes.'

(I put 'emergency' in quotes because there's not really any such thing in a business, but they treat the situation like it is.)

Re:Wow..

[yada21]

But libertarians tend to be social darwinists in that regard: "let the harsh markets weed out the weak". However, it may lead to the "ugly capitalism" found in 1800's Britain

They used to own us and now after half a century of socielist governments we own them. Co-incidence?

Re:Wow..

[Pig Hogger]

But libertarians tend to be social darwinists in that regard: "let the harsh markets weed out the weak". However, it may lead to the "ugly capitalism" found in 1800's Britain that inspired tons of novels and discourses bashing capitalism.

Not to mention communism...

Re:Wow..

[Alpha830RulZ]

You know, I've been working as a salaried employee for 25 years, and I have -always- had a manager that was reasonable about me grabbing an afternoon off. I don't think it's that rare. In most of the jobs, our relationship was such that I didn't even have to ask for it, I just informed my manager that I was doing it.

Re:Wow..

[mcvos]

That was true communism. All the stuff about violent revolutions and dictatorships of the proletariat came directly from Marx.

It did, but Soviet Russia wan't a dictatorship of the proletariat. Proletarians had no power whatsoever. It was a dictatorship of the political elite.

But even then, not all communists agreed with Marx. Marx argued for state communism, as opposed to people like Bakunin, who argued for libertarian communism where no state would dictate anything.

This is actually the original use of the word "libertarian". Libertarian capitalism is a more recent invention.

Re:Wow..

[Hal_Porter]

First, note how Marx calls the current government as "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Germany was at that time a parliamentary democracy. Similar to Anarchists (which at that time were a bit more common than they are today), they argue, that since a state has a military and a police to enforce its rules on the people, is repressive, a "dictatorship",("maintain its rule by means of the terror").

They simply argue, that for a translational phase, communists are in need of such a state, which can defend itself, the same way the current one can.

It's a good deal more cynical than that. Lenin and Stalin did indeed argue that parliamentary democracy was a concealed dictatorship, but that was so that they could claim their dictatorship which replaced it was the same thing.

But actually Communist dictatorships were much more oppressive than even the Tsar's absolute monarchy. E.g. look at the staggering numbers of people which were killed, imprisoned or starved to death due to collectivisation following the revolution.

Re:Wow..

[511pf]

Funny...I've worked as a salaried employee for 10-ish years, and I've never seen a manager who was reasonable about grabbing an afternoon off - unless you use PTO.

Re:Wow..

[jcr]

"True communism" was never anything more than a cynical promise made to enlist the support of ignorant and desperate people. Much like the afterlife promised by the church, the promise of "true" communism was held out as a justification for whatever crimes the ruling class cared to inflict on the workers and the peasants, whether it was stealing their property, looting their crops, forcing them into slave labor camps, or wasting their lives under incompetent military command. Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were all autocrats who wanted nothing more than personal power. Two of them obtained it, and millions of their subjects perished because of it.

-jcr

didnt the workers read before they were hired...

[nawcom]

according to the end-employee license agreement (eela) they signed, they only get paid for apple-labeled work hours. any other work hours aren't apple work hours, so they shouldn't expect any support from accounting when it comes to overtime.

(yeah i know - horrible mac clone reference; its a little after 1 am here, i'll have my geek humor rested and ready tomorrow ;) )

Overtime

[Anonymous Coward]

I accepted my first IT Management position about 1.5 years ago. When I took the position I was familiar with the regulations as I had developed payroll software for a big U.S. payroll company for five years. The classification was the first question I brought up to HR. Fortunately, they had classified the employees correctly. However, when I started asking for timesheets, several of them complained.

I'm not a big punch-the-clock guy and have pretty much left it to my employees' discretion as to how they fill out their timesheets. However, I ALWAYS insist that they put in all overtime and account for the not-too-infrequent off-the-clock weekend support calls. It's money they're due, period!

Even if a company "gets away" with not paying overtime they are subject for stiff fines for violating labor law, often greater than the cost of paying the back overtime. It would also be a PR field day for their competitors. I know I would not buy from a company that didn't pay their employees due overtime.

It's simply not worth it...pay your employees!

Re:Overtime

[Tuoqui]

Alternatively... If you need that much Overtime from your employees HIRE MORE PEOPLE. You can spread the work among more people and not have to deal with issues such as overtime if you have a large enough workforce.

Re:Overtime

[SQLGuru]

Having 5 people work an extra 2 hours per day is actually cheaper than hiring another employee to share the load (benefits costs, payroll taxes, training, desk space, facilities, etc.). If the people you have will tolerate the increased hours (whether paid as OT or not), let them do it; it will save you in the long run.

Now, if you are asking for 4 or 5 more hours per day then you'll need to hire another person because at those levels, you are bound to run off at least one of your existing employees.

Layne

Re:Overtime

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience working with Mastec and their sham overtime compensation: A law office in the same state took up class-action case against Mastec. They managed to settle it for only about $300 per employee. I worked an average of 50 hours/week, and some worked more (since they actually wanted the overtime). The settlement was well under the actual damages and didn't include any punitive.

Of course the most annoying part is paying taxes on the settlement; if the government cannot be bothered to protect my overtime, I hardly see why they should collect on the weak payout.

Re:Overtime

[511pf]

Maybe what's cheaper isn't always what's best for the company. It certainly isn't what's best for the employees.

You have five people who work from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM every day of their work lives. They leave home at 7:30 AM and get back at 7:30 PM. That leaves 2 to 2.5 hours for their kids and maybe another 1/2 hour to an hour with their spouse. They still have all the issues of modern life - shopping, cooking, eating, paying bills, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, laundry, etc. And they have a couple hours per night to do all that and spend time with their family.

So yes, your company might save a couple bucks by working five people an extra 10 hours per week. Heck, you can make them exempt and not pay them an extra cent. Maybe you'll be lucky and get five workaholics that don't care about being home or seeing their families. It's more likely that you're going to burn people out, piss them off and have them quit.

Or you can bite the bullet - knowing that you've got at least 10 hours of work per week, hire another person, and have a chance at a healthy, happy workforce.

Nah, screw that. People are an infinite resource to be exploited and discarded to make YOU more money.

All they need to know: "india"

[plasmacutter]

This is your friendly corporate PR guy come to tell you a heavily softened version of "If you push us we'll pay you your overtime, then have you train your indian replcement while we hold your severance pay hostage"

have a nice day : ).

Seriously. If I had a job in this crappy market, i'd be kissing some serious feet right now.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Seriously. If I had a job in this crappy market, i'd be kissing some serious feet right now."

You are in hell. I don't know if you realize it or not, but you are a slave with that mentality. You've sold your soul for a little piece of bread.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[Tablizer]

I once saw a cartoon where the boss simply put up a big India national flag behind his desk. Nobody bothered to ask for raises.
     

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, i realize it. living your own version of allentown really sucks.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[Anonymous Coward]

I once saw a cartoon where the boss simply put up a big India national flag behind his desk. Nobody bothered to ask for raises.

I've use a variation of this trick: I keep a copy of "Trends in Canada, India, Mexico and the Philippines" behind my desk during salary negotiations, next to the one minute manager and such. I love the name.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[nitin.sahai]

Yeah India rulezzz!!!! :P With such a large population and huge talent pool we'll do your job for even less than min wages. Lower middle class here just wanna be employed in some MNC even if the job profile involves sucking Bill gates cock 24/7.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[joeava]

If they want to outsource the job, they will end up that way no matter whether you ask for overtime pay. So why not ask for it at the first place?

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[mcvos]

This is your friendly corporate PR guy come to tell you a heavily softened version of "If you push us we'll pay you your overtime, then have you train your indian replcement while we hold your severance pay hostage"

have a nice day : ).

Seriously. If I had a job in this crappy market, i'd be kissing some serious feet right now.

Not all work is easily outsourced to India. Particularly in non-English speaking countries, it's nice if a number of the employees know the local language. And even in English-speaking countries, working with people from a different culture on the other side of the world can cause communication problems that cost a lot more than what you saved by outsourcing.

But it depends on the job. Some work is easily outsourced. But we're not quite happy with the quality of the work we outsourced to Serbia.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[encoderer]

I'm not sure where you live, but the tech market for software developers seems pretty strong right now.

I've got 6 years experience. I'm writing this from a private office in the Triangle where I'm paid about $85k. I like my job just fine.

Tomorrow evening I'm being flown to Sarasota for an interview for a company who called me and threw-out a 110-120k range.

I started my career as a developer in the immediate aftermath of the .com burst. THAT was a bad market. This is peaches and cream.

Re:All they need to know: "india"

[notbob]

Wow that would be utterly crazy, of course when I respond with raising a Nazi flag behind my desk I'll somehow get in trouble with HR, but the racist bullshit of India would pass cause HR departments are full of fucktards with no common sense and India is "ok" in their eyes.

Google mind readers

[Tablizer]

Wow, slashdot's Google Ads matched the topic spot-on. This is the ad I found at the top:

    Are you Owed Overtime?
    Call our Law Firm 24/7 Nationwide Litigation
    [link]

(Of course, sometimes they get it wrong, like the "View Viking Landers on Ebay" ad I saw once on a Mars topic.)
   

FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth. If not, then you move on. A strongly competitive market ensures that people will be able to find a new job. As long as they can do that, employers will have to pay an employee what they're worth if they want to keep them.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Firehed]

True enough. TFS points out the obvious in that if employers get away with a lawsuit settlement for less than they owed, it was a good deal. I'd extend that to suggest that if the employee following the suit was stupid enough to settle for less than s/he was owed, s/he wasn't worth the unpaid overtime money that was owed.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[QuantumG]

Of course, if you don't want to move on because you actually like where you work then the only thing you should be thankful for is that they don't reduce your pay. And the only reason why that is the case is because of convention.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[bjourne]

You are horribly naive. You get paid the lowest amount the company can get away with. The corollary is that you get paid the highest amount you are able to bargain for. Problem is, as an individual up against a whole company, bargaining is hard. But that's your own fault for hating on the unions.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Anonymous Coward]

"A strongly competitive market"

Well there is your first assumption and mistake.
  Unemployment Rates
  4 Year Low

I guess if you live at the top. Try living at the bottom.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[jambox]

I think you're simplifying a bit. What if you get a job for a company; everything goes well for a year or two. You're making progress in terms of skills and remuneration and you get on well with your colleagues. There are some extra hours involved but it's not too crazy.

Then, one day you decide to start a family. You happen to be the only parent in the department. Turns out you can't do the extra hours any more, but you assume the company will make allowances for the biological imperative.

Turns out they hate kids and people with kids and you are absolutely not allowed to just work contracted hours. You have to stay until the job is finished each day. Unfortunately, head office isn't happy with the cost of the department so they freeze hiring while continuing to take on more and more business. The hours get longer. The single people are there for 9 hours per day while you've got to go pick up the kids at 5pm sharp (as described in your contract).

What's going to happen then? Is it fair?

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[CastrTroy]

The reason a lot of people (myself included) don't like unions, is because they fight for all employees, not just the good ones. Basically everybody in the same position gets the same pay, and employees are paid more based on years of service. This means that all you have to do to keep advancing your salary, is to do just good enough to not get fired. And unions make it plenty hard to fire union members also. People should get paid based on what they bring to the company. If a guy straight out of university, his first year on the job, brings more to the company then the guy who has been working there 40 years, then he should be paid more.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Corporate Troll]

It's one of the sad facts that in IT, a family is seen as a liability. In other jobs, being married and having kids is seen as a good thing because it means you're more likely to stay longer in the company because you want stability.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[jambox]

Yeah I think that's probably right to an extent but I reckon it goes for other industries too. I think advertising/marketing/market research is more or less the same (not that I would ever consider doing that!). I do think it varies depending on how old you are. Seems as though "the norm" these days is to start popping out sprogs at about 30-35. If you do it at 25 though, you're seriously handicapping your career. That isn't good for society and given falling birth rates and the demographic wall we're heading for, there should probably be specific legislation against that sort of subtle discrimination.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Corporate Troll]

Yes, you're right.... There are other industries that work this way too. I didn't want to imply that it's only IT.

I don't know how it's in advertising/marketing/market research, but we have the added disadvantage of beings seen as obsolete from about 35 on. So, you just start popping out kids, and you lose your job. Fun foresights.... I'm a bit over 30 now, and I have already told my wife that my salary won't be as good as now forever, and that I'm most likely to have to take non IT jobs later on in my life. I just hope it won't be burger flipping ;-)

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[dkleinsc]

A strongly competitive market ensures that people will be able to find a new job.

There's the rub: a lot of job markets aren't strongly competitive. For instance, in my area the demand for bankers has all but collapsed because banks have been failing, getting bought out, and leaving the area. And both employers and employees have significant barriers to getting hired or fired.

Labor markets don't behave like Econ 101 says that they should.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[jambox]

Yeah I work in IT too, I used to work as a programmer FOR a market research firm, now I work for a software house so I can see both sides. In actual fact, the software house is far, far better in terms of lifestyle and family stuff. However the MR firm was far more dynamic and offered faster career progression for those it sees as having "the right stuff" (which seemed to mean "no kids and an alcohol problem").

There are laws in the UK (where I'm at) about ageism and sacking someone for no good reason. Essentially, if you've worked for the same firm for more than two years, you'd almost literally have to murder someone in the office to get fired. Alternatively they stuff you a bunch of cash on the way out. You'd think people would take advantage of that, but they generally don't.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Corporate Troll]

Well, I'm in the EU too, so I'm not all that worried... However if the shit hits the fan (and I know they can find excuses, my dad underwent such an event when he was in his late forties... 20 years of faithful service. Yes, IT related job.), you're really in bad waters.

I'm extremely scared of that happening. That said, my wife earns quite a lot more than I do, so perhaps we'll just pop some kiddos in the world and I'll become a houseman ;-)

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[jambox]

Yeah I know a few people who've had the same bad luck. I guess the lesson is not to get too dead-ended with a certain technology or proprietary stuff. Got to keep on learning stuff and never settle, stay on an upward curve.

Also, some companies are a LOT more stable than others; for example banks hardly ever go under; also the firm I work for is (boring, but...) incredibly secure - their capital reserves boggle the mind. I guess you have to trade some excitement off against security.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Corporate Troll]

Actually my dad worked for a bank (the event, I talked about).... Must have made some enemies higher up.... You're safe nowhere.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[that IT girl]

This is true. And from the other side of the fence, I'm actually in the minority being single and having no children. I am forced to take up the slack ALL THE TIME when people are constantly out due to their children. I hate the attitude I'm starting to develop, which is resentment, because I don't want children I'm subtly forced to work harder than those who do. It isn't fair to either side in this situation.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Corporate Troll]

I don't have any either, but the true problem here is that overtime is *expected*. Not only that, but instead of employing someone more when the workload increases, they just dump it on the poor childless. (And those with children look bad... go figure)

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Pig Hogger]

The reason a lot of people (myself included) don't like unions, is because they fight for all employees, not just the good ones.

And how is it bad? More importantly, how do you define "good employee"? Is it someone who does a magnificient job by the standards on how the job is measured, or is it someone whose boss is pleased when he sees him?

Basically everybody in the same position gets the same pay, and employees are paid more based on years of service.

With the advanced years of service, you get more experience, thus automatically becoming more valuable as your quality of work increases. This insures that the bosses don't play favourites by promoting the ass-lickers who don't really do a better job.

This means that all you have to do to keep advancing your salary, is to do just good enough to not get fired.

This also means that you don't have to suck more arse as you get more valuable and thus paid more, making you more and more susceptible to firing when the next round of "right-sizing" comes along. Witness the Worst Buy (or is it Sucker city?) decision to fire the best salesmen because they earned more money...

And unions make it plenty hard to fire union members also.

It's hard to get a job. It should be hard to lose it too! This insures that due process is duly followed and that one really gets fired for doing the real wrong thing, as opposed to piss-off a stupid manager the wrong way.

People should get paid based on what they bring to the company.

This is in Utopia. If companies paid their workers what they are worth, there would be no need to labour standards laws.

If a guy straight out of university, his first year on the job, brings more to the company then the guy who has been working there 40 years, then he should be paid more.

Sure, but how do you do this be done in a equitable way? A single worker can be crushed by the whole company. However, when workers unite, they can present a greater counterforce to the company. After all, a company is also an union, an union of investors. The union is simply a union of the workers. Why should the workers get a shorter stick than the investors???

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[CastrTroy]

And how is it bad? More importantly, how do you define "good employee"? Is it someone who does a magnificient job by the standards on how the job is measured, or is it someone whose boss is pleased when he sees him?

I would define it as people who get stuff done, and get stuff done well. People who put in an honest day's work. Regardless of how you define "good", I think there are a few qualities that most people can agree are "bad", and the unions still fight to keep bad employees.

With the advanced years of service, you get more experience, thus automatically becoming more valuable as your quality of work increases. This insures that the bosses don't play favourites by promoting the ass-lickers who don't really do a better job.

More experience doesn't mean you are better for the company. Sometimes companies need to change to account for market forces, and employee who has lots of experience, but refuses to change, or to learn new skills to account for the changing needs of the company isn't helping anything. Also, in many unionized positions, there becomes a point where your extra years of service don't really offer anything extra to the company. City bus drivers who keep on getting salary increases, even though the difference between somebody who's being working 5 years and somebody who's been working 20 years is probably close to 0.

While I see where you are coming from, you seem to have a Utopian view of how unions should work. In reality, most unions end up generating low standards of work, increasing salaries for employees who do very little for the company, and no compensation for employees who go the extra mile.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Scudsucker]

Interesting. Have you worked for companies that don't have a unionized work force? Then no doubt you've met people with good attitudes and work ethics that have passed over for promotion while those who put in far less effort are rewarded because they have a connection or some more billets on their resume. No doubt you've also seen people suffer no consequences for misconduct that would have gotten you written up or fired because they're on good terms with their supervisor. If you've been in the work force for a while, I'm sure you can think of several examples. So why wouldn't those cases be proof of how businesses are a failure? And you complain about unions holding back your inner leetness when it comes to compensation, yet companies have their pay scales. It doesn't matter if your ability matches your ego, because the company will only pay you a max of $X per year for the position you are at.

Workers in unions earn more than those who don't, straight up. You're sacrificing increased pay, benefits and job security in favor of an illusion. You might make $4 less per hour, have worse insurance and less vacation time, but you've saved yourself a thousand dollars a year in union dues! Brilliant!

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[CastrTroy]

Yes, there are bad managers out there. Managers who don't fire people who should be, and managers who fire people that shouldn't be, and managers who don't promote people who should be. However, with many unions, even a manager who wants to do a good job, is unable to, because, due to union contracts, can't fire those who need to be fired, ends up firing those who should stay on, simply because they have the least seniority, and can't promote people who really deserve to be promoted. So, while bad management can exist in non-unionized work environments, it's almost inevitable in unionized ones.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Scudsucker]

However, with many unions, even a manager who wants to do a good job, is unable to, because, due to union contracts, can't fire those who need to be fired, ends up firing those who should stay on, simply because they have the least seniority, and can't promote people who really deserve to be promoted.

Sorry, but that's another myth. There is nothing about unions that prevents workers for being fired with cause. Zilch, nada, zip. Sure, you might have some anecdotes about union members who managed to stay on after gross misconduct, but then I can match it with my anecdote of a guy who said to a young female employee "I'd like to rape the shit out of you" and wasn't terminated, at a virulently anti-union company. Or the line supervisor who was caught sleeping in the break room when he was supposed to be working - twice. He still has his job, while hourly employees at the same place have been fired for coming in two minutes late.

Bad cases are not examples of systemic flaws in union or non-union shops, but as you say, are examples of bad management.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Myopic]

You are mostly right but let me rephrase it: an employee is paid exactly as much as they can and do demand.

Last year I was making a certain amount because I could not demand more from my employer. I went out and got a job offer making +30%. When I got that offer, I knew I'd soon be making that higher amount, regardless of who was paying me. I took my offer to my employer who immediately matched it (slightly exceeded it).

Was I worth more on Tuesday than I was on Monday? No, I figure that I was "worth" the same, but I successfully demanded more on Tuesday, so I got it.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[bjourne]

The reason a lot of people (myself included) don't like unions, is because they fight for all employees, not just the good ones.

No, they fight for their members. And yes they fight for "bad employees" too. Unions aren't there to make the world happy or have a higher moral ground -- their purpose is to maximize their members paychecks.

Basically everybody in the same position gets the same pay, and employees are paid more based on years of service. This means that all you have to do to keep advancing your salary, is to do just good enough to not get fired.

Oh what an outrage. Employees expect salary increases from companies they have worked for. But unions do still not dictate what salaries companies have to pay. If the company doesn't want to pay the minimum salary the union asks for, they are free to refuse. If an employee is not satisfied with the salary the union has negotiated, he is free to demand a raise or go work some place else.

And unions make it plenty hard to fire union members also.

That is their job. Now ask yourself, do you want it to be easy for your employer to fire you or do you want it to be hard?

People should get paid based on what they bring to the company. If a guy straight out of university, his first year on the job, brings more to the company then the guy who has been working there 40 years, then he should be paid more.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. How is that supposed to happen? The guy with 40 years of experience is supposed to magically come forward and ask for his salary to be swapped with the university grads? Union or no union, if the university graduates work is that important, then he is perfectly free to ask for the same salary as the older guys. Though the union will provide him will provide him with salary statistics so that he will not accept the first bid from the employer which is likely to be a very huge underbid.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[511pf]

A strongly competitive market ensures that people will be able to find a new job.

What about the shit job market we're in right now?

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[djp928]

That's not a strongly competitive market, is it? When there is more labor than jobs to fill, salaries go down and competition is hard. When there are more jobs than labor to fill them, salaries go up and there is much less competition. Anybody who was in tech during and after the bubble has seen both sides. It evens out eventually, but at any given point you're not guaranteed a favorable condition.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[CastrTroy]

I'm not talking about being fired for gross misconduct. That's always possible. But what about cases where there's not gross misconduct, and you just want to get rid of a guy because he isn't pulling his weight.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Scudsucker]

Then you fire him for not meeting the job description.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

Okay, but the example you picked is one of a highly regulated market: banking. How can you expect competition and regulation at the same time?

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

Someone else made the same point -- that you have to negotiate to get the highest salary. Not true in a competitive market. You don't have to be an expert on determining what you're worth, just like you don't have to be an expert in determining what eggs or milk are worth, and what price a grocery is willing to accept. They know that you're going to be comparing prices with the grocery across town, and if they sell the eggs or milk for less, you'll go shop there.

Yes, true, labor isn't quite such a commodity. Still the point holds that the employer knows how much he's willing to pay, and it's his competition that keeps him honest, in wages as much as in prices. Most regulation acts to reduce competition, because any regulation acts as a barrier to entry.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

I'm not assuming a strongly competitive market. I realize that some markets are not. I'm pointing to a better solution than the FLSA -- one which requires politicians to do less -- and citizens to demand that they do that.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

If the back of your birth certificate says "Life will be fair", then for you, life will be fair.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Russ Nelson]

True ... and you pay the lowest prices for their products that you can get away with. Anything wrong with that? What prevents them from charging more? What prevents you from being paid as little as they would like?

Competition! When you contract for employment, you have an expert on your side, advising you what your employer must pay to get you on staff. This expert is the company's competition. You have no idea how much your employer is able to pay -- but their competitor does, and they'll hire you away if the employer tries to pay too little.

(Insert messy world, where nothing works as well as you'd like -- including unions and the FLSA.)

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[Myopic]

Right. And that's a cute theory, but it doesn't have the virtue of comporting with reality. My story was exactly a counterexample to your theory: my employer underpaid me, and I had to demonstrate it before my employer changed my wage. The invisible hand of the market did work, but it wasn't magic, and it wasn't some tacit understanding of the local employment pool, it was my explicit action which brought about the pay change.

Your theory is true generally, at a course-grain level. Indeed, my employer wasn't trying to pay me minimum wage or anything like that. And a grocery store isn't going to charge ten times the amount for the same item. But my employer was underpaying me by thirty percent, and one grocery store might charge thirty percent more than the other one. They can do that exactly because of the central weakness in your theory: perfect information. Shoppers (employees) don't have perfect information; they don't seek it; thus, stores (employers) don't have to have exactly the right price (wage).

At the heart, that is why free-market theory is flawed: it assumes perfect information and perfect competition; but there is no such thing as perfect information or perfect competition, only approximations of those things. Which is why the market sort of looks like it acts similar to free-market theory predicts, but not quite.

Re:FLSA or not, you get paid what you're worth

[dkleinsc]

No, the example I picked was the market for bankers, not banking. Those are different markets, although one affects the other.

Another example in the market for software developers: If Microsoft suddenly decided to move from Redmond to Bangalore, there would necessarily end up being a lot of unemployed developers in Redmond at least for a year or two, because not all developers are going to want to pack up and move to India and it will take them time to decide to move themselves and their families (possibly doing serious damage to their spouse's career) to a new area where there are more jobs.

Furthermore, the developers' salaries in that area would drop dramatically as all the ex-Microsofties attempted to keep their families afloat. Since they're the same developers, you can't really say they're worth any less than they were before Microsoft moved, but because of market forces outside of their control they're likely going to be in very bad financial shape for a several years.

Caveat Employee

[Penguinisto]

Usually one of the first questions I bring up upon being accepted for a position involves comp-time/overtime. Then I get it in writing.

They can (and often do) quote policy at length, but you can (and should) negotiate changes more to your liking. But unless the job is an entry-level/helpdesk position, or the market really, really sucks? Never trust an employer to look out for your best interests... that's supposed to be your job, eh?

/P

FPMITA Is the solution

[EdIII]

""If they can settle [a complaint] for less than 100 percent of what they owe people [for overtime], they've gotten away with a good deal."'"

This is why when the DA can prove that there was a conspiracy to carry out just such a policy, then they should be sent to a Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison. I realize that there may not be any laws yet to cover this, but there should be.

This reminds me of the Fight Club when Ed Norton's character is explaining to the woman on the plane that if the total legal liability is less than the cost of recalling all the defective cars, a recall is not issued. There is just no other way to say it... that is some nefarious heinous shit. If laws are really meant to protect and nurture society then this is EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a guy that I used to work with.

We worked in downtown Tokyo, he insisted on driving. (We all used public transport.) Except he didn't have a parking space, so he parked right in front of the building, on the street, illegally, every day. I asked him once how he avoids parking tickets. He said he didn't bother too much.

"Parking space costs about US$500 a month here. A parking ticket costs about US$100. They come around on the average three times a month to issue tickets. I actually only get about 1 per month, because I know they come between 11:00AM to 1:00PM on Tuesdays only. It's both convenient and economically viable to do things that way!"

He had a point...

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

Bullshit. We have too damn many hippies trying to pass laws to protect the weak and lazy from themselves. All those laws do is remove Darwinian survival of the fittest from our society which only serves to make all of us weak. If we are to progress as a species and/or civilization, we need fewer laws to protect those who can't be bothered to protect themselves.

In the end, this comes down to responsibility and we need to stop trying to pass the buck to everyone else. The fact that there is a law about over time in situations like this is pure stupidity. I apply for a job that is listed as a salaried position exempt from overtime, guess what? It's a salaried position exempt from over time. There is no reason what-so-ever that any laws should be allowed to override this contract between me and my employer.

Don't like it? Then become your own damned employer.

The kind of shit that needs to be stopped is whiny, bitching, lazy bastards complaining about every little thing they don't like. This is why god (aka, man) invented the firing squad. To rid ourselves of people who think that companies not wanting to pay over time is "EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped."

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Hal_Porter]

That only works because most Japanese people won't break the law even if the fines are rather low, because they have principles. If there were more people like your friend parking fines would have to increase.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Hal_Porter]

This reminds me of the Fight Club when Ed Norton's character is explaining to the woman on the plane that if the total legal liability is less than the cost of recalling all the defective cars, a recall is not issued. There is just no other way to say it... that is some nefarious heinous shit. If laws are really meant to protect and nurture society then this is EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped.

No, if that were the case the solution is to make the legal liability for defective products killing someone higher. And in the US, legal liability is higher than almost anyone else. This should make US products safer.

Certainly companies go to greater lengths to avoid being sued for injuring someone in the US than elsewhere. Of course, the price for all this is eventually paid for by the consumer in terms of more expensive stuff.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Telvin_3d]

See, many people consider the idea of a Darwinist survival of the fittest and civilized society as oxymorons. You should not have to resort to Darwinist solutions to receive the pay agreed upon. Your compensation should not be a competition to see who can screw over who the most.

The idea that laws and contracts should be followed not because you will be penalized for being caught but because they are laws and contracts is significant. I would go so far as to say it defines much of our western society, or at least the ideals our western society strives for at its best.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Fulcrum of Evil]

So I'm responsible for someone ignoring a defect on the car I bought (or covering it up) and also for companies using their leverage to screw me out of legally guaranteed rights? You've got to be a troll.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

actually given society's status as a whole today it's more sensible to say that the laws are made to keep a status quo and benefit the established powers (applies to both domestic and international).

You=ant
Apple=giant
As such, the laws will allways fuck you in the ass as much as possible without you taking up arms on them.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to find Slashdot delightful,
But my feelings of late are more spiteful;
My comments sarcastic
The iconoclastic
Keep modding to +5 (Insightful).

- Randall Munroe

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[LKM]

You are being ironic, aren't you?

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

While I agree with you on some matters, I disagree with you on others. Darwinist solutions are time-tested and known to work quite well. But we are destroying our ability to survive by pampering those that lack the skills and motivation. Instead, we should be pushing them harder.

I don't believe in blindly following laws written by people that are not affected by them. I am of the belief that our laws are too complex and as such are becoming more and more meaningless and useless. I should have the right to start a corporation and offer positions with the pay that I want to offer. In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

You're an ass hat who has gone out of his way to miss the point for the sake of arguing. You sir, are the troll here.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EdIII]

I think you missed the point. There is a difference between manufacturing a defective product and having knowledge that a product is not only defective, but dangerous.

A defective product would normally be a handled by a warranty. A defective product that through its use, and as a consequence of its defect, contributes to someones death is a cause for a civil suit between the next of kin and the manufacturer. When the manufacturer is aware that their product contains a potentially life threatening defect and actively chooses to NOT inform its customers and offer warranty repair, they meet the definition of criminal negligence.

Your proposal of raising the limits on monetary relief provided to plaintiffs in the aforementioned civil suits does not address the situation represented in the movie. The situation in the movie represents industry executives knowing that there is a high likelihood of someone dying as a result of their inaction, yet still choosing not to act as inaction better serves their financial interests. That is criminal and should not be handled with civil law and courts but rather state and federal prosecutors in criminal investigations.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

Partially, yes. But I'm also partially serious. We're talking about a law that requires companies to pay over time to employees when neither the employee or the company want that.

For instance, I currently work a salaried position in IT which is exempt from over-time. I enjoy the benefits of that position. I can come in a little late. I usually stroll in around 9AM and leave around 5PM. I usually take a 1.5 hour lunch. No one cares because they all see the next day that I also worked from home that evening for about 3 or 4 hours. I enjoy my work enough to work more than 8 hours a day, but in a cubicle farm, I get interrupted so much that I can get more work done at home in the evenings. I participate in an on-call rotation, but even when I'm not on-call, I often times take notice of emergencies and hop online and help out my co-workers with on-call issues. I have no wife or children, am generally anti-social, so I sit at home and work. And I enjoy it.

Enter the law about over time. What happens when these law suits become all the rage and my employer decides that, even though my position doesn't appear to be affected by this law, they make it hourly anyway? Now, I've lost my flex time, have to punch a time card, and must be at work from 8AM to 5PM with a strict 12PM - 1PM lunch. At the very least, I will be unhappy enough that I will no longer work more than 8 hours a day. I will perform worse during the 8 hours that I am there. Sooner than later, I'll probably leave for greener pastures. This is now a negative for both me, my team, and my employer and it's all because someone else somewhere else that has no relationship to me what-so-ever opened his mouth and bitched and complained.

We've got to stop this kind of non-sense. Let me live my life the way I want to live my life for fuck's sake! I'm tired of people bitching about every little thing, going on to spawn new laws that destroy my lifestyle, and then proceeding to bitch about even more shit! We have to stop catering to these people who want life handed to them on a silver platter. It only makes all of us suffer. They need to take initiative to make their lives better through action rather than using a flawed legal system to their advantage. When companies do this, these same bitchers raise holy hell and cry foul. When they do it, it's a self-righteous holy war that is destructive to everyone around them.

This kind of behavior attempts to normalize the work environment for our entire nation. In the end, all this senseless bitching will do is end us all up in a THX 1138 world. That is what a normalized world would look like and whether they know it or not, that's what they're trying to achieve. They decide it's too much work to stand on their own, so they attempt to pull down those who can by constant complaining.

A previous poster had it right. This is people doing this to people, not the companies doing this to people. The companies are just adapting to the crap the people are throwing at them.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[novakyu]

If there were more people like your friend parking fines would have to increase.

But until then, it's the bureaucrat/legislator's fault for not properly motivating GP's friend.

The fact of the matter is, not enough people can think with cool head and coldly calculate what is best for them. It's their fault for not being rational participants in the marketplace.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I've lost my flex time, have to punch a time card, and must be at work from 8AM to 5PM with a strict 12PM - 1PM lunch.

If this is the case, it's your employer's fault for a total lack of understanding of the issues.
It's perfectly possible to combine flexi hours and overtime. I have a standard week of 37 hours but I can work more or less in any given week and carry a flexi balance of up to +/-8 hours. On any given day I can work as little as four hours (less with agreement) or as much as I want.
I can also claim overtime outside the flexi system as appropriate. Sounds complicated? Not really. It probably takes me an extra 5-10 minutes per month to do the paperwork. I self-administer the flexi part and submit a monthly overtime form.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Urkki]

Do you approve having contracts that would make the employees effectively slaves for life with no right to resign without your approval, and unspecified pay and working hours? Of course voluntarily signed (eg. by a parent who's kid is mortally ill, in exchange for your company to provide the expensive health care the kid needs to live). And I'm not asking if such an agreement would be a good deal for your specific business, I'm asking if you would approve that such voluntary agreements could be made in our society?

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

I agree the combination is possible. But the possibility is irrelevant when there is a looming chance of lawsuits.

If this is the case, it's your employer's fault for a total lack of understanding of the issues.

It's not my employer's fault for a lack of understanding. My employer already DOES understand. That's why I am currently in this situation. The lack of understanding is on the side that is pushing this law on my employer and thus on me. Rather than risk further lawsuits, my employer will reduce that risk as much as possible by enforcing uniformity (often misinterpreted as fairness) on all employees. This will mean everyone will get the same hours with the same strictness of policy and lack of flexibility. While this wont happen over night, it will happen a little more every time one of these lawsuits comes to bear until we have no flexibility and everyone across the globe has a uniform job with uniform benefits. Sounds like communism to me.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

So he was being a dick because he could get away with it.

Not much to be proud of.

Hear hear people, I'm being an asshole because nobody is forcing me to be considerate of others.

People like him are the reason we need all these stupid little laws in the first place.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[freedom_india]

Exactly.
Corporates are psycopaths. If a psychiatrist examines them, he/she would say a corporate is a pathological liar with a maturity of a 12 year old and a physical prowess of Hercules.
Treating a 12 year old with adult behavior will not just work. For instance, not talking to them or sniffling in front of a 12 yrs old to prvent him/her from stealing from the fridge is just a waste.
OTOH, tying up the 12 year old or stopping his/her pocket money will have a dramatic change.
Strict Discipline, constant care & threats, coupled with authority will make a 12 year old grow into an adult.
Corporates similarly need to be treated the same way: how much ever they cry about it.
Get the corporate to pay 200% of the amount as non-tax-deductible fine, and cancel the operating licenses of a few corporates, and you will see the rest falling in line.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[freedom_india]

The fact that there is a law about over time in situations like this is pure stupidity

Probably you would be a glad cuban plantation owner in 1500s or a mill owner in the Victorian era: The laws then were non-existent, and sub-humans who worked in your plantation or mill can be worked to death WITHOUT any reprecussions.

All those laws do is remove Darwinian survival of the fittest from our society which only serves to make all of us weak.

True: only the fittest and healthiest slaves have survived today. And are roaming around as 50 cents and Lil' Kim.

To rid ourselves of people who think that companies not wanting to pay over time is "EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped."

Am sure you WERE a cuban plantation owner in the 1500s in your previous incarnation. The one who was hacked to death by his own slaves.
So how was life back then..?

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[kadehje]

This reminds me of the Fight Club when Ed Norton's character is explaining to the woman on the plane that if the total legal liability is less than the cost of recalling all the defective cars, a recall is not issued.

If only that mindset were restricted to the realm of fiction. I think "Fight Club" was alluding to the Ford Pinto fiasco. I'm sure there's countless other instances where people's safety has been knowingly or negligently disregarded in regards to the bottom line.

Not being paid for overtime sucks, but if you're making $80K a year and working an average of 50 hours a week, you're still a lot better off than the majority of the U.S. population. Many blue-collar workers are lucky to reach $50K doing 60 or 70 hours a week (this typically involves 2 jobs, as many companies now cap employees' hours at 40 to avoid paying time-and-half). Unless you made the mistake of signing some ridiculous non-compete upon taking your position, there's a variety of ways of dealing with your situation.

In terms of protecting employees, think the Department of Labor needs to focus on OSHA violations first (safety and health concerns should always trump concerns over pay), and then FLSA starting with employees making the least amount of money (e.g. fast food and retail workers). The "Fight Club" concern of defective products is the responsibility of another department (Dept. of Commerce and/or DoJ), but warrants equal concern as enforcing OSHA. Someone making $13/hr. that's denied time-and-a-half or is falsely classified as a "manager" making $28K for working 60 hours a week is much more affected by these abuses than those working IT. In many places, $13/hr. ($26K/yr.) is enough for an OK living living for one person, and barely enough for a family of three to survive (parent and 2 kids). Getting $19.50 for each hour over 40 and/or being available to pick up a second job makes a huge difference to these people. Compared to the day-to-day issues those working in the retail sector often face, I'll take my problems over theirs any day of the week.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Ash-Fox]

Species five six one eight.
Human.
Origin grid: 325.
Physiology: inefficient, below average cranial capacity, limited regenerative abilities.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Partially, yes. But I'm also partially serious. We're talking about a law that requires companies to pay over time to employees when neither the employee or the company want that.

For instance, I currently work a salaried position in IT which is exempt from over-time. I enjoy the benefits of that position. I can come in a little late. I usually stroll in around 9AM and leave around 5PM. I usually take a 1.5 hour lunch. No one cares because they all see the next day that I also worked from home that evening for about 3 or 4 hours. I enjoy my work enough to work more than 8 hours a day, but in a cubicle farm, I get interrupted so much that I can get more work done at home in the evenings. I participate in an on-call rotation, but even when I'm not on-call, I often times take notice of emergencies and hop online and help out my co-workers with on-call issues. I have no wife or children, am generally anti-social, so I sit at home and work. And I enjoy it.

Enter the law about over time. What happens when these law suits become all the rage and my employer decides that, even though my position doesn't appear to be affected by this law, they make it hourly anyway? Now, I've lost my flex time, have to punch a time card, and must be at work from 8AM to 5PM with a strict 12PM - 1PM lunch. At the very least, I will be unhappy enough that I will no longer work more than 8 hours a day. I will perform worse during the 8 hours that I am there. Sooner than later, I'll probably leave for greener pastures. This is now a negative for both me, my team, and my employer and it's all because someone else somewhere else that has no relationship to me what-so-ever opened his mouth and bitched and complained.

We've got to stop this kind of non-sense. Let me live my life the way I want to live my life for fuck's sake! I'm tired of people bitching about every little thing, going on to spawn new laws that destroy my lifestyle, and then proceeding to bitch about even more shit! We have to stop catering to these people who want life handed to them on a silver platter. It only makes all of us suffer. They need to take initiative to make their lives better through action rather than using a flawed legal system to their advantage. When companies do this, these same bitchers raise holy hell and cry foul. When they do it, it's a self-righteous holy war that is destructive to everyone around them.

This kind of behavior attempts to normalize the work environment for our entire nation. In the end, all this senseless bitching will do is end us all up in a THX 1138 world. That is what a normalized world would look like and whether they know it or not, that's what they're trying to achieve. They decide it's too much work to stand on their own, so they attempt to pull down those who can by constant complaining.

A previous poster had it right. This is people doing this to people, not the companies doing this to people. The companies are just adapting to the crap the people are throwing at them.

You are one of the lucky few. Most IT workers are forced to work lots of overtime with no comp time and no rewards.

Many of us have to punch a clock anyway. If we are late we get in trouble. If we take a long lunch, we are in trouble. but they can ask us to stay for weekends/evening for months at a time without anything in return.

If you have a good employer, then you can still get your flexibility, they can just break the laws for you the other direction. Also, this doesn't apply to all IT staff. In some cases some IT staff is actually allowed to make decisions. In our company we can't.Everything goes through the management for everything. We are not allowed any creativity.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[LKM]

Partially, yes. But I'm also partially serious. We're talking about a law that requires companies to pay over time to employees when neither the employee or the company want that.

I'm not sure how the employee could possibly not want to get paid.

These laws are typically in place where there is a power imbalance between employer and employee. Normally, this gets fixed by having unions, which give employees power when negotiating with employers, but unions have their own issues.

Laws setting up minimum requirements can fix some of this by giving employees some basic rights without forcing them to fight their employers.

Laws can always go too far, and I personally think that running a corporation is far too complicated and expensive (e.g. sox compliance). However, protecting employees is one area where the result typically ends up being positive for everyone involved, even the employers, who get a more motivated workforce.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

...that is some nefarious heinous shit.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Say that it'll cost $100m to recall a line of cars and save one kid from electrocuting himself on your faulty wiring. Instead, donate $50m to charity and save a hundred lives, and you have both the moral high ground and a hefty chunk of change.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Alpha830RulZ]

Get the corporate to pay 200% of the amount as non-tax-deductible fine

Fines and penalties are already generally not deductable for tax purposes, if paid to a government body. Settlements in lawsuits, however, are, as are payments of back wages.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Sweden, employers have to choose between paying you hourly with overtime for all hours over 37.5 in a given week or salary without overtime but giving you an extra week's paid holiday (that's 30 days a year rather than 25).

Even though I typically work a 50-hour week (slightly illegal here, but I'm not actually *forced* to do so, and I generally like my work), I'm happy with the salary plus the extra paid days off, especially since I also have fairly flexible scheduling plus I often can choose for myself between the office and home. If I actually had to work all hours in the office (or if my salary were lower or I had to work a strict 9-6/Monday-Friday schedule), I might feel differently.

(4-digit /. ID here but posting anonymously since I don't wish to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by possibly getting my employer into hot water.)

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that "non-exempt" status is not synonymous with all the crap you're complaining about, right? Yes, you would need to have some kind of time-tracking system, but there's nothing in the law about you having to show up for a specified, exactly 8 hour shift every day. If your employer is currently fine with you doing 4 hours one day and 12 the next, then your status is changed to non-exempt and it's suddenly not fine any more, then that's the employer's hangup, not the law's. What it doesn't allow for however is having a 100 hour two-week pay period followed by a 60 hour two-week pay period (well, not seamlessly anyway), which is what I'm more likely to encounter as a software engineer. (possibly the same in IT in general, don't know)

On another tack, I have to say to you what everyone else is directing at the evil corporations. If you don't like the laws, do something to try and change them. The "people who want life handed to them on a silver platter" are exercising their legal rights, and had nothing to do with putting those laws in place in the first place. afaik this law at least predates the existing workforce, so isn't the real issue a lack of nuanced law that protects people's rights without forcing them into a very small number of restrictive categories?

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[mcvos]

In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.

This would be true if workers have any other choice. The problem is that people require food to live, and not all countries provide high-quality social security, which means that in those countries, workers may be forced to accept really badly paid, unfair positions. In such situations, it's fair for the government to regulate the job market so nobody will take unfair advantage of these people. If having a job wasn't such a bare necessity, you'd be absolutely right.

Sometimes starting your own company works, but not if you need food on the table right now. Or if you're trained for a job that requires significant capital investment to get started.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Hal_Porter]

I think most Japanese people would want GP's friend to GTFO, i.e. the bureaucrats should sling him in jail for being an antisocial prick.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Neoprofin]

Sure.

It'll be a lot easier to get the company to accept your resignation when you stop showing up because you're working at a different job.

The new job would of course also have to pay health benefits, but how is any of this any different than just having a job you don't like and leaving it for a different one? There's no legal obligation to show up for work and I can't imagine that the courts would compel even if there were.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[herring0]

Lord knows I wouldn't want to end up in THX1138's world cause from what I saw masturbation would seriously lose its fun.

--sorry I really couldn't resist

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Ahh, you're just another freeper. Guess I can ignore you, then.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Flextime is not orthogonal to being paid for every hour you work.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Thundermace]

Here in Sweden, employers have to choose between paying you hourly with overtime for all hours over 37.5 in a given week or salary without overtime but giving you an extra week's paid holiday (that's 30 days a year rather than 25).

Even though I typically work a 50-hour week (slightly illegal here, but I'm not actually *forced* to do so, and I generally like my work), I'm happy with the salary plus the extra paid days off, especially since I also have fairly flexible scheduling plus I often can choose for myself between the office and home. If I actually had to work all hours in the office (or if my salary were lower or I had to work a strict 9-6/Monday-Friday schedule), I might feel differently.

(4-digit /. ID here but posting anonymously since I don't wish to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by possibly getting my employer into hot water.)

See here is a huge difference between American and European Law. There you are entitled to those 25 days a a year, however, here in the US you are entitled to NADA, nothing, squirt, bumpkiss, didly squat, crap , 0 days. Generally most employers will give two weeks of vacation (10 days) after a minimum of one year (well sometimes two years) of service. To get to 25 days (of holiday / vacation time) most employers want to have you working there for more than 30 years. Also Hourly workers must be given a 15 minute break for every 4 hours they work (aka the 30 minute lunch). So although I agree with you, I also understand the botterness of some of the American Workforce. Equity in Labor is a non-starter where laws are concerned and favor the corporation over the person.

We also have "right to work" laws but they are so rare its ridiculous, the majority of us in the US live in a "Employee at will" state, which while it allows you to be able to tell your employer to GTH whenever you wish for whatever reason you wish, it also gives the employer the same right making your ability to labor always seem a little more tenous....

done ranting back to work...

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Urkki]

If the society allowed such contracts as I outlined, then certainly the employer would take the employee/slave to court for breaching the agreement by not showing up at work as requested (and win if they kept their side of the deal). Ie. in the scenario I outlined, there would be legal obligation to obey the contract, ie. a legal obligation to show up for work as outlined in the contract (in this case, whenever the employer wants, for as many hours the employer wants). That was kind of the whole point of my scenario.

In our current society, such a contract is invalid, as you point out. The "slave" can just break it without any consequence, so the contract is only worth the paper it's printed on. And I get the impression that you too think this is a good thing that such a contract would not be binding, that there are at least some laws that limit the freedoms of individuals and companies in making employment contracts.

Then the rest is just deciding what can be agreed upon, and what kind of agreements are invalid by law. It's all shades of gray between libertarianism and full state communism.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[511pf]

The kind of shit that needs to be stopped is whiny, bitching, lazy bastards complaining about every little thing they don't like. This is why god (aka, man) invented the firing squad. To rid ourselves of people who think that companies not wanting to pay over time is "EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped."

Yeah! Whiny, bitching, lazy bastards got rid of child labor, instituted the 40 hour work week, the minimum wage, made employers pay attention to worker safety and implemented Social Security.

Let's go back to kids working 50 hour weeks for less than minimum wage, while getting their arms chopped off in smoky factories. If they don't like it, we'll put 'em in front of the firing squad!

You would make a GREAT Secretary of Labor in the Bush Administration.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So get paid more than $100,000 - then you can have exactly what you want, you will be exempt. Yeesh.

Cheers, Liam

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

IT currently caters to people with no significant life responsibilities outside of work. Those people love their jobs so much they're happy to work 12 hours a day for the same salary they'd make if they clocked out after 8 hours. I know, because I used to be one of those idiots. When you're just starting out, you want to be a go-getter, right? Anyone who doesn't want to work as much as me can get the hell out of my way, because I'm going places! Anyone who wants to slack off after just 8 hours can clean out their desk and make room for ME!

Now I'm a 30-something who wants more from life than just work. I want a significant relationship. I want some further education. Maybe I want kids or some other enriching hobby. I'm competing in a workforce that contains the same 20-something jerks I used to be, and all that the future holds in store for me is either unlimited unpaid overtime or a career change, because everywhere caters to young people with severely unbalanced lifestyles.

Your stance may some day come back to bite you in the ass. You'll get your job arranged the way you like it, working 11 hours a day, then some overachiever will come along and boot you from your spot because you're not willing to work 14 hour days.

It's a race to the bottom, my friend. We must define the bottom at some arbitrary point.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

Yes, I agree with this as much as I agree with indentured servitude. These are voluntary and I do believe that people should have the right to voluntarily enter into any contract they choose. We do have laws about duress to protect people from contracts signed at gunpoint and I think they need to remain. But that is a whole different matter.

Re:FPMITA Is the solution

[EightBits]

. . . and make room for ME!

You understand that your stance here is still adhering to this same idea. You are still only looking out for your own best interests and, well, screw anyone else who doesn't have those same interests! You're still willing to screw over the other guy to get what you want. You may think what you want now is noble and just and blah blah blah, but this hasn't changed from when you were 20. I'm sure you thought the same thing then. In the end, it's still only what *YOU* want, and has nothing to do with what's best for everyone.

I am a 30-something as well. I've been working IT full-time for about 10 years now. I've been through the phase you've described when I started just as you have. I'm not an over achiever by any measure. I just like doing what I get paid to do. My dislike for other people in general makes it very unlikely that I will ever want a meaningful relationship with anyone, much less have kids and all that.

I understand your stance. I truly do, because I am also competing in the job market against those 20-something "jerks" that will work 14 hour days while I'm only working about 10. I also have things I want to do outside of work and my work-from-home time interferes with it.

But I'm striking a balance that I like and I see no reason for you to destroy my lifestyle to better your own. I'm not going to try to force laws on your employer that will harm your lifestyle. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do the same to me. When people do that to me, it hurts me. If you don't want me to hurt you back, then think about that before you do something like this because if you hurt me because you didn't care enough to not hurt me, then I will probably not care enough about you to not hurt you either. I'm never going to go out of my way to hurt you, but if this is the game we're playing, then I will not consider your situation when it's my turn at bat.

So you can see that your stance of trying to force me to fit into your mold will only serve to hurt you later. I'm saying we should try to find a way to allow you to have your cake and me to have my pie in such a way we can both eat them. If you try to force me to have cake when I want pie, I'm probably not going to eat the cake. Instead, I just wont bother to cover my mouth or turn my head away when I have to sneeze, even if I'm ill.

A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[serviscope_minor]

Now I'm going to use this to take a dig at the free market and capitalism. This is why pure capitalism doesn't work. Companies don't try to "compete", they will lie, cheat, steal and break the law just to make a buck. That's because people will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Which is of course why communism doesn't work either. Because of people. And the company will keep selling the products because this makes them cheap. And people will keep buying them because they don't care about whoever is getting cheated.

Remember, it's not the company doing this to people, it's just people doing it to people. In the end that's all it is.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument is flawed because it is based on the assumption that a free market would contain laws pertaining to employee pay and overtime.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[headpushslap]

AC, incorrect - serviscope posted re: PURE CAPITALISM, which does not include regulation or legislation, it is the unfettered market at work - so no laws would exist.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Gamer_2k4]

Which is of course why communism doesn't work either. Because of people.

But that's the same reason that capitalism is so much better than communism. With communism, the incentive is that you'll be providing for others, and they'll help you in return. However, with capitalism, you get what you put into it. Because there's personal motivation, capitalism works. Sure, with capitalism, people will do whatever it takes to get money. But the truth is, even if they're lying and cheating to make that money, they're still ultimately helping their company and society in general. And that's quite a bit better than communism, where there's little to no motivation at all. Misguided motivation that increases productivity is always better than a lack of motivation that hinders productivity. Both systems are influenced by greed and even distrust, but capitalism harnesses that greed, while communism breaks down because of it.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[0123456]

"This is why pure capitalism doesn't work."

Most big companies wouldn't exist in a free market, and most small companies can't afford to 'cheat' employees, so your point is not very convincing. While there are exceptions, big companies generally rely on big government to keep new, small competitors out of the market, funnel taxpayers' money to them and protect them from irate employees and ex-employees with RPGs, .50-caliber sniper rifles and surface-to-surface missiles.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[AuMatar]

Actually its the opposite, look at the late 1800s. Without the government stopping them, economies of scale and the ability to price below cost and temporarily absorb the loss causes every industry to favor monopolies. With an industrialized society you either have heavy government involvement or EVERYTHING is a few big companies. Most likely those would merge as well, to form vertical monopolies and to tie products. In the end you'd have one company for everything but the markets that are too small for it to care about.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Hal_Porter]

There was a joke in Russia

"In Capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism it is the reverse"

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Urkki]

Your argument is flawed because it is based on the assumption that a free market would contain laws pertaining to employee pay and overtime.

A free market would still contain agreements, and it would out of necessity need laws for situations when somebody breaks the agreement, no? If there was no government to enforce agreements (and define what an "agreement" is), but only private "security" bought with money, then the law would simply be what ever the one with most money for the best "security" would dictate.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[RAMMS EIN]

You are right, for some value of "doesn't work". The trick is in designing the system in such a way that it causes egoistic people to do things that are beneficial to others.

A free market does that, because it provides an incentive for you to produce what others want, so you can trade it for things they have that you want. And it provides an incentive for you to charge a reasonable price for it, because, if you don't, someone else will produce the same thing and trade it for less, and you will be left with a stock of things you have produced, but none of the things you wanted. In a way, it is very beautiful, because you get all this by doing nothing; that is, not imposing any rules.

However, the system is definitely open to abuse. Instead of producing the chairs that people want and trading them for the meat you want, you can produce a wooden club and threaten to beat people to death unless they give you meat. This is probably something that should be regulated. In a sense, without regulation, the system "doesn't work".

On the other hand, regulation can also cause problems. At a minimum, regulations are useless without enforcement, and enforcement diverts resources away from production, which reduces the efficiency of the system. Regulations can also actively reduce the efficiency of the system, for example, by disallowing certain exchanges. An extreme case of this could be found in many Eastern Bloc countries, where you basically weren't allowed to decide what to produce, who to sell it to, and in exchange for what. The result was that the incentive to produce was lost, there was a mismatch between what was produced and what was needed, and a vast amount of work went into enforcing regulations, rather than production.

I think there needs to be regulation, but there is good regulation and bad regulation. On the whole, I think Western countries have done a good job of enacting good regulation. There is some bad regulation as well (I am sure we all have our favorite examples), and some countries do a better job than others, but I think, at the end of the day, there is much production and little abuse.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Free market != Anarchy

That said, the issue at hand here is a governmental regulation, not a contractual agreement.

If a free market did exist there would be no issue unless Apple had a contract with these employees regarding overtime compensation.

In a free market the government's proper role is to enforce the rules (contracts), not to make them (legislation).

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Urkki]

And if there was a contractual agreement on overtime, stating exaclty the things now stated by law, and Apple didn't obey it, how would that make the problem go away?

Why would Apple honour such an agreement, even if they aren't honouring the law?

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[evilviper]

Most big companies wouldn't exist in a free market,

That's completely and totally wrong. In a free market, big companies get bigger, because they have the capital and influence to do so. The biggest companies in US history existed back when the US had the least regulations in place. That was the era of the robber baron and so-called captains of industry who held more power than the President...

Certainly, there are some cases where the government raises the barriers of entry and stifles competition, but they are in the minority.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[jambox]

That is total rubbish. Slashdot must be going downhill rapidly if that gets modded insightful!

OP was right - big companies came about because of economies of scale in a relatively free market. They were not created by the government as an excuse to tax people!

Also I have seen very bad behaviour by small companies because they cannot afford to absorb costs as much and because they have a small workforce, they can't deal with several people being sick or having babies or whatever.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Hemogoblin]

This is why pure capitalism doesn't work. ... Which is of course why communism doesn't work either. Because of people.

Since every sistem is going to involve people, are you saying that no system will work? What's the point of saying that? We need *some* system, so throwing them all out and going home is sort of pointless. Instead, you should be evaluating them (Highest utility, lowest cost, whatever), and going with the best one. It may not be perfect, but we don't really have a choice in the matter.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[that IT girl]

Definitely. If we take all the people out of the equation, we could have utopia!

I'm not being sarcastic. People always want to put on rose-colored glasses and talk about all the nice people in the world and the goodness of mankind. You may find this in churches and charities, but honestly, in the business world, dog-eat-dog cutthroat attitudes prevail. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone in a position of power that didn't use some unscrupulous means somewhere along the line to get there.

You are exactly right with your closing statement. People are quick to blame big businesses. Big business doesn't just exist. It is created and sustained. By people.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Red Flayer]

In communist Russia, man makes joke of $ECONOMICSYSTEM?

Makes sense, since in capitalist America, the economic system makes a joke of man.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand this is why we NEED a free market??? If this was communist Russia the government would be overtiming you! You wouldn't have a "choice" to get a different job, or "create" you're own small business because you don't like what is currently out there. You're whole "dig" is a big poster for the free market and you don't even realize it! Insightful...give me a break...

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[serviscope_minor]

With communism, the incentive is that you'll be providing for others, and they'll help you in return. However, with capitalism, you get what you put into it.

To a limited extent, yes.

But the truth is, even if they're lying and cheating to make that money, they're still ultimately helping their company and society in general.

Helping the company is helping society? Union Carbide. DeBeers. The Honourable East India Company. Enron. Ford (remember the pinto?). Blackwater. Perhaps you have no idea how quite how bad a large corporation can go?

And that's quite a bit better than communism, where there's little to no motivation at all. Misguided motivation that increases productivity is always better than a lack of motivation that hinders productivity. Both systems are influenced by greed and even distrust, but capitalism harnesses that greed, while communism breaks down because of it

No, capitalism sometimes harnesses it. Smoetimes not. When it does, it works great. Historically, pure communism breaks down much faster and in a more permenant way than pure capitalism, since capitalism makes some attempt to harness that greed.

But, capitalism doesn't work for everything. Hence the need for regulation and/or state run organisations.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[thechao]

I assume by "pure capitalism" you mean a sort of anarchistic no-holds-barred free-exchange? Capitalism works just fine with fair regulation. In fact, I would claim that most of the excesses that you (might? probably? devil's-advocaty?) ascribe to "capitalism" are actually a result of capitalism in a unfair regulatory environment.

I don't have any proof for this, but then, neither do you.

Re:A dig at the free market and capitalism.

[CodeBuster]

In the end that's all it is.

Which makes it a non-issue since the condition will persist no matter what system is employed by society. The interesting question then becomes, given that people will lie, cheat, steal, and break the law to get what they want (or at least given enough incentive they will) which system delivers the best possible result under these unavoidable circumstances? People have written books and spent lifetimes debating the answer to that question so there is really no need to repeat the well known arguments here, but in response to your original point, bringing up the fact that people are self interested is not a dig against capitalism per se, but rather a lament over the inevitable state of the human condition which is ultimately futile and adds nothing to the debate.

These are IT people

[ragnarok]

The suit is being filed by a Network Engineer. These are the guys who keep the local infrastructure running - its tough to outsource that kind of thing to India.

Re:These are IT people

[Urkki]

The suit is being filed by a Network Engineer. These are the guys who keep the local infrastructure running - its tough to outsource that kind of thing to India.

Just have an Indian support professional walk any secretary though any network maintenance procedures over IP phone. Easy! Efficient! Almost free! Then you can "let go" a few better paid network professionals, and hire an extra secretary or two (at minimun pay of course) to be the hands and eyes of the Indian network professionals. Guaranteed to save you big bucks on the long run!

And remember, young female secretaries in skirts reaching up to change some cable is a much more aesthetic view, than a slightly overweight, bearded male engineer doing the same, Even assuming he doesn't wear a skirt... (Just try not get a mental image of him doing it in a skir...AAaaieee

Re:These are IT people

[Kent Recal]

Never underestimate human/management stupidity.
My ex-employer is currently performing his third outsourcing-experiment for core infrastructure - after the first two (thailand and russia, iirc) failed horribly.

The ratio being (no kidding): "We pay only 1/3 for them, so we can try at least 3 times."
Needless to say the damage done by the first two experiments already ate pretty much all potential savings for the next 5 years...

Re:These are IT people

[Danathar]

Why would they need to do that? Connect a modem to the serial port of the hardware and they can dial in to fix the router.

The only things that can't be outsourced (yet) are stuff that needs physical presence. Who knows, maybe your sysadmin might end up being a walking robot remote controlled by a low paid worker in china.....

Re:These are IT people

[Urkki]

The only things that can't be outsourced (yet) are stuff that needs physical presence. Who knows, maybe your sysadmin might end up being a walking robot remote controlled by a low paid worker in china.....

Why on earth would you want robots, if you could have young female secretaries in skirts doing the physical stuff?

(Or, to avoid being sexist, young muscular males in tight jeans, if the boss happens to be a woman or a homosexual man...)

Crazy idea.

[RightSaidFred99]

How about an employee and an employer agree to an amount of pay, a schema for that pay be it salary or hourly, and a set of duties. Then if either side decides at a later point the agreement is no longer suitable, the relationship can be severed.

Crazy shit, I know.

Re:Crazy idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a madman!

Re:Crazy idea.

[evilviper]

How about an employee and an employer agree

That's quite an unequal bargaining table, stacked substantially in favor of the employer.

Laissez Faire capitalism was tried and failed in the US nearly a decade ago, precisely because the individual has such minuscule bargaining power compared to a large company.

It wasn't the free-market and contract law that ended sweatshops in the developed world.

Re:Crazy idea.

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

yeah, because we've seen how wonderfully that works in the late 1800/ early 1900's.

Hell, unemployment rates were so low then we actually had to force all our children to work 14 hour days! Just perfect.

You, sir, are an idiot if you believe the power balance between an employer and an employee is even.

Re:Crazy idea.

[Danathar]

Except that you don't see this until your paycheck comes in and it's less than what you agreed to and the employer says "quit and sue me!".

So you do and now...

1. you are out of a job

and

2. Now you have to sue a company while looking for a job.

Re:Crazy idea.

[Aladrin]

Something has changed since then: The exchange of information is now very, very easy and extremely fast. Finding a new job in another country can be done over the internet now. Finding a job in the same town is a piece of cake.

Yes, there's something to what you say... It's unequal, but not like it used to be. Back a century ago, talking to someone in another state was tough enough to prevent people from getting a job there first, and then moving. That made moving even tougher than it was to start with.

Things have changed. The past isn't the present.

Re:Crazy idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about if we make sure that the number of employers is equal to the number of employees, so that they have equal negotiating power?

Re:Crazy idea.

[winwar]

"The exchange of information is now very, very easy and extremely fast. Finding a new job in another country can be done over the internet now. Finding a job in the same town is a piece of cake."

Sure, if you want to make minimum wage and have no benefits. If you can easily find another good job then you are in a rather unusual position.

Very few people are irreplaceable.

Re:Crazy idea.

[RightSaidFred99]

Umm, I think that's why they developed these things called "unions".

Re:Crazy idea.

[SparkleMotion88]

...the individual has such minuscule bargaining power compared to a large company.

I've heard someone make this claim in the past, but I've never heard any support for this. Can you please explain why this is true? I've always considered the act of selling my labor to be a typical capitalist transaction -- one in which neither party would participate unless they thought they were getting a good deal. I recently started a new job and I had to negotiate through about a half dozen offers in order to pick the best one (and get a higher salary in the process, of course). So I believe that I had at least as much bargaining power as those large companies. Why am I wrong?

Re:Crazy idea.

[Myopic]

It would be less crazy if it comported with reality. Since it doesn't, yes, it's crazy. (But, not much crazier than any other ideology that ignores reality.)

Re:Crazy idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Commie!

Re:Crazy idea.

[511pf]

YOU had bargaining power because you had six offers. Maybe this is news to you, but not everyone gets six offers for every job. Talk to an autoworker in the Midwest or a construction worker on the West Coast.

Re:Crazy idea.

[djp928]

If you aren't in a situation where you have marketable skills, that's probably an indication that you need to develop some... marketable skills.

Nobody is entitled to a particular job, or a particular rate of pay.

Re:Crazy idea.

[evilviper]

Umm, I think that's why they developed these things called "unions".

Indeed. But that's not the same as "an employee and an employer agree[ing]". Perhaps more to the point, though, Unions have practically no foothold in the tech industry right now.

Re:Crazy idea.

[RightSaidFred99]

Oh poor us. My relatively large salary I get for sitting on my ass and doing stuff I (usually) enjoy is just killing me. Poor, poor tech workers. IT workers are really suffering under some Dickensian conditions. Whaa. Whaaa. Seriously, this country's shift towards socialism is appalling. Everybody wants free shit at someone else's expense, and they want the government to help them get it.

I mean, Jesus. Another topic here is about the horrible Cable companies and how they're oppressing people. Now maybe I'm crazy, but how about you not fucking watch the Iron Chef, Oprah, or the Real World if you don't like the cable companies. I guess it's a sign of success when you start whining about things like this. For the record, this is why "they hate us". You go to Darfur or to the Sudan and tell them all your woes. The only question is if they'll shoot you in the face before or after they cramp up from laughter.

Re:Crazy idea.

[evilviper]

Seriously, this country's shift towards socialism is appalling.

Unions have been around, and in force, for nearly a century now. They have actually been losing ground for the past couple decades. How does that fit into "shifting towards socalism?"

You go to Darfur or to the Sudan and tell them all your woes.

The fact that people have it worse, somewhere, doesn't mean those who have it relatively good should piss away all their rights until the point that they have it just as bad.

Read for yourself...

[MillenneumMan]

The FLSA is actually pretty clear and easy to follow: http://finduslaw.com/fair_labor_standards_act_flsa_29_u_s_code_chapter_8#2

It is not hard to determine whether or not your own role qualifies as exempt or non-exempt. Where it gets interesting is if you have seasonal duties, such as being a software developer for part of the year (which would be exempt from overtime pay) and then providing technical support for that software during a different part of the year (which would be non-exempt, or due overtime pay). A good example might be developers at Turbo Tax that code in the fall and do tax software support during the spring (which is tax season in the United States). If more than 20% of your work during the year is non-exempt then your employer cannot classify you as exempt and you must be paid for all overtime as if you were non-exempt year round.

In honor of this article - Overtime Jokes

[Nomadic_Z]

Top Ten Reasons To Work An Overtime Shift On The Weekend 10. Think of all the weight you'll lose from not getting to eat because of short staffing. 9. Think of the closeness you'll develop with you're co-workers after being knee-deep in Code 10's/Blues and Code "Browns". 8. Everyone is so frazzled, so next to them you look fabulous! 7. Think of what a challenge it will be to your nursing skills to run a Code without a Crash Cart because they are all down in Central being replaced. 6. The joy of having the previous shift's charge nurse tell you, " I don't understand why no one would return my calls to work today/tonight. Oh, and by the way, you are short two nurses and a CNA for this shift with a full house of patients sick as dog dirt." 5. Because you're a new grad and you want to be a "TEAM PLAYER" like your head nurse told you to be. (That and you have "sucker" stamped on your forehead!) 4. When you go home with your back aching from not having any nursing assistants who work weekends and your feet aching from running your butt off for "emergency procedures" (like the gas pain your patient has had for a week that is suddenly unbearable) you'll know that you really ARE a caregiver. 3. Think of all the computer skills you'll gain from putting in your own orders and ordering supplies from Central. (That can go on your resume' as...."Know how to operate multiple outdated computer models.") 2. You don't have time to adequately chart so you may get to learn how our judicial system works. On the bright side, your handwriting will be so bad that it can say whatever you want it to say! 1. Think of what a GREAT "Learning Experience" this will be. Translation: You just got shafted!!

Re:In honor of this article - Overtime Jokes

[Killjoy_NL]

Top Ten Reasons To Work An Overtime Shift On The Weekend
10. Think of all the weight you'll lose from not getting to eat because of short staffing.
9. Think of the closeness you'll develop with you're co-workers after being knee-deep in Code 10's/Blues and Code "Browns".
8. Everyone is so frazzled, so next to them you look fabulous!
7. Think of what a challenge it will be to your nursing skills to run a Code without a Crash Cart because they are all down in Central being replaced.
6. The joy of having the previous shift's charge nurse tell you, " I don't understand why no one would return my calls to work today/tonight. Oh, and by the way, you are short two nurses and a CNA for this shift with a full house of patients sick as dog dirt."
5. Because you're a new grad and you want to be a "TEAM PLAYER" like your head nurse told you to be. (That and you have "sucker" stamped on your forehead!)
4. When you go home with your back aching from not having any nursing assistants who work weekends and your feet aching from running your butt off for "emergency procedures" (like the gas pain your patient has had for a week that is suddenly unbearable) you'll know that you really ARE a caregiver.
3. Think of all the computer skills you'll gain from putting in your own orders and ordering supplies from Central. (That can go on your resume' as...."Know how to operate multiple outdated computer models.")
2. You don't have time to adequately chart so you may get to learn how our judicial system works. On the bright side, your handwriting will be so bad that it can say whatever you want it to say!
1. Think of what a GREAT "Learning Experience" this will be.

Translation: You just got shafted!! (but now in a more readable form ;) )

Re:In honor of this article - Overtime Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

:) Ha, thanks buddy. I appreciate the readability factor.

Exempt has perks

[prockcore]

The problem is that many exempt employees don't know what their rights are.

Subject to certain exceptions set forth in the regulations, in order to be considered "salaried", employees must receive their full salary for any workweek in which they perform any work without regard to the number of days or hours worked

The exemptions are too long to quote here, but the exemptions all cover missing entire days.

Read section 541.602

This means that as long as I get my work done, I can go home at noon every day if I wanted and they can't do anything about it.

Re:Exempt has perks

[EvanED]

This means that as long as I get my work done, I can go home at noon every day if I wanted and they can't do anything about it.

Well, they can fire you. Whether they would if you're getting your work done is another matter of course, but it's not like their hands are exactly tied.

Re:Exempt has perks

[nitehawk214]

The company I work for got bought out and this was part of the new HR policies. They framed it in a vague way that most people read as: "you are not allowed to take half or partial days off anymore."

In reality it means that for salaried employess; if you were to take a half/partial day, they have to pay you for a full day.

I think the company is unable to do anything other then rely on the lower level managers to make sure nobody abuses this.

The practice is rampant

[Atario]

One place I worked sent around something to sign, acknowledging being exempt employees (the meaning of which was not explained). This was despite everyone being explicitly paid by the hour.

Trust me, if you ever find yourself working at a place run by non-douchebags, hold on for dear life, because you just threaded the needle big-time.

Re:The practice is rampant

[Icarium]

Odd. I'm a salaried worker and I'm forced to claim overtime, even if I didn't actually work any. It's actually a mechanism of trying to deter our client from overloading us with development requests, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Fair enough, I'm not in the US so the whole concept of exempt/non exempt doesn't apply.

California law applies too

[Todd Knarr]

Also bear in mind that, for the IT field, California has additional laws about who's overtime-exempt and who's not based on, among other things, salary and effective hourly rate. Relevant law is California Labor Code section 515.5. As of 2007 the effective hourly rate needed to qualify as overtime-exempt was $49.77/hour. SB 929 changed that effective 1/1/2008 to $36/hour, or not quite $75K/year in salary. Anyone in the IT field not being paid at least that amount is not exempt from overtime in California regardless of other qualifications (the exemption requires that all conditions hold).

Re:California law applies too

[ishobo]

The $74,880 salary is for 40 hours per week only. If you routinely work more than 40 hours, say 50 hours, then your employer would need to pay you a salary of $93,600 to be safe.

• 60 hours = $112,320
• 70 hours = $131,040
• 80 hours = $149,760

Once your employer fails to pay the correct salary for the calendar year, your classification switches to non-exempt for that entire year.

Re:California law applies too

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the link. This section has changed quite a bit since I read it last. I especially like Section 511. If I am reading it correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong), this section says that an employer can only require employees to work more than 8 hours in a day if this schedule is approved by two-thirds of the employees in a secret ballot. So although us programmers are not paid overtime (Section 515.5 kills Section 510), we also can't be told to work unpaid overtime unless 2/3 of us approve it.

Re:California law applies too

[511pf]

Also bear in mind that, for the IT field, California has additional laws about who's overtime-exempt and who's not based on, among other things, salary and effective hourly rate. Relevant law is California Labor Code section 515.5. As of 2007 the effective hourly rate needed to qualify as overtime-exempt was $49.77/hour. SB 929 changed that effective 1/1/2008 to $36/hour, or not quite $75K/year in salary. Anyone in the IT field not being paid at least that amount is not exempt from overtime in California regardless of other qualifications (the exemption requires that all conditions hold).

IANAL, but it appears that this section means Systems Administrators can be exempt:
(b) The exemption provided in subdivision (a) does not apply to an
employee if any of the following apply:

  (3) The employee is engaged in the operation of computers or in
the manufacture, repair, or maintenance of computer hardware and
related equipment.

The clause is obviously meant to apply to computer manufacturing workers, but it's written so broadly that it would also apply to Systems Administrators, Desktop support positions, Help Desk positions and so on. In fact, I've specifically seen software development positions that say they require desktop support. I thought this was extremely odd, but it now appears that it was a dodge by the employer to get around the new overtime law.

Re:California law applies too

[Todd Knarr]

Nope, wrong sense. Subdivision (a) sets the conditions under which an IT employee can be considered exempt from overtime rules. Subdivision (b) gives conditions under which the exemption in subdivision (a) does not apply. So if (b)(3) applies, then the overtime exemption otherwise granted by (a) does not apply and the employee is not overtime-exempt. A broad reading could make sysadmins non-exempt employees, but it couldn't make them exempt if they didn't meet the qualifications of (a).

News: Network Engineers Admit...

[Anonymous Coward]

News: Network Engineers admit they can be replaced by trained monkeys with procedure lists. According to the argument there's no real discretion in resolving network problems. Guess that CCNA doesn't mean much. Is this really what they want to say?

Any German readers here?

[schoschie]

It'd be very interesting to learn about the overpay situation in Germany (or other parts of Europe) for those that are not in a trade union (Gewerkschaft) or have pay scale laws in place (Tarifvertrag). I'm talking not only about tech workers, but the majority of people working in media, design and architecture. In these professions, most people I know won't even bother to mention overtime to their bosses because paid overtime in these fields (especially in the latter three) is practically unheard of.

Re:Any German readers here?

[colinRTM]

I just spent several years working for a large shipping firm in Holland, not in the IT department.

Our staff were (I just left) all salaried. On top of their basic salary was an extra 23% which was to cover 1.5hrs overtime per day. Any overtime they did in addition to that was paid at double whatever their hourly rate was calculated to be. Not to mention the extra holidays mandated by law for working over 35hrs/week.

Nobody in that division was in a union.

Re:Any German readers here?

[Carthag]

I'm on flex time (in Denmark), which means that as long as my hours average out to 7:24 per day (one fifth of a standard 37 hour work week), I can distribute my time as I please. I work in government though.

In fact most jobs I've had, whether computer-related or not, have had some sort of system in place to cope with overtime, etc.

Re:Any German readers here?

[pimpimpim]

I moved from holland to germany, and you can't really compare. Germany is a bit too easy on employers, with the idea that "the more jobs stay in germany the better" . This does not consider that these jobs should also pay enough to live from, and is easily misused by employers. Germany has no minimum-wage, and plans to change that are only progressing very slowly. At the higher end of the scale, consultants often get no-overtime contracts. Instead you get other benefits, a relatively high starting salary + fancy company car, and it's up to you to decide if it's worth it.

Ok but that's a straw man argument

[Sycraft-fu]

Because I haven't seen anyone here propose a pure capitalism, and you'll find very few people who advocate such. You'll also notice that countries that are capitalism aren't pure capitalism. Capitalism also DOES work because it is the only system I've seen that deals with people, specifically that they are lazy and greedy. While it is not true of all people or in all cases, as a general rule people are lazy and greedy. They'd rather not work, if given the option, and would like to have more stuff. Capitalism plays one off the other, using greed to overcome laziness. Not perfect and doesn't work in a pure state, but it is certainly better than anything else tried.

Re:Ok but that's a straw man argument

[serviscope_minor]

Ok but that's a straw man argument

Not really, it wasn't an argument. :-)

Capitalism also DOES work because it is the only system I've seen that deals with people, specifically that they are lazy and greedy.

No, it sometimes works, because in the right conditions it deals with people. In other cases it fails to deal with people. In those cases, the government often does a better job.

While it is not true of all people or in all cases, as a general rule people are lazy and greedy. They'd rather not work, if given the option, and would like to have more stuff. Capitalism plays one off the other, using greed to overcome laziness. Not perfect and doesn't work in a pure state, but it is certainly better than anything else tried.

But if people can subvert a capitalist system to get more money for less work, they will. So, that is why there are regulations, and some systems which are best left to the government.

People have tried everything from pure capitalism to pure communism. What works is somewherer inbetween. Which it is depends a lot on who is running the big companies and who is running the government.

Re:News: Network Engineers Admit...

[Tablizer]

News: Network Engineers admit they can be replaced by trained monkeys with procedure lists. According to the argument there's no real discretion in resolving network problems. Guess that CCNA doesn't mean much. Is this really what they want to say?

In reality its probably a mix such that say 70% of it is routine but 30% is not. Most jobs are like that to various degrees.
       

I think the important question to ask is...

[loraksus]

Why is it that "tech workers" are virtually the only group singled out for getting the shaft on overtime pay.
Sure, other groups have exceptions in state and federal law (truck drivers, fruit pickers, etc), but if you look across the board - virtually all states have sections just for us in the overtime part of the law and no other group gets screwed in such a wide swath of area.
This even extends to Canada.

I left an employer who stiffed me on overtime pay "accidentally" and when I talk to other people in town, the general consensus is their employers "don't pay overtime... and they have lawyers on hand to ensure they don't start paying."

Interesting, no?

Re:I think the important question to ask is...

[will_die]

You have it backwards, the laws are there to require that tech workers get classified as getting overtime.
Before theses laws singling out tech workers everyone classifed tech workers as high end professionals and exempt from overtime and therefore worked them for free hours, you still have that as seen in the Apple lawsuit. The laws now make it alot harder to qualify tech workers as being exempt from overtime and as such you now have legal actions against those companies that "don't pay overtime" but still require you to work extra hours.

Re:I think the important question to ask is...

[evilviper]

Why is it that "tech workers" are virtually the only group singled out for getting the shaft on overtime pay.

Because wage laws were designed for "blue collar" workers almost exclusively. "White collar" jobs were exempt because those were mostly managers and executives who got payed plenty, anyhow, and those jobs didn't translate into hours of labor precisely either.

IT is just what happened to come along and dramatically expanded the pool of non-union, white collar jobs, which didn't fall under most wage laws. Now, companies are accustomed to screwing over their IT staff, and there's a lot of inertia against changing that.

Bad way to look at it

[bm_luethke]

"If they can settle [a complaint] for less than 100 percent of what they owe people [for overtime], they've gotten away with a good deal."

It always amazes me the number of companies that do things like that, especially in highly skilled professions. They never take into account things like how worker happiness works on the over all output picture

Say, for instance that they "save" 200k at a cost of 100k - sounds good right? Well by doing that they normally "loose" WAY more than that 100k (I use quotes for "save" and "loose" because in both cases you aren't really saving or loosing, it is greater than or less than what you might other wise make).

I suspect there is signifigantly more money "lost" (in the sense of not making as much as one could) due to loos in productivity for being a crappy workplace. A workplace doesn't have to be really happy (that can also have a certain amount of drawbacks and employees tend to take advantage of that as much as employers take advantage of this), but unhappy is generally bad.

I've worked places that do not pay overtime that I work many hours over 40 a week and never really thought about it. In return I had reasonable deadlines, could work *any* hours I chose (include randomly take a week off if I felt like it, go fishing every Wednesday morning, or whatever), and I took home lots of high dollar equipment to play with.

Since, being a geek, I like playing with high dollar equipment so much of it was activities I would be happy to do otherwise. Reasonable deadlines was also a big one - I knew that if strongly asked to work over time (I don't recall it ever being demanded, though had I refused I suppose it would have been) that it was really a need. It also helped that the bosses worked in the same way.

I spent many many extra hours making them money. I never once felt gipped all the time I was employed there. I knew that they cared about me and, as such, I cared about the organization. Unfortunately that only went so far up the chain, but that is another story.

*shrug* It seems to me that the more removed an individual becomes from the people they manage they more they do this. IMO it is because they become numbers, not people. It also seems to happen to those that think it never will, it is a VERY rare person that makes it high and still keeps those ideas. And no, I don't think that the upper management only promotes those that think of people as "human resources" (one of the worst ideas of our time, though there are a few good HR people out there the rest are drones). I think it is no more complex that as faces become numbers that the idea expressed in the original quote become "common sense" - in my experience if you know many upper management people you will find someone who got there through managing a group of people as people, not numbers. It is just once they get to the number stage they forget there are people there.

CSC got busted.

[pecosdave]

My check was about 1/10th of what they legitimately owed me.

Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, there's one company famous for that. You may have heard of it. It's called AMD (formally known as ATI). I'm surprised they haven't been sued for all the bullshit they enforce. Maybe because there just aren't that many alternate companies to go to in the area. Just talk to ANY employee there that works in engineering.

I don't get overtime

[LKM]

I really don't get overtime for programmers. Well, perhaps if you need to ship in a few days and aren't quite finished yet, so you work overtime for a few days. That could work.

But constant overtime? It just doesn't work.

If you're building a wall and putting one brick on another, you're probably going to do about twice as much work in twice the time. This does not apply to programming. I've noticed that I have about 4 to 6 hours of programming in me each day. Some days it's more; perhaps up to 10 hours. But most days, it's around 4 to 6 hours.

After I've run out of "programmming" time, I have to stop programming, because if I continue to write code, I'll have to spend time rewriting it the next day. I simply start writing crap code after about 4 to 6 hours of writing code. I can't properly concentrate on writing code anymore, I guess. Once I reach this point, I typically start doing administrativa, replying to mails, answering support calls, writing documentation and such. Or I just go home (happily, I can do that at my current work place; as long as my output is good, I don't need to put in the time).

In my experience, most programmers work the same way. Nobody codes well for 10 hours a day, each day.

This gets us to overtime. If you force people to continue writing code after their natural code writing limit is exhausted, they will write crap. And they will have to refactor that crap. So in effect, forcing programmers to work overtime will slow down your project, because they'll start spending more and more time fixing broken code instead of writing good fresh code.

Re:I don't get overtime

[QuantumG]

I can write good code 18 hours a day. But hey, I've been doing it for 15 years.

That doesn't mean I *want* to.

Manage your manager.

Re:I don't get overtime

[antirelic]

I'm not so sure I agree with where your going with your argument. Sure, if your a programmer, you may not be able to program for more than 4-6 hours, but that doesnt mean you've "stopped working". Doing all that administrative bullshit IS WORKING, and you should be compensated for it. Every worker should be compensated for every second they perform or are forced to sit "on the job".

While I am fervently anti-socialism/communism, I do not agree with the whole "time and a half" and "double time". However, everyone should be paid for every hour they work. In the long run, no business works for free. Your software company doesnt give away its software for free. Your IT services company charges for every second you are on the job. Why shouldnt you get paid the same?

Lets face it, the days of being a "company man" are over. Every individual needs to treat themselves as a "business". Since we are forced to pay for our own training (some people will let their companies pay for their training, and then sign "reimbursement contracts" for x amount of time, but I digress) and are simply a "cost" on a "chart". If you work for free (aka: uncompensated overtime), then you should look at it this way: I just gave my boss and his boss money that I actually earned (because most management types get bonuses for cutting down on "hours paid"). So the next time you want to argue against over time (not directed to the parent), go ahead and give a piece of your earned paycheck back to your company because it is the same thing.

Re:I don't get overtime

[jambox]

Of course you can, because you're a special android man with magical powers from beyond the mooooooon!

Re:I don't get overtime

[QuantumG]

The trick is to work on more than one thing at a time.

Re:I don't get overtime

[jambox]

Yep - dual monitors with code on one side and a browser on the other...

Re:I don't get overtime

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually easy to understand. In many industries overtime is already taken into account when scheduling projects. They count already with programmers working more than 10 hours a day, asking them to come over weekends and even sleeping in the office to get the product out of the door "in time". People go along with that for various reasons: some are young, some like the fun of the industry, some are very committed to the project, etc. It is nevertheless unfair and should be illegal. However it is hard to write into law limits when many people in this situation enjoy what they do, are more or less paid well, and rather do this than program a database or web application. Anyhow the culture needs to change and companies must make schedules according respecting existing laws if people in our industry are going to get to their fifties...

Re:I don't get overtime

[LKM]

I'm not so sure I agree with where your going with your argument. Sure, if your a programmer, you may not be able to program for more than 4-6 hours, but that doesnt mean you've "stopped working". Doing all that administrative bullshit IS WORKING

Yes, I didn't mean to say it wasn't, should have explained that better. It's important to answer mail and document your stuff. But there's only so much of that type of "non-demanding programmer work;" I'd say at most an hour a day.

There's simply no way I can fill 8.5 hours a day with useful work; I'm actually more productive if I work 7 hours a day than 8.5 hours a day.

I agree with your assessment; you should get paid for every hour you spend at work. That would probably teach your employer not to force you to work useless overtime :-)

Re:I don't get overtime

[EvilBudMan]

Wait until get 25 years on you then all of that diet mountain dew you use to do that with will cause you an enlarged prostate, loss of hair, and gain of hair that speaks.

Also, you could go blind.

Re:I don't get overtime

[independentlpaz]

I don't disagree with any of LKM's points about programming (or any other "brain work"). I would like to correct the point about muscle work: If you're building a brick wall and your boss asks you to work for an extra 2 hours he probably get's an extra two hours worth or work. If he asks you to work an extra two hours everyday, and then asks you to come in on Saturday--eventually your production begins to drop. If fact, after a few weeks he may be paying you for an extra 20 or 30 hours a week while only getting 40 hours worth of production. Crazy, I know. But it happens all the time in construction. I'm guessing that something similar occurs in programming? People are asked to work overtime when the perceived cost of hiring additional workers exceeds the overtime cost...or simply because additional workers aren't available.

Re:I don't get overtime

[LKM]

If you're building a brick wall and your boss asks you to work for an extra 2 hours he probably get's an extra two hours worth or work. If he asks you to work an extra two hours everyday, and then asks you to come in on Saturday--eventually your production begins to drop. If fact, after a few weeks he may be paying you for an extra 20 or 30 hours a week while only getting 40 hours worth of production.

Yes, I was grossly simplifying. I think the correlation between time and result is more linear with manual labor than with "brain labor", but it's obviously not "twice the time results in twice the work done", either.

With manual labor, even if you're tired, you can get some amount of useful work done. With "brain labor", you actually start doing "negative work."

People are asked to work overtime when the perceived cost of hiring additional workers exceeds the overtime cost...or simply because additional workers aren't available.

I guess that is the motivation. My point is that it doesn't work, and I'm surprised that people don't realize that it doesn't work.

Re:I don't get overtime

[fmerenda]

You know that, and I know that.

Can you please tell my boss that?

Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Workers"

[TheThiefMaster]

Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Workers Need to Know About Overtime".

Very few stories on here are US-specific, and they should be labelled as such.

Experts getting it wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they can settle [a complaint] for less than 100 percent of what they owe people [for overtime], they've gotten away with a good deal." - Sagafi

Even if they settle for 100% of what they owe, they haven't lost.

I'd love a gamble where there's little chance of losing, but even if I did, it'd only mean not gaining or losing anything...

There's only risk if the judgement could be 101% or more. Even then, with minimal risk, it'd have to be pretty high in punative damages to actually stop companies doing it.

Case in point:

There's a brand new PS3, boxed up in an empty shop. If you take it and get caught, they'll take the box off of you and tell you off.

Would you try?

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the same thing. The title got me interested as a Software Engineer living and working in Australia, but obviously none of this article applies!

Overtime is an illusion...

[pythonhacker]

Remember Murphy's law which is most applicable to tech jobs ? "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion". So, for workers complaining about not getting paid for overtime, shut up and go back to your cubicle and continue listening to those iPods and posting inane comments to /. ...

Re:Crazy idea. (correction)

[evilviper]

Oops:

Laissez Faire capitalism was tried and failed in the US nearly a century ago

Law != both sides agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't it so that the "negotiations" have already been done, and the result was made into laws and indsutry-wide agreements.

Just because something was made into law in a democracy does not mean that both sides agreed to it. It may just mean that one side out numbered the other and committed tyranny of the majority.

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[Urkki]

The way I see it, if you agree to use the infrastructure created and/or supported by the society, and if you agree to take advantage of skilled people educated in society-supported schools, then you implicitly agree to follow the laws of that same society. You can't pick one and reject the other.

I don't see a company being forced to accept the laws, any more than I see a hungry unemployed being forced to take a crappy job. Both can choose to reject the agreement (not hire people, not eat), or to ignore the law (but possibly face the consequences if they get caught). Both can also move out of the country if they think it's a better solution for them. Etc.

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[yada21]

if you agree to take advantage of skilled people educated in society-supported schools, then you implicitly agree to follow the laws of that same society. You can't pick one and reject the other.

Yes I can I'm a libertarian and I can do whatever I want. So there!

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[tweek]

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
    -- Benjamin Franklin

And has our educational system gotten so bad that people think the US is a democracy? We're a federal republic, people.

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[kthejoker]

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France.

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[TooMuchToDo]

Your comment reminded me of an article in BusinessWeek I saw this morning from a link in Gmail. It talked about small business people whining that their costs of doing business in China (they have their products manufactured there) was rising steeply because China is now enforcing environmental and labor laws. In business, you can only force your negative externalities somewhere else for so long before it comes back to bite. Better to just build your business model around your environment, and not fight against it.

Disclaimer: I'm a small business owner in the US who treats his customers and employees fairly. YMMV.

Re:Law != both sides agreed

[skarphace]

And has our educational system gotten so bad that people think the US is a democracy? We're a federal republic, people.

Which is an indirect democracy, people.

It is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Car value $20k x probability 100%.

Punishment maybe one year x probility 5%.

So if it's worth spending 18 days in jail to get $20k, steal the car.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[CastrTroy]

Seems like somebody forgot to read the FAQ. Not all the articles on slashdot are US centric, but I think that anything that involves the law or politics tends to be very much U.S. centric.

Hours vs Morale

[Fractal Dice]

Funny thing I've noticed is that the more hours I work, the less I usually get done. It's not a conscious or deliberate thing, it's just that morale is hard to measure on a spreadsheet.

If you don't like how they treat you....

[flyingrobots]

....don't work there.

It's called market forces. Employers have a need to retain top talent. If the talent doesn't like the conditions, then they will have a hard time.

If you don't have the skills to be top talent, stop your complaining and get to work and learn something.

That is all.

Re:If you don't like how they treat you....

[milwcoder]

I work in the basement of a house filled with abestos. Even though working in this condition can cause cancer, I ought to suck it up and learn some skills so that I can get a job else where? This is a stretch of the case of a employer clearly violating the law. The free market should allow employees to "exploit" their wrongdoing, such as class action lawsuit and claiming punitive damages. Even if the employee leaves, wages are still owed, it is up to the person to claim it by his own means, litigation or negotiation.

paid what you're worth ONLY IFF

[MickLinux]

No, you don't get paid what you are worth. You get paid what you are worth IFF (if and only if) there is free movement of labor whereever there is free trade, and if labor and trade are equally restricted where there isn't free trade.

If, on the other hand, you have free trade without free movement of labor, then...

(1) The products produced by the labor will still be traded, but...
(2) Only certain players [the corporations] will have permission to trade, so...
(3) they will buy the labor, mark up the price, sell, resulting in...
(4) An effective transfer of wealth from laborer to corporation for...
(5) the privilege of being able to trade in the needed product (labor, and its results).

Aside from that, there are also those who say that an increase in power also results in getting more than you're worth, while a decrease in power results in getting less than you're worth. In general then, a laborer would not get what he's worth.

Aside from that, there are always other elements that come into play, so that people don't get what otherwise they'd be worth, but get more or less.

Hopefully, that little reality check here may be helpful in reducing unwarranted growth of toxic pride among those who can least afford it.

Re:paid what you're worth ONLY IFF

[Russ Nelson]

Errr if you have "free trade" then your point #2 is wrong. Care to try again?

Of course reality is messy and there are always things that cause a theory to work imperfectly. Objects still fall with increasing velocity even when there's turbulance in the air which makes computing the *exact* velocity unlikely.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[TheThiefMaster]

I don't care about the stories being US-centric (which is what the FAQ is about), but it would be nice to see US-centric articles marked as such.

Thank God I'm not working in the US

[clickclickdrone]

The more stories I read like this, the more grateful I am that I don't work in the US. The whole mindset when it comes to employment T&Cs seems like something out the dark ages.
I'ts bad enough that the employers treat staff badly but so many people seem to support that say ing get another job if you don't like it - what if all employers behave badly?

Re:Thank God I'm not working in the US

[jockeys]

what if all employers behave badly?

Violent revolution, of course!

Re:Thank God I'm not working in the US

[tb()ne]

The more stories I read like this, the more grateful I am that I don't work in the US. The whole mindset when it comes to employment T&Cs seems like something out the dark ages.

Most people are quite happy to be working here. It's just that stories about supposedly mistreated workers are far more sensational and news-worthy than ones about happy workers.

I'ts bad enough that the employers treat staff badly but so many people seem to support that say ing get another job if you don't like it - what if all employers behave badly?

They don't. Many companies here offer great conditions and excellent benefits because they know it will draw talented employees and reduce turnover. IIRC, the network engineer from the original artical worked for Apple for 12 years. Do you really think he couldn't have found another job in that time if he had wanted to? Unemployment here is low and the job market is good. Categorizing voluntary employment in the IT industry here as indentured servitude is absurd. But it does sound good in news headlines and law suits.

Re:Thank God I'm not working in the US

[independentlpaz]

80 years ago, when employers could do whatever they wanted with employee's, unions literally fought and died for workers rights. Unpaid overtime, dangerous work conditions, hazardous chemicals. Now days, those protections have been put into law and unions are considered unnecessary. Maybe rightly so. But without legal protections a lot of employers do behave badly. That's why businessmen love Republicans...they long for a return to the good old days. That's why "pure capitalism" doesn't work.

Is not depending on them

[regenol]

http://www.1solist.ro/forum/viewtopic.php?t=106

What if there is a choice?

[bjackson1]

At my place of work there are two types of people at the same level, exempt and non-exempt.

Non-exempt is paid around 10% less per year, with full OT benefits. Currently, the exempt workers are working about 30% more hours than I am for 10% more pay. On the other hand, I am not asked to ever work OT so my pay is pretty constant, but it is nice working in a tech job from 8-5 constantly, and being able to come home.

On the other hand, I don't have much to do at home, so I'm considering changing workforces.

Re:CSC got busted, but the lawyers made the money

[CrankinOut]

But the lawyers got 25% of the settlement, or $6M for two years work. Assuming a $100,000/yr salary with 25% overhead, that's 48 man/years of work by the law firm. Since the above reference site says they worked 2 years on the case, that's 24 FTE's or half the law firm.

Since it's unlikely that any law firm would put all their efforts on one and only one case, I'm figuring 4 lawyers billing at $600,000/yr, or a billing rate of $300/hr.

$6M/4 is a much bigger win than $18M/14,000 or $1200/claimant.

What flexibility has to do with O/T

[pem]

The overtime laws are quite inflexible. For a non-exempt employee, it is ILLEGAL to move hours from one week to another week.

So, if a non-exempt employee works 60 hours one week and 20 the next, he effectively gets paid for an extra 10 (Time and a half for 20 of the 60 hours.)

So guess what? Most employers don't like paying extra for their employees' flexibility, so the flexibility disappears for non-exempt people...

Doesn't work that way

[pem]

DOL regulations apply to what employees DO, not what they are CALLED.

they've gotten away with a good deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but what about their reputation?

canadian it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an IT worker in Canada and I have to say, I don't really understand some of this philosophy. A lot of people are saying that they like straight salary because it's considered more priviledged in some way. Excuse me? You don't get paid for hours worked and that's more priviledged? No wonder employers are walking away with this. In any job I've worked, we're on a salary and we get OT. And yes, we are able to take extra lunch once in awhile and come in when we want BECAUSE WE ARE PROFESSIONALS. It's not dependent on whether we owe IT or not.

Furthermore I've seen some comments by contracters who don't want OT.. I can understand that because they are still getting paid for hours worked; just in straight time and that's fine.

I've seen to many people 'on salary' working 12 hour days on 8 hours pay and I just don't understand it.

We in the IT industry really need to start sticking up for ourselves. We keep a company running, just like lawyers do.. Why is it that we always end up getting screwed?

Screw overtime, I use trade time

[skyggen]

Work a billable off-hour get a paid hour off. They accumulate. Overtime pay is retarded. It only depletes your workforce energy. Before I was a manager I was a SysAdmin and was sick and tired of firefighting Sunday night only to have to come in tired as hell Monday and be totally unproductive. Since I made the leap to management and instituted the trade day policy, no one on my staff is tired, over-work or ready to drop dead at their keyboard. As a plus I noticed my employees were willing to stay for that extra mile to insure the fire was out because they could fill out one simple sheet and go home and sleep the next 18 hours and still not have to some into work. Bah, overtime pay is outdated. Might as well put that as/400 back in place and set-up some vax terminals and troubleshoot your boss's new apple IIe.

Re:Screw overtime, I use trade time

[Neoprofin]

That only works if you have enough personnel so that the total number of hours that would need to be worked are equal to the total number of hours you'd normally be employing them (or less). I've never seen a place that had a depth of staffing to support extra vacation stemming from whatever hours were worked extra, if they did they probably wouldn't have needed those overtime hours in the first place. It might work well in a situation where there are fires and down time, but when workload only ranges from "we have enough time and people" to "we don't have enough time and people" the overtime pay isn't just clever load balancing.

Don't get overtime, but get deducted for time off

[fiannaFailMan]

My employment contract says I'm exempt. My employer insists that if you need an hour or two off here and there, you have to either make the time up later or fill a form stating the number of hours you take off and your pay is docked at an hourly rate. However if you work over your hours you don't get any overtime pay. I wonder how legal that is.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[mooingyak]

Very few stories on here are US-specific, and they should be labelled as such.

Kind of in the same way that very few roads are paved?

Outsource?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, would Apple have to pay overtime to programmers in India?

Quit or be fired

[Spazmania]

Any network engineer or system administrator who doesn't fall under the "administrative exemption" should be fired. Seriously. Doing the job competently requires the constant exercise of independent judgment and discretion. If you're not doing that then either your boss is an incompetent control freak (in which case you should quit and find a better boss) or you are lazy slug who lacks initiative (in which case you should be fired).

Help desk and in some cases field tech might not fall under this, but then they're not engineers or administrators: they're technicians.

OT = Diminishing returns on investment

[Anonymous Coward]

Definition of 'Diminishing returns on investment'.

I billed my employeer when I left

[daveywest]

I worked as a graphic designer at the corporate office for a now defunct Multi-level Marketing company. The family-owned company had become very arrogant. Shortly after I left, they were raided by federal marshals and the FDA who confiscated about half their product line.

They tried to have the best of both worlds when accounting for my time and pay. If I took off early for a doctor's appointment, I had to write up a time card deducting those hours, but if a project required additional hours, it was just part of the job.

I began documenting all the time I spent on work beyond 8 hours after the marketing V.P. complained to my supervisor that I was leaving after an 8-hour day. Shortly after that, the company laid off half the work-force. Two other designers quitting just weeks before was the only reason I survived the layoff.

With the expectation of increased hours growing, I talked with HR. I was told that the labor laws said not completing required work constituted insubordination.

A week after I quit, I mailed them a bill for just under $3,000 in unpaid overtime. I included a short primer on labor laws culled from web research that detailed why I was incorrectly classified as exempt, and that their payroll practices forfeited any claim to my position being exempt.

I knew the company wasn't going to be around much longer, so I felt pretty safe leaving the burned bridge. I didn't want a future prospective employer talking to these clowns. 18 months later, I attended their bankruptcy auction and bought the filing cabinet that contained a few grand in graphic design software.

P.S. They paid the entire amount I billed them. I later heard this wasn't the first time they had been hit by a labor issue claim, and they had been advised that it might get bumped up to class action if someone was allowed to pursue litigation. Personally, I was bluffing. I was gonna let it drop with the letter, but the check was just icing on the cake.

Re:News: Network Engineers Admit...

[edmac3]

Hi, I didn't how else to contact you but I was hoping you could point me to a specific code example I saw on your "Table Oriented Programming" geocities website. I found it a long time ago but now I just can't seem to track it down. It was showing how complicated OOP could be by designing a class to print out the names and slogans of different OS's (BSD, Linux, Windows NT, etc.) I think it moved from a simple if-else statement to many class types and polymorphism. Also, are there any TOP books or websites you reccomend? -Thanks

Re:Crazy idea. (correction)

[tuzo]

Oops:

Laissez Faire capitalism was tried and failed in the US nearly a century ago

Thanks for the correction -- although I'm not sure if even that is agreed upon: "...the Austrian School suggest that there was a considerable degree of government intervention in the economy--particularly after the 1820s." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire Maybe nearly 200 years?

testing

[lbane]

testing

PTO/Vacation

[darth dickinson]

One thing that really irritates me is how exempt employees have to "build up" vacation time. Honestly, I'm not the kind of person to take a new job and go on a two week vacation after 3 days at work, but it irritates me on some basic level that my employer can ask me to work 50-60 hours a week if they want, but if I need to take a day off and don't have the time "built up" then they can dock my pay. Sounds like the best of both worlds for the company.

An AS/400 box and some Apple IIe's sounds good

[retendo]

That AS/400 you mentioned may be newer than the mainframe we are using here on my current engagement with the State of California.

We're working on a simple Java app built on top of DB2 and WAS on Z/OS. A ten user load test and people a few rows over start shouting, "What the $%^&$ is going on with the mainframe?"

So yeah, do you mind if I borrow the AS/400 box and all the Apple IIe's you can spare? We obviously need the extra horsepower.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[Myopic]

Actually, it should be "What *we* tech workers need to know about overtime." Also, most of the stories on the site are geared toward us nerdy readers.

Oh, wait, I misunderstood you.

Libertarian leanings stifle group power

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

For many people the only way to settle these issues is through a trade association or union. When you have the power and collective funds of a large group you can afford lawyers. IT workers are quit often of a libertarian bent and against such things, but unions aren't the anachronism most people think they are. They have to operate far differently than they did in an industry based economy but have evolved with the times. Entry level and unskilled labor possibly has the most to gain, for example in the rising healthcare services industry, but technical workers still benefit greatly.

IBM has their own unit within the Communications Workers of America and a lot of their power in settling this issues came from the strength in numbers.
http://www.allianceibm.org/

IBM Alliance itself is part of Washtech.
http://www.washtech.org/

Disclaimer: I'm a systems analyst and since Aug 1st a VP of a CWA unit.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[TheThiefMaster]

Oh, wait, I misunderstood you.

No you didn't, you just thought it would be funny to act like you did.

Re:Article should be titled "What *US* Tech Worker

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about the stories being US-centric (which is what the FAQ is about), but it would be nice to see US-centric articles marked as such.

Actually, the FAQ says that slashdot is US-centric, which implies that so are the bulk of the stories. You should assume that everything here is US-centric, and be pleasantly surprised when you find something that is not.

At the point that US-centrism becomes a limiting factor for slashdot's growth, perhaps slashdot will change, or perhaps another site will simply overtake it.

My experience

[Anonymous Coward]

MY employer, after I got hired, came down with overtime policies.

I am a contractor, billed out hourly. FYI.

Policies: we must have 8 hours per day, minimum, on the timesheet.
We must have 40 hours per week, on the timesheet.
We must have 35 billable per week minimum, to get bonused. (BTW, bonuses are getting cut by an unspecified percentage.)
If the customer pays for overtime, we get paid overtime.
Overtime is any work done before 8:30am, or after 6:30 pm.
Travel time is not paid.
WE do our own scheduling.

Note the timing. 10 hours per day is considered the same as 8, even though they bill the client for 10, and we get paid 8. We do not get straight time, comp time, or anything.

If you work 10 hours all week, 50 for the math deprived, do you get an extra vacation day? Nope. Any extra money in the check? Nope.

Interesting, neh?

Re:Don't get overtime, but get deducted for time o

[511pf]

My employment contract says I'm exempt. My employer insists that if you need an hour or two off here and there, you have to either make the time up later or fill a form stating the number of hours you take off and your pay is docked at an hourly rate. However if you work over your hours you don't get any overtime pay. I wonder how legal that is.

It probably isn't and they don't care. Almost every employer I've ever worked for did exactly what your employer does. Be happy if they're not making you work 60 hour weeks for no extra pay.

this is why

[Anonymous Coward]

I think all companies should have someone from the government working in the company to verify that laws are being upheld. HIPPA and others originations like them should be funded by the tax money from the company instead of adding them to the companiesâ(TM) pay roll. The current approach favors businesses not the US law and produces a conflict of interest at times.

Re:CSC got busted, but the lawyers made the money

[pecosdave]

Oh trust me, that's gone through my head many times. Of course I looked at it this way, I didn't work for them anymore, I clearly remember the order to work "10% harder" then having what that meant explained to me. I was laid off with most the rest of the people I used to work with by then, that was bonus cash when I needed it most.

Re:Don't get overtime, but get deducted for time o

[B4D BE4T]

Be happy if they're not making you work 60 hour weeks for no extra pay.

No, don't be happy just because they don't make you work "too much" overtime. Be angry that they ask you to work any unpaid overtime. Tell them you will no longer work extra hours without compensation. Or just leave. Managers who treat their employees this way deserve to lose their best talent to the competition.

My boss once asked our team to work unpaid overtime (very sheepishly too, it was easy to tell he was pressured by upper management to do this). He never actually referred to it as "unpaid overtime", he danced around that term as best he could. He mostly just asked everyone to "be a team player" while there was no budget for overtime pay but we were scheduled to work about 2 extra hours per day and on weekends for two weeks. I recorded exactly how much time I worked and, fortunately, was paid for it. If not, I would have left the program and would have strongly considered suing for overtime pay. Sure I was classified as exempt, but I'm almost positive that it was not a legal classification at the time.

Re:Crazy idea. (correction)

[evilviper]

there was a considerable degree of government intervention in the economy--particularly after the 1820s."

"Considerable" is a very vague term. It may have been significant compared to previous years, but there was a very, very small amount of government interference by today's standards.

One of their examples is the creation of the First/Second Banks of the United States, which is a miniscule level of "intervention", and only directly relevant to the banking industry, such as it was.

The "intervention" in that time period was few and far between, and more to the point, only directly impacted a few industries. You could also point to the railroads for another example. But it's very difficult to claim that the economy wasn't Laissez Faire, just because of a few exceptions. In practice, nothing ever quite matches up perfectly with theory.

Re: Now you tell me...

[Douglas Goodall]

Over twenty years I worked on salary as an exempt employee. Projects were always allocated too little time and we always seemed to be working late or on weekends trying to get to Comdex or some other show. I always thought it was terribly unfair that programmers should be exempt. I never actually thought that the companies might me breaking the law and betting they wouldn't be caught. There are a lot of things I would do another way if I had it to do again.

Re:

[Gabe Spradlin]

I've worked several aerospace engineering jobs that were all exempt. We filled out a timecard for every one of them. My current employer requires that I fill it in daily. Timecards are partly because the gov requires it. Partly this is because some accounting yahoo got it in their heads that this was a good way to track labor costs. No one accurately estimates the engineering hours required for an aerospace program. (THere are several reasons for this that have nothing to do with timecards.) I hate accounting for every 6 minutes of my work day on a timsheet. I also hate that companies are more than willing to let me work as many uncompensated overtime hours as they dictate but rarely, if ever, provide a dollar for overhead charges - i.e. no work, temporarily, but not charging vacation. Funny but I thought being salaried meant that you got the same paycheck no matter if the tasks took you 30 hours or 80 hours a week to accomplish. They've got the 80 hour part down pat. My wife is on the business side and works in software. Over 3 companies and 10 years she's never had to take vacation on a 30 hour week or justify why she only worked 30 in any given week. She's salaried and paid to complete the tasks. If she works 80 hour weeks for 6 months and takes a couple of days off no one asks her to use vacation time. If I work 80 hour weeks for 6 months and work a 39 hour week I need to take 1 hour vacation that week or work 41 the next. That's not just 1 company that's pretty much every company in aerospace. And "people" wonder why there aren't more kids interested in science and engineering?!?!